Historical documents on Sino-American relations released recently by the State Department shed light on the personality of the reclusive Chairman Mao Zedong, China’s ruler from 1949 until his death 27 years later. In his later years, Mao was virtually inaccessible to anyone, including his close associate Premier Zhou Enlai, except through a bevy of women who surrounded him at all times.

One account of a late-night meeting with Henry Kissinger, who at the time was President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State, shows the late dictator’s fear of approaching death as well as his attitude toward women.

Upon meeting Kissinger and his associate Winston Lord at 11:30 p.m. on  February 17, 1973, Mao said he had received “an invitation from God,” his way of saying that he would die soon. Mao, the country’s “great leader, great teacher, great supreme commander and great helmsman,” feared no man but he evidently feared death.

In this conversation, which Premier Zhou also took part in, Mao sounded like an emperor of old, offering to send thousands of women to the United States.

In discussing trade, the Chinese leader said: “You know China is a very poor country. We don’t have much. What we have in excess is women.” The women around Mao broke into peals of laughter.

“Let them go to your place,” the chairman said. “They will create disasters. That way you can lessen our burdens.” These remarks again elicited much laughter.

Kissinger joined in the levity and said, “There are no quotas for those or tariffs.” At this point, Premier Zhou joined in to say, “Of course, on a voluntary basis.”

While Mao acted like an emperor whose every whim was to be taken seriously, Zhou was constantly on the alert, trying to inject a note of moderation into the chairman’s utterances.

But Mao was oblivious to the premier’s words. He blithely continued to Kissinger: “So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands.”

While the chairman’s remarks were facetiously phrased, he kept returning to the subject, eventually offering to send millions of Chinese women to the United States.

At one point, Kissinger asked Mao if he was studying English, and the chairman responded that he only knew a little English, but added that he had invented an English term, “paper tiger,” which he used to describe the United States.

This was at the time of Watergate and the topic came up in Mao’s discussions with Kissinger. The Chinese leader could not understand why an incident that he considered to be so trivial should be seen in Washington as such a major scandal.

“Why is it in your country, you are always so obsessed with that nonsensical Watergate issue?” Mao asked. The transcript indicates that there was much laughter on the Chinese side over the word the chairman used that was translated as “nonsensical.” Actually, Mao had used the word pi, or fart, one of his favorite expletives.

The interpreter explained that the word literally meant “to let air out.” Premier Zhou then asked Mr. Lord, whose wife, Betty Bao Lord, was Chinese, if he knew the word pi. Lord quickly denied any knowledge. Premier Zhou helpfully suggested that he could ask his wife when he saw her.

All conversations between the chairman and the American officials were carefully recorded and his remarks solemnly transcribed, no matter how inane.

In one conversation, for example, Mao talked about the Taiwan issue. The people on the island, he said, “are a bunch of counterrevolutionaries” and “we can do without Taiwan for the time being, and let it come after one hundred years.”

This phrase was later used by Kissinger and other American officials to suggest that Mao had said China could wait for 100 years for the United States to resolve the Taiwan issue. However, Chinese officials parsed Mao’s words differently, saying that Mao spoke about two separate things: establishing diplomatic relations with the United States, which required Washington to break relations with Taiwan, and the eventual unification between Taiwan and mainland China, which was to be decided by the Chinese people themselves and which could wait for 100 years. And, Mao said, by then, there would be no alternative to the use of force.

Thirty-five years later, ordinary Chinese who read these transcripts will learn a great deal about the man whom they worshipped in his lifetime and who to some extent remains a mystery today. This is a treasure trove. And it can be accessed at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/100316.pdf.