The American journalist Harrison E. Salisbury was well-known for his reporting and authorship of books on the Soviet Union. A distinguished correspondent and editor for The New York Times, he was the first American reporter to visit Hanoi during the Vietnam War. In 1989, at age 81, Salisbury journeyed to China to collaborate on a documentary marking forty years of the Chinese People's Republic. His assignment by Japan's NHK TV coincided with the events in Beijing during the first days of June, 1989. Salisbury found himself in a hotel room one block away from Tiananmen Square, arriving the day before student demonstrators and government troops met for their bloody confrontation. His book, Tiananmen Diary: Thirteen Days in June, published later that year, records not only the terror and confusion in Beijing, but also the reaction in the countryside, where Salisbury traveled in the aftermath of the tragedy.