Although the demonstration was apparently rather tepid, this document points to the possibility that "someone wanted to stir up trouble and embarrass the authorities." (November 21, 1985) ...

morning June 4, as this cable reports, the PLA was in control Tiananmen ... and "a column of about 50 APC, tanks, and trucks entered Tiananmen from ... troops in Tiananmen opened a barrage of rifle and machine gun fire." ...

compound, moving west toward Tiananmen Square, reporting these movements back ... is a report, attributed to a Chinese-American who witnessed the Tiananmen Square ... was in the first APC to enter Tiananmen Square, in full view of the other waiting PLA ...

demonstrations." After his death in April 1989 students gathered in Tiananmen Square ... demonstration that occupied Tiananmen Square in the period preceding the crackdown ...

January 2, 1987 Demonstrations continued into January 1987 when 3,000 students defied a government ban and staged a protest in the vicinity of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. This intelligence summary from U.S. ...

3,000 people occupied Tiananmen Square on a hunger strike, surrounded ... to Tiananmen Square but was stopped by a human roadblock composed of thousands ... ten to twelve Army divisions closed on Tiananmen Square firing rifles, ...

of Tiananmen Square from several different directions, noting that, "The ...

June 2, 1989 On the day before the crackdown began, the Beijing city government tightened restrictions on the foreign media reporting on the Tiananmen Square demonstration, and the Chinese leadership was becoming ...

June 3, 1989 This cable provides fascinating eyewitness accounts of the disorganized and confused retreat of PLA soldiers from the center of Beijing after their advance on Tiananmen Square was halted by crowds ...

of the death and destruction at Tiananmen Square on June 3." The 27th, ...