ELDEST SON

A detailed but reverential biography of Chinese political leader Zhou Enlai. Han (30-plus books, including the well-known Love is a Many Splendored Thing) sets a slavishly uncritical tone at the outset, noting that Confucian tradition marks eldest sons for ``uncommon responsibilities and duties.'' Drawing on personal contacts and experiences as well as untranslated archival sources in China, the author goes on to provide an exhaustive version of Zhou's eventful life. Raised by an uncle in Manchuria, he joined the Communist Party in 1922 (at 24) while on a work/study program in Western Europe. Back in China by 1924, Zhou became an active revolutionary and, from 1931 on, Mao Zedong's principal advisor. A cosmopolite and natural envoy, he served as the Communist Party's liaison officer at Chiang Kaishek's WW II headquarters in Chongqing. When the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, Zhou was named Prime Minister, a high-profile post he held until his death in January of 1976. While Han does an acceptable job of suggesting how her resilient and conciliatory subject managed to keep the ship of state afloat despite its helmsman's penchant for plunging into the stormy seas of great leaps forward or cultural revolution, the closest she comes to acknowledging Zhou's complicity in the Politburo purges, repressions, military adventures, and savage doctrinal disputes that consistently convulsed Mao's regime is when she concedes that he frequently ``did things against his own heart.'' Nor does the author modestly disguise her own self- perceived role as a mainstream observer of international affairs (``In the autumn [of 1965], I spoke again with Zhou Enlai about relations with the United States and about the Vietnam War...''). For readers who can get past the hagiographic apologias and the surfeit of exculpatory particulars on ancient enmities: an idiosyncratic text that offers intriguing perspectives on a life story that remains to be more judiciously told.