Zhang Hanzhi, an elegant Chinese diplomat who was Mao Tse-tung's English tutor and President Nixon's interpreter during his historic 1972 trip to China, has died. She was 72

She met Mao in 1950, at a party to celebrate the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and saw him again in 1963 at his 70th birthday

"The chairman wanted the lessons to start the following day! I was dumbfounded,"

"I was to teach the great leader whom over a billion people worshiped as their god?"

The lessons abruptly stopped in 1964 as the devastating Cultural Revolution began taking shape. Zhang and her family and friends were persecuted

In 1971, Zhang was transferred to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she began her diplomatic career

She was also part of the Chinese delegation that was in New York in 1971, when the United Nations seat held by Taiwan

was transferred to the Beijing-based government of the People's Republic of China

Born in Shanghai in 1935