title: Zhou Enlai

text: Despite worsening relations with Chiang Kai-shek, Zhou operated openly in Chongqing, befriending Chinese and foreign visitors and staging public cultural activities, especially Chinese theater. Zhou cultivated a close personal friendship with General Feng Yuxiang, making it possible for Zhou to circulate freely among the officers of the Nationalist Army. Zhou befriended the General He Jifeng, and convinced He to secretly become a member of the CCP during an official visit to Yan'an. Zhou's intelligence agents penetrated the Sichuanese army of General Deng Xihou, resulting in Deng's secret agreement to supply ammunition to the Communist New Fourth Army. Zhou convinced another Sichuanese general, Li Wenhui, to covertly install a radio transmitter that facilitated secret communication between Yan'an and Chongqing. Zhou befriended Zhang Zhizhong and Nong Yun, commanders in the Yunnan armed forces, who became secret CCP members, agreed to cooperate with the CCP against Chiang Kai-shek, and established a clandestine radio station that broadcast Communist propaganda from the provincial government building in Kunming.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Zhou remained the primary CCP representative to the outside world during his time in Chongqing. Zhou and his aides Qiao Guanhua, Gong Peng and Wang Bingnan enjoyed receiving foreign visitors and made a favorable impression among American, British, Canadian, Russian, and other foreign diplomats. Zhou struck visitors as charming, urbane, hard-working, and living a very simple lifestyle. In 1941, Zhou received a visit from Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Martha Gellhorn. Gellhorn later wrote that she and Ernest were extremely impressed with Zhou (and extremely unimpressed with Chiang), and they became convinced that the Communists would take over China after meeting him.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Because Yan'an was incapable of funding Zhou's activities, Zhou partially funded his efforts though donations from sympathetic foreigners, overseas Chinese, and the China Defense League (supported by Sun Yat-sen's widow, Soong Ching-ling). Zhou also undertook to start and run a number of businesses throughout KMT- and Japanese- controlled China. Zhou's businesses grew to include several trading companies operating in several Chinese cities (primarily Chongqing and Hong Kong), a silk and satin store in Chongqing, an oil refinery, and factories for producing industrial materials, cloths, Western medicines, and other commodities.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Under Zhou, Communist businessmen made great profits in currency trading and commodity speculation, especially in American dollars and gold. Zhou's most lucrative business was generated by several opium plantations that Zhou established in remote areas. Although the CCP had been engaged in the eradication of opium smoking since its establishment, Zhou justified opium production and distribution in KMT-controlled areas by the huge profits generated for the CCP, and by the debilitating effects that opium addiction might have on KMT soldiers and government officials.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: In 1943, Zhou's relationship with Chiang Kai-shek deteriorated, and he returned permanently to Yan'an. By then, Mao Zedong had emerged as the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, and was attempting to have his political theories (literally "Mao Zedong Thought") accepted as the Party's dogma. Following his ascent to power, Mao organized a campaign to indoctrinate the members of the CCP. This campaign became the foundation of the Maoist personality cult that later dominated Chinese politics until the end of the Cultural Revolution.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: After returning to Yan'an, Zhou Enlai was strongly and excessively criticized in this campaign. Zhou was labelled, along with the generals Peng Dehuai, Liu Bocheng, Ye Jianying, and Nie Rongzhen, as an "empiricist" because he had a history of cooperating with the Comintern and with Mao's enemy, Wang Ming. Mao publicly attacked Zhou as "a collaborator and assistant of dogmatism... who belittled the study of Marxism-Leninism". Mao and his allies then claimed that the CCP organizations that Zhou had established in southern China were in fact led by KMT secret agents, a charge which Zhou firmly denied, and which was only withdrawn after Mao became convinced of Zhou's subservience in the latest period of the campaign.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Zhou defended himself by engaging in a long series of public reflections and self-criticisms, and he gave a number of speeches praising Mao and Mao Zedong Thought and giving his unconditional acceptance of Mao's leadership. He also joined Mao's allies in attacking Peng Shuzhi, Chen Duxiu, and Wang Ming, who Mao viewed as enemies. The persecution of Zhou Enlai distressed Moscow, and Georgi Dimitrov wrote a personal letter to Mao indicating that "Zhou Enlai... must not be severed from the Party." In the end, Zhou's enthusiastic acknowledgement of his own faults, his praise for Mao's leadership, and his attacks on Mao's enemies eventually convinced Mao that Zhou's conversion to Maoism was genuine, a precondition for Zhou's political survival. By the seventh congress of the CCP in 1945, Mao was acknowledged as the overall leader of the CCP, and the dogma of Mao Zedong Thought was firmly entrenched among the Party's leadership.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: As United States began to plan for an invasion of Japan, which at that point they assumed would be based in China, American political and military leaders became eager to make contact with the Communists. In June 1944, Chiang Kai-shek reluctantly agreed to allow an American military observation group, known as the "Dixie mission", to travel to Yan'an. Mao and Zhou welcomed this mission and held numerous talks in the interests of gaining American aid. They pledged support for any future American military actions to attack the Japanese in China, and attempted to convince the Americans that the CCP was committed to a united KMT-CCP government. In a gesture of goodwill, communist guerrilla units were instructed to rescue downed American airmen. By the time the Americans left Yan'an, many had become convinced that the CCP was "a party seeking orderly democratic growth towards socialism", and the mission formally suggested greater cooperation between the CCP and the American military.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: In 1944, Zhou wrote to General Joseph Stilwell, the American commander of the China Burma India war theater, attempting to convince Stilwell of the need for the Americans to supply the Communists, and of the Communist's desire for a united Chinese government after the war. Stilwell's open disenchantment with the Nationalist government in general, and with Chiang Kai-shek specifically, motivated President Franklin D. Roosevelt to remove him that same year, before Zhou's diplomacy could be effective. Stilwell's replacement, Patrick J. Hurley, was receptive to Zhou's appeals, but ultimately refused to align the American military with the CCP unless the Party made concessions to the KMT, which Mao and Zhou found unacceptable. Soon after Japan surrendered in 1945, Chiang invited Mao and Zhou to Chongqing to take part in an American-endorsed peace conference.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: There was widespread apprehension in Yan'an that the invitation from Chiang was a trap, and that the Nationalists were planning to assassinate or imprison the two instead. Zhou took control over Mao's security detail, and his subsequent inspections of their plane and lodgings found nothing. Throughout the trip to Chongqing, Mao refused to enter his accommodations until they had been personally inspected by Zhou. Mao and Zhou traveled together to receptions, banquets, and other public gatherings, and Zhou introduced him to numerous local celebrities and statesmen that he had befriended during his earlier stay in Chongqing.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: During the forty-three days of negotiations, Mao and Chiang met eleven times to discuss the conditions of post-war China, while Zhou worked on confirming the details of the negotiations. In the end, the negotiations resolved nothing. Zhou's offer to withdraw the Red Army from southern China was ignored, and P.J. Hurley's ultimatum to incorporate the CCP into the KMT insulted Mao. After Mao returned to Yan'an on 10 October 1945, Zhou stayed behind to sort out the details of the conference's resolution. Zhou returned to Yan'an on 27 November 1945, when major skirmishes between the Communists and Nationalists made future negotiations pointless. Hurley himself subsequently announced his resignation, accusing members of the US embassy of undermining him and favoring the Communists.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: After Harry S. Truman became President of the United States, he nominated General George C. Marshall as his special envoy to China on 15 December 1945. Marshall was charged with brokering a ceasefire between the CCP and KMT, and to influence both Mao and Chiang to abide by the Chongqing agreement, which both had signed. The top leadership within the CCP, including Zhou, viewed Marshall's nomination as a positive development, and hoped that Marshall would be a more flexible negotiator than Hurley had been. Zhou arrived in Chongqing to negotiate with Marshall on 22 December.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: The first phase of talks went smoothly. Zhou represented the Communists, Marshall represented the Americans, and Zhang Qun (later replaced by Zhang Zhizhong) represented the KMT. In January 1946 both sides agreed to cease hostilities, and to reorganize their armies on the principle of separating the army from political parties. Zhou signed these agreements in the knowledge that neither side would be able to implement these changes. Chiang delivered a speech promising political freedom, local autonomy, free elections, and the release of political prisoners. Zhou welcomed Chiang's statements and expressed his opposition to civil war.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: The leadership of the CCP viewed these agreements optimistically. On 27 January 1946 the CCP Secretariat appointed Zhou as one of eight leaders to participate in a future coalition government (other leaders included Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and Zhu De). It was suggested that Zhou be nominated as China's vice president. Mao expressed a desire to visit the United States, and Zhou received orders to manipulate Marshall in order to advance the peace process.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Marshall's negotiations soon deteriorated, as neither the KMT nor the CCP were willing to sacrifice any of the advantages that they had gained, to de-politicize their armies, or to sacrifice any degree of autonomy in areas their side controlled. Military clashes in Manchuria became increasingly frequent in the spring and summer of 1946, eventually forcing Communist forces to retreat after a few major battles. Government armies increased their attacks in other parts of China.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: On 3 May 1946, Zhou and his wife left Chongqing for Nanjing, where the Nationalist capital returned. Negotiations deteriorated, and on 9 October Zhou informed Marshall that he no longer had the confidence of the CCP. On 11 October Nationalist troops seized the Communist city of Zhangjiakou in northern China. Chiang, confident in his ability to defeat the Communists, called the National Assembly into session without the participation of the CCP and ordered it to draft a constitution on 15 November. On 16 November Zhou held a press conference, in which he condemned the KMT for "tearing up the agreements from the political consultative conference". On 19 November Zhou and the entire CCP delegation left Nanjing for Yan'an.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Following the failure of negotiations, the Chinese Civil War resumed in earnest. Zhou turned his focus from diplomatic to military affairs, while retaining a senior interest in intelligence work. Zhou worked directly under Mao as his chief aide, as the vice chairman of the Military Commission of the Central Committee, and as the general chief of staff. As the head of the Urban Work Committee of the Central Committee, an agency established to coordinate work inside KMT-controlled areas, Zhou continued to direct underground activities.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: A superior force of Nationalist troops captured Yan'an in March 1947, but Zhou's intelligence agents (primarily Xiong Xianghui) were able to provide Yan'an's commanding general, Peng Dehuai, with details of the KMT army's troop strength, distribution, positions, air cover, and dates of deployment. This intelligence allowed Communist forces to avoid major battles and to engage Nationalist forces in a protracted campaign of guerrilla warfare that eventually led to Peng achieving a series of major victories. By February 1948 over half the KMT troops in the northwest were either defeated or exhausted. On 4 May 1948, Peng captured 40,000 army uniforms and over a million pieces of artillery. By January 1949, Communist forces seized Beijing and Tianjin, and were firmly in control of north China.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: On 21 January 1949, Chiang stepped down as president of the Nationalist government and was succeeded by General Li Zongren. On 1 April 1949, Li began a series of peace negotiations with a six-member CCP delegation. The CCP delegates were led by Zhou Enlai, and the KMT delegates were led by Zhang Zhizhong.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Zhou began the negotiations by asking: "Why did you go to Xikou (where Chiang had retired) to see Chiang Kai-shek before leaving Nanjing?" Zhang responded that Chiang still had power, even though he had technically retired, and that his consent would be needed to finalize any agreement. Zhou responded that the CCP would not accept a bogus peace dictated by Chiang, and asked whether Zhang had come with the necessary credentials to implement the terms desired by the CCP. Negotiations continued until 15 April, when Zhou produced a "final version" of a "draft agreement for internal peace", which was essentially an ultimatum to accept CCP demands. The KMT government did not respond after five days, signaling that it was not prepared to accept Zhou's demands.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: On 21 April, Mao and Zhou issued an "order to the army for country-wide advance". PLA troops captured Nanjing on 23 April and captured Li's stronghold of Guangdong in October, forcing Li to go into exile in America. In December 1949, PLA troops captured Chengdu, the last KMT-controlled city on mainland China, forcing Chiang to evacuate to Taiwan.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: By the early 1950s, China's international influence was extremely low. By the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, China's pretensions of universalism had been shattered by a string of military defeats and incursions by Europeans and Japanese. By the end of Yuan Shikai's reign and the subsequent Warlord Era, China's international prestige had declined to "almost nothing". In World War II, China's effective role was sometimes questioned by other Allied leaders. The 1950–1953 Korean War greatly exacerbated China's international position by fixing the United States in a position of animosity, ensuring that Taiwan would remain outside of PRC control and that the PRC would remain outside of the United Nations for the foreseeable future.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Following the establishment of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949, Zhou was appointed both Premier of the Government Administration Council (later replaced by the State Council) and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Through the coordination of these two offices and his position as a member of the five-man standing committee of the Politburo, Zhou became the architect of early PRC foreign policy, presenting China as a new, yet responsible member of the international community. By the early 1950s, Zhou was an experienced negotiator and was respected as a senior revolutionary within China.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Zhou's earliest efforts to improve the prestige of the PRC involved recruiting prominent Chinese politicians, capitalists, intellectuals, and military leaders who were not technically affiliated with the CCP. Zhou was able to convince Zhang Zhizhong to accept a position inside the PRC in 1949, after Zhou's underground network successfully escorted Zhang's family to Beijing. All of the other members of the KMT delegation that Zhou had negotiated with in 1949 accepted similar terms.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Sun Yat-sen's widow, Soong Ching-ling, who was estranged from her family and who had opposed the KMT for many years, readily joined the PRC in 1949. Huang Yanpei, a prominent industrialist who had refused offers of a government post for many years, was persuaded to accept a position as vice premier in the new government. Fu Zuoyi, the KMT commander who had surrendered the Beijing garrison in 1948, was persuaded to join the PLA, and to accept a position as the minister of water conservation.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Zhou's first diplomatic successes came as the result of successfully pursuing a warm relationship, based on mutual respect, with India's first post-independence prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Through his diplomacy, Zhou managed to persuade India to accept China's occupation of Tibet in 1950 and 1951. India was later persuaded to act as a neutral mediator between China and the United States during the many difficult phases of the negotiations settling the Korean War.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: When the Korean War broke out on 25 June 1950, Zhou was in the process of demobilizing half of the PLA's 5.6 million soldiers, under the direction of the Central Committee. Zhou and Mao discussed the possibility of American intervention with Kim Il-sung in May, and urged Kim to be cautious if he was to invade and conquer South Korea, but Kim refused to take these warnings seriously. On 28 June 1950, after the United States pushed through a UN resolution condemning North Korean aggression and sent the Seventh Fleet to "neutralize" the Taiwan Strait, Zhou criticized both the UN and US initiatives as "armed aggression on Chinese territory."


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Although Kim's early success led him to predict that he would win the war by the end of August, Zhou and other Chinese leaders were more pessimistic. Zhou did not share Kim's confidence that the war would end quickly, and became increasingly apprehensive that the United States would intervene. To counter the possibility of an American invasion into North Korea or China, Zhou secured a Soviet commitment to have the USSR support Chinese forces with air cover, and deployed 260,000 Chinese soldiers along the North Korean border, under the command of Gao Gang, but they were strictly ordered not to move into North Korea or engage UN or USA forces unless they engaged themselves. Zhou commanded Chai Chengwen to conduct a topographical survey of Korea, and directed Lei Yingfu, Zhou's military advisor in North Korea, to analyze the military situation there. Lei concluded that MacArthur would most likely attempt a landing at Incheon.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: On 15 September 1950 MacArthur landed at Incheon, met little resistance, and captured Seoul on 25 September. Bombing raids destroyed most North Korean tanks and much of its artillery. North Korean troops, instead of withdrawing north, rapidly disintegrated. On 30 September, Zhou warned the United States that "the Chinese people will not tolerate foreign aggression, nor will they supinely tolerate seeing their neighbors being savagely invaded by imperialists."


title: Zhou Enlai

text: On 1 October, on the first anniversary of the PRC, South Korean troops crossed the Thirty-Eighth Parallel into North Korea. Stalin refused to become directly involved in the war, and Kim sent a frantic appeal to Mao to reinforce his army. On 2 October, the Chinese leadership continued an emergency meeting at Zhongnanhai to discuss whether China should send military aid, and these talks continued until 6 October. At the meeting, Zhou was one of the few firm supporters of Mao's position that China should send military aid, regardless of the strength of American forces. With the endorsement of Peng Dehuai, the meeting concluded with a resolution to send military forces to Korea.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: In order to enlist Stalin's support, Zhou traveled to Stalin's summer resort on the Black Sea on 10 October. Stalin initially agreed to send military equipment and ammunition, but warned Zhou that the USSR's air force would need two or three months to prepare any operations and no ground troops were to be sent. In a subsequent meeting, Stalin told Zhou that he would only provide China with equipment on a credit basis, and that the Soviet air force would only operate over Chinese airspace after an undisclosed period of time. Stalin did not agree to send either military equipment or air support until March 1951.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Immediately on his return to Beijing on 18 October 1950, Zhou met with Mao Zedong, Peng Dehuai, and Gao Gang, and the group ordered the 200,000 Chinese troops along the border to enter North Korea, which they did on 25 October. After consulting with Stalin, on 13 November, Mao appointed Zhou the overall commander of the People's Volunteer Army, a special unit of the People's Liberation Army, China's armed forces that would intervene in the Korean War and coordinator of the war effort, with Peng as field commander of the PVA. Orders given by Zhou to the PVA were delivered in the name of the Central Military Commission.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: By June 1951, the war had reached a stalemate around the Thirty-eighth Parallel, and the two sides agreed to negotiate an armistice. Zhou directed the truce talks, which began on 10 July. Zhou chose Li Kenong and Qiao Guanhua to head the Chinese negotiating team. The negotiations proceeded for two years before reaching a ceasefire agreement in July 1953, formally signed at Panmunjom.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: The Korean War was Zhou's last military assignment. In 1952, Peng Dehuai succeeded Zhou in managing the Central Military Commission (which Zhou had headed since 1947). In 1956, after the eighth Party Congress, Zhou formally relinquished his post in the Military Commission and focused on his work in the Standing Committee, the State Council, and on foreign affairs.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: After Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Zhou left for Moscow and attended Stalin's funeral four days later. Mao, curiously, decided not to travel to Moscow, possibly because no senior Soviet politician had yet travelled to Beijing, or because Stalin had rejected an offer to meet with Mao in 1948 (nevertheless, a huge memorial service in honor of Stalin was held in Beijing's Tiananmen Square with Mao and hundreds of thousands more in attendance). While in Moscow, Zhou was notably received with considerable respect by Soviet officials, being permitted to stand with the USSR's new leaders—Vyacheslav Molotov, Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, and Lavrentiy Beria—instead of with the other "foreign" dignitaries who attended. With these four leaders, Zhou walked directly behind the gun carriage bearing Stalin's coffin. Zhou's diplomatic efforts on his travel to Moscow were rewarded shortly after when, in 1954, Khrushchev himself visited Beijing to take part in the fifth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Throughout the 1950s, Zhou worked to tighten economic and political relations between China and other Communist states, coordinating China's foreign policy with Soviet policies promoting solidarity among political allies. In 1952, Zhou signed an economic and cultural agreement with the Mongolian People's Republic, giving "de facto" recognition of the independence of what had been known as "Outer Mongolia" in Qing times. Zhou also worked to conclude an agreement with Kim Il-sung in order to help the postwar reconstruction of North Korea's economy. Pursuing the goals of peaceful diplomacy with China's neighbors, Zhou held amicable talks with Burma's prime minister, U Nu, and promoted China's efforts to send supplies to Ho Chi Minh's Vietnamese rebels known as the Vietminh.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: In April 1954, Zhou traveled to Switzerland to attend the Geneva Conference, convened to settle the ongoing Franco-Vietnamese War. His patience and shrewdness were credited with assisting the major powers involved (the Soviets, French, Americans, and North Vietnamese) to iron out the agreement ending the war. According to the negotiated peace, French Indochina was to be partitioned into Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Elections were agreed to be called within two years to create a coalition government in a united Vietnam, and the Vietminh agreed to end their guerilla activities in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: During one early meeting in Geneva, Zhou found himself in the same room with the staunchly anti-Communist American secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. After Zhou politely offered to shake his hand, Dulles rudely turned his back and walked out of the room, saying "I cannot". Zhou was interpreted by onlookers as turning this moment of possible humiliation into a small victory by giving only a small, "Gallic-style" shrug to this behaviour. Zhou was equally effective in countering Dulles' insistence that China not be given a seat at the sessions. Furthering the impression of Chinese urbanity and civility, Zhou had lunch with British actor Charlie Chaplin, who had been living in Switzerland since being blacklisted in the United States for his radical politics.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: In 1955, Zhou was a prominent participant in the Asian–African Conference held in Indonesia. The conference in Bandung was a meeting of twenty-nine African and Asian states, organized by Indonesia, Burma (Myanmar), Pakistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and India, and was called largely to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism or neocolonialism by either the United States or the Soviet Union in the Cold War. At the conference, Zhou skillfully gave the conference a neutral stance that made the United States appear as a serious threat to the peace and stability of the region. Zhou complained that, while China was working towards "world peace and the progress of mankind", "aggressive circles" within the United States were actively aiding the Nationalists in Taiwan and planning to rearm the Japanese. He was widely quoted for his remark that "the population of Asia will never forget that the first atom bomb was exploded on Asian soil." With the support of its most prestigious participants, the conference produced a strong declaration in favor of peace, the abolition of nuclear arms, general arms reduction, and the principle of universal representation at the United Nations.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: On his way to the Bandung conference, an assassination attempt was made against Zhou when a bomb was planted on the Air India plane "Kashmir Princess", chartered for Zhou's trip from Hong Kong to Jakarta. Zhou avoided the attempt when he changed planes at the last minute, but all 11 of the flight's other passengers were killed, with only three crew members surviving the crash. A recent study has blamed the attempt on "one of the intelligence agencies of the KMT." Journalist Joseph Trento has also alleged that there was a second attempt on Zhou's life at the Bandung conference involving "a bowl of rice poisoned with a slow-acting toxin."


title: Zhou Enlai

text: According to one account based on recent research, Zhou found out about the bomb on the "Kashmir Princess" after being warned of the plot by his own intelligence officers and did not attempt to stop it because he viewed those that died as disposable: international journalists and low-level cadres. After the crash, Zhou used the incident to warn the British about the KMT intelligence operatives active in Hong Kong and pressured Great Britain to disable the Nationalist intelligence network operating there (with himself playing a support role). He hoped that the incident would improve Britain's relationship with the PRC, and damage Britain's relationship with the ROC. The official explanation for Zhou's absence on the flight, however, remains that Zhou was forced to change his schedule due to having had surgery for appendicitis.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: After the Bandung conference, China's international political situation began to gradually improve. With the help of many of the nonaligned powers who had taken part in the conference, the US-backed position economically and politically boycotting the PRC began to erode, despite continuing American pressure to follow its direction. In 1971 the PRC gained China's seat at the United Nations.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: When the PRC was founded on 1 October 1949, Zhou notified all governments that any countries wishing to have diplomatic contact with the PRC must end their relationship with the leaders of the former regime on Taiwan, and support the PRC's claim to China's seat in the United Nations. This was the first foreign policy document issued by the new government. By 1950, the PRC was able to gain diplomatic relationships with other communist countries and with thirteen non-communist countries, but talks with most Western governments were unsuccessful.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Zhou emerged from the Bandung conference with a reputation as a flexible and open-minded negotiator. Recognizing that the United States would back the "de facto" independence of ROC-controlled Taiwan with military force, Zhou persuaded his government to end the shelling of Quemoy and Matsu, and to search for a diplomatic alternative to the confrontation instead. In a formal announcement in May 1955, Zhou declared that the PRC would "strive for the liberation of Taiwan by peaceful means so far as it is possible." Whenever the question of Taiwan was raised with foreign statesmen, Zhou argued that Taiwan was part of China, and that the resolution of the conflict with the Taiwan authorities was an internal matter.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: In 1958 the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs was passed to Chen Yi, a general with little prior diplomatic experience. After Zhou resigned his office in Foreign Affairs, the PRC diplomatic corps was reduced dramatically. Some of the staff were transferred to various cultural and educational departments to replace leading cadres who had been labelled "rightists" and sent to work in labor camps.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: By the early 1970s, Sino-American relations had begun to improve. Mao's workers in the petroleum industry, one of China's few growing economic sectors at the time, advised the Chairman that, in order to consider growth at levels desired by the Party's leadership, large imports of American technology and technical expertise were essential. In January 1970, the Chinese invited the American ping-pong team to tour China, initiating an era of "ping-pong diplomacy".


title: Zhou Enlai

text: In 1971, Zhou Enlai met secretly with President Nixon's security advisor, Henry Kissinger, who had flown to China to prepare for a meeting between Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong. During the course of these meetings, the United States agreed to allow the transfer of American money to China (presumably from relatives in the United States), to allow American-owned ships to conduct trade with China (under foreign flags), and to allow Chinese exports into the United States for the first time since the Korean War. At the time, these negotiations were considered so sensitive that they were concealed from the American public, the State Department, the American secretary of state, and all foreign governments.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: On the morning of 21 February 1972, Richard Nixon arrived in Beijing, where he was greeted by Zhou, and later met with Mao Zedong. The diplomatic substance of Nixon's visit was resolved on 28 February, in the Shanghai Communique, which summarized both sides' positions without attempting to resolve them. The "US side" reaffirmed the American position that America's involvement in the ongoing Vietnam War did not constitute "outside intervention" in Vietnam's affairs, and restated its commitment to "individual freedom", and pledged continued support for South Korea. The "Chinese Side" stated that "wherever there is oppression, there is resistance", that "all foreign troops should be withdrawn to their own countries", and that Korea should be unified according to the demands of North Korea. Both sides agreed to disagree on the status of Taiwan. The closing sections of the Shanghai Communique encouraged further diplomatic, cultural, economic, journalistic, and scientific exchanges, and endorsed both sides' intentions to work towards "the relaxation of tensions in Asia and the world." The resolutions of the Shanghai Communique represented a major policy shift for both the United States and China.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: In 1958, Mao Zedong began the Great Leap Forward, aimed at increasing China's production levels in industry and agriculture with unrealistic targets. As a popular and practical administrator, Zhou maintained his position through the Leap. Zhou has been described by Frank Dikötter as the "midwife" of the Great Leap Forward, who "transformed nightmares into reality".


title: Zhou Enlai

text: By the early 1960s, Mao's prestige was not as high as it had once been. Mao's economic policies in the 1950s had failed, and he had developed a lifestyle that was increasingly out of touch with many of his oldest colleagues. Among the activities that seemed contrary to his popular image were the swims in his private pool in Zhongnanhai, his many villas around China that he would travel to on a private train, his private, book-lined study, and the companionship of an ever-changing succession of enthusiastic young women whom he met either on weekly dances in Zhongnanhai or on his journeys by train. The combination of his personal eccentricities and industrialization policy failures produced criticism from such veteran revolutionaries as Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, and Zhou Enlai, who seemed less and less to share an enthusiasm for his vision of continuous revolutionary struggle.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: To improve his image and power, Mao, with the help of Lin Biao, undertook a number of public propaganda efforts. Among the efforts of Mao and Lin to improve Mao's image in the early 1960s were Lin's publication of the "Diary of Lei Feng" and his compilation of "Quotations from Chairman Mao". The last and most successful of these efforts was the Cultural Revolution.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Whatever its other causes, the Cultural Revolution, declared in 1966, was overtly pro-Maoist, and gave Mao the power and influence to purge the Party of his political enemies at the highest levels of government. Along with closing China's schools and universities, it exhorted of young Chinese to destroy old buildings, temples, and art, and to attack their "revisionist" teachers, school administrators, party leaders, and parents. After the Cultural Revolution was announced, many of the most senior members of the CCP who had shared Zhou's hesitation in following Mao's direction, including President Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, were removed from their posts almost immediately; they, along with their families, were subjected to mass criticism and humiliation.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Soon after they had been removed, Zhou argued that President Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping "should be allowed to come back to work", but this was opposed by Mao, Lin Biao, Kang Sheng and Chen Boda. Chen Boda even suggested that Zhou himself might be "considered counter-revolutionary" if he did not toe the Maoist line. Following the threats that he would share in the fate of his comrades if he did not support Mao, Zhou ceased his criticisms and began to work more closely with the Chairman and his clique.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Zhou gave his backing to the establishment of radical Red Guard organizations in October 1966 and joined Chen Boda and Jiang Qing against what they considered "leftist" and "rightist" Red Guard factions. This opened the way for attacks on Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and Tao Zhu in December 1966 and January 1967. By September 1968, Zhou candidly described his strategy for political survival to Japanese LDP parliamentarians visiting Beijing: "one’s personal opinions should advance or beat a retreat according to the direction of the majority." When he was accused of being less than enthusiastic in following Mao's leadership, he accused himself of "poor understanding" of Mao's theories, giving the appearance of compromising with forces that he secretly loathed and referred to in private as his "inferno". Following the logic of political survival, Zhou worked to aid Mao, and restricted his criticisms to private conversations.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Although Zhou escaped direct persecution, he was not able to save many of those closest to him from having their lives destroyed by the Cultural Revolution. Sun Weishi, Zhou's adopted daughter, died in 1968 after seven months of torture, imprisonment, and rape by Maoist Red Guards. In 1968, Jiang also had his adopted son (Sun Yang) tortured and murdered by Red Guards. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Sun's plays were re-staged as a way of criticizing the Gang of Four, whom many thought were responsible for her death.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Throughout the next decade, Mao largely developed policies while Zhou carried them out, attempting to moderate some of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, such as preventing Beijing from being renamed "East Is Red City" () and the Chinese guardian lions in front of Tian'anmen Square from being replaced with statues of Mao. Zhou also ordered a PLA battalion to guard the Forbidden City and protect its traditional artifacts from vandalism and destruction by Red Guards. Despite his best efforts, the inability to prevent many of the events of the Cultural Revolution were a great blow to Zhou. Over the last decade of his life, Zhou's ability to implement Mao's policies and keep the nation afloat during periods of adversity was so great that his practical importance alone was sufficient to save him (with Mao's assistance) whenever Zhou became politically threatened. At the latest stages of the Cultural Revolution, in 1975, Zhou pushed for the "Four Modernizations" in order to undo the damage caused by the Mao's policies.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: During the later stages of the Cultural Revolution, Zhou became a target of political campaigns orchestrated by Chairman Mao and the Gang of Four. The "Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius" campaign of 1973 and 1974 was directed at Premier Zhou because he was viewed as one of the Gang's primary political opponents. In 1975, Zhou's enemies initiated a campaign named "Criticizing Song Jiang, Evaluating "the Water Margin"", which encouraged the use of Zhou as an example of a political loser.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: According to a biography of Zhou by Gao Wenqian, a former researcher at the CPC's Party Documents Research Office, Zhou was first diagnosed with bladder cancer in November 1972. Zhou's medical team reported that with treatment, he had a high chance of recovery; however, medical treatment for the highest ranking party members had to be approved by Mao. Mao ordered that Zhou and his wife should not be told of the diagnosis, no surgery should be performed, and no further examinations should be given. According to Ji Chaozhu, Zhou Enlai's personal interpreter, Henry Kissinger offered to send cancer specialists from the United States to treat Zhou, an offer that would eventually be refused. By 1974, Zhou was experiencing significant bleeding in his urine. After pressure by other Chinese leaders who had learned of Zhou's condition, Mao finally ordered a surgical operation to be performed in June 1974, but the bleeding returned a few months later, indicating metastasis of the cancer into other organs. A series of operations over the next year and a half failed to check the progress of the cancer. Zhou continued to conduct work during his stays in the hospital, with Deng Xiaoping, as the First Deputy Premier, handling most of the important State Council matters. His last major public appearance was at the first meeting of the 4th National People's Congress on 13 January 1975, where he presented the government's work report. He then fell out of the public eye for more medical treatment. Zhou Enlai died from cancer at 09:57 on 8 January 1976, aged 77.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: After Zhou's death, Mao issued no statements acknowledging Zhou's achievements or contributions and sent no condolences to Zhou's widow, herself a senior Party leader. Mao forbade his staff from wearing black mourning armbands. Whether or not Mao would have attended Zhou's funeral, which was held in the Great Hall of the People, remains in question as Mao himself was in very poor health and unable to do so in any event. Mao did, however, send a wreath to the funeral.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Mao attacked a proposal to have Zhou publicly declared a great Marxist, and rejected a request that he make a brief appearance at Zhou's funeral, instructing his nephew, Mao Yuanxin, to explain that he could not attend because doing so would be seen as a public admission that he was being forced to "rethink the Cultural Revolution", as Zhou's later years had been closely associated with reversing and moderating its excesses. Mao worried that public expressions of mourning would later be directed against him and his policies, and backed the "five nos" campaign (see below) to suppress public expressions of mourning for Zhou after the late Premier's death.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Whatever Mao's opinion of Zhou may have been, there was general mourning among the public. Foreign correspondents reported that Beijing, shortly after Zhou's death, looked like a ghost town. There was no burial ceremony, as Zhou had willed his ashes to be scattered across the hills and rivers of his hometown, rather than stored in a ceremonial mausoleum. With Zhou gone, it became clear how the Chinese people had revered him, and how they had viewed him as a symbol of stability in an otherwise chaotic period of history. Zhou's death also brought condolences from nations around the world.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping delivered the eulogy at Zhou's state funeral on 15 January 1976. Although much of his speech echoed the wording of an official statement by the Central Committee immediately following Zhou's death or consisted of a meticulous description of Zhou's remarkable political career, near the end of the eulogy he offered a personal tribute to Zhou's character, speaking from the heart while observing the rhetoric demanded of ceremonial state occasions. Referring to Zhou, Deng stated that:


title: Zhou Enlai

text: He was open and aboveboard, paid attention to the interests of the whole, observed Party discipline, was strict in "dissecting" himself and good at uniting the mass of cadres, and upheld the unity and solidarity of the Party. He maintained broad and close ties with the masses and showed boundless warmheartedness towards all comrades and the people... We should learn from his fine style – being modest and prudent, unassuming and approachable, setting an example by his conduct, and living in a plain and hard-working way. We should follow his example of adhering to the proletarian style and opposing the bourgeois style of life


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Spence believed this statement was interpreted at the time as a subtle criticism of Mao and the other leaders of the Cultural Revolution, who could not possibly be viewed or praised as being "open and aboveboard", "good at uniting the mass of cadres", for displaying "warmheartedness", or for modesty, prudence, or approachability. Regardless of Deng's intentions, the Gang of Four, and later Hua Guofeng, increased the persecution of Deng shortly after he delivered this eulogy.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: After Zhou's single official memorial ceremony on 15 January, Zhou's political enemies within the Party officially prohibited any further displays of public mourning. The most notorious regulations prohibiting Zhou from being honoured were the poorly observed and poorly enforced "five nos": no wearing black armbands, no mourning wreaths, no mourning halls, no memorial activities, and no handing out photos of Zhou. Years of resentment over the Cultural Revolution, the public persecution of Deng Xiaoping (who was strongly associated with Zhou in public perception), and the prohibition against publicly mourning Zhou became associated with each other shortly after Zhou's death, leading to popular discontent against Mao and his apparent successors (notably Hua Guofeng and the Gang of Four).


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Official attempts to enforce the "five nos" included removing public memorials and tearing down posters commemorating his achievements. On 25 March 1976, a leading Shanghai newspaper, "Wenhui Bao", published an article stating that Zhou was "the capitalist roader inside the Party [who] wanted to help the unrepentant capitalist roader [Deng] regain his power". This and other propaganda efforts to attack Zhou's image only strengthened the public's attachment to Zhou's memory. Between March and April 1976, a forged document circulated in Nanjing that claimed itself to be Zhou Enlai's last will. It attacked Jiang Qing and praised Deng Xiaoping, and was met with increased propaganda efforts by the government.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Within several months after the death of Zhou, one of the most extraordinary spontaneous events in the history of the PRC occurred. On 4 April 1976, at the eve of China's annual Qingming Festival, in which Chinese traditionally pay homage to their deceased ancestors, thousands of people gathered around the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square to commemorate the life and death of Zhou Enlai. On this occasion, the people of Beijing honoured Zhou by laying wreaths, banners, poems, placards, and flowers at the foot of the Monument. The most obvious purpose of this memorial was to eulogize Zhou, but Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan were also attacked for their alleged evil actions against the Premier. A small number of slogans left at Tiananmen even attacked Mao himself, and his Cultural Revolution.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Up to two million people may have visited Tiananmen Square on 4 April. First-hand observations of the events in Tiananmen Square on 4 April report that all levels of society, from the poorest peasants to high-ranking PLA officers and the children of high-ranking cadres, were represented in the activities. Those who participated were motivated by a mixture of anger over the treatment of Zhou, revolt against Mao and his policies, apprehension for China's future, and defiance of those who would seek to punish the public for commemorating Zhou's memory. There is nothing to suggest that events were coordinated from any position of leadership: it was a spontaneous demonstration reflecting widespread public sentiment. Deng Xiaoping was notably absent, and he instructed his children to avoid being seen at the square.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: On the morning of 5 April, crowds gathering around the memorial arrived to discover that it had been completely removed by the police during the night, angering them. Attempts to suppress the mourners led to a violent riot, in which police cars were set on fire and a crowd of over 100,000 people forced its way into several government buildings surrounding the square.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: By 6:00 pm, most of the crowd had dispersed, but a small group remained until 10:00 pm, when a security force entered Tiananmen Square and arrested them. (The reported figure of those arrested was 388 people, but was rumored to be far higher.) Many of those arrested were later sentenced to "people's trial" at Peking University, or were sentenced to prison work camps. Incidents similar to those which occurred in Beijing on 4 and 5 April occurred in Zhengzhou, Kunming, Taiyuan, Changchun, Shanghai, Wuhan, and Guangzhou. Possibly because of his close association with Zhou, Deng Xiaoping was formally stripped of all positions "inside and outside the Party" on 7 April, following this "Tiananmen Incident".


title: Zhou Enlai

text: After ousting Hua Guofeng and assuming control of China in 1980, Deng Xiaoping released those arrested in the Tiananmen Incident as part of a broader effort to reverse the effects of the Cultural Revolution.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: By the end of his lifetime, Zhou was widely viewed as representing moderation and justice in Chinese popular culture. Since his death, Zhou Enlai has been regarded as a skilled negotiator fluent in foreign languages, a master of policy implementation, a devoted revolutionary, and a pragmatic statesman with an unusual attentiveness to detail and nuance. He was also known for his tireless and dedicated work ethic, and his unusual charm and poise in public. He was reputedly the last Mandarin bureaucrat in the Confucian tradition. Zhou's political behaviour should be viewed in light of his political philosophy as well as his personality. To a large extent, Zhou epitomized the paradox inherent in a Communist politician with traditional Chinese upbringing: at once conservative and radical, pragmatic and ideological, possessed of a belief in order and harmony as well as a faith, which he developed very gradually over time, in the progressive power of rebellion and revolution.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Though a firm believer in the Communist ideal on which the People's Republic was founded, Zhou is widely credited to have moderated the excesses of Mao's radical policies within the limits of his power. It has been assumed that he successfully protected several imperial and religious sites of cultural significance (such as the Potala Palace in Lhasa and Forbidden City in Beijing) from the Red Guards, and shielded many top-level leaders, including Deng Xiaoping, as well as many officials, academics and artists from purges. Deng Xiaoping was quoted as saying Zhou was "sometimes forced to act against his conscience in order to minimize the damage" stemming from Mao's policies.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: While many earlier Chinese leaders today have been subjected to criticism inside China, Zhou's image has remained positive and respected among contemporary Chinese. Many Chinese continue to venerate Zhou as possibly the most humane leader of the 20th century, and the CPC today promotes Zhou as a dedicated and self-sacrificing leader who remains a symbol of the Communist Party. Even historians who list Mao's faults generally attribute the opposite qualities to Zhou: Zhou was cultured and educated where as Mao was crude and simple; Zhou was consistent where as Mao was unstable; Zhou was stoic where as Mao was paranoid. Following the death of Mao, Chinese press emphasized in particular his consultative, logical, realistic, and cool-headed leadership style.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: However, recent academic criticism of Zhou has focused on his late relationship with Mao, and his political activities during the Cultural Revolution, arguing that the relationship between Zhou and Mao may have been more complex than is commonly portrayed. Zhou has been depicted as unconditionally submissive and extremely loyal to Mao and his allies, going out of his way to support or permit the persecution of friends and relatives in order to avoid facing political condemnation himself. After the founding of the PRC, Zhou was unable or unwilling to protect the former spies that he had employed in the Chinese Civil War and the Second World War, who were persecuted for their wartime contacts with the enemies of the CCP. Early in the Cultural Revolution, he told Jiang Qing "From now on you make all the decisions, and I'll make sure they're carried out," and publicly declared that his old comrade, Liu Shaoqi, "deserved to die" for opposing Mao. In the effort to avoid being persecuted for opposing Mao, Zhou passively accepted the political persecution of many others, including his own brother.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: A popular saying within China once compared Zhou to a "budaoweng" (a tumbler), which can imply that he was a political opportunist. Dr. Li Zhisui, then one of Mao's personal physicians, characterized Zhou as such and was severely critical of Zhou in his book "The Private Life of Chairman Mao", describing him as "Mao's slave, absolutely obsequiously obedient... Everything he did, he did to be loyal to Mao. Neither he nor [Deng Yingchao] had a shred of independent thought". Li also described Mao's contradictory relationship with Zhou as one where he demanded total loyalty, "but because Zhou was so subservient and loyal, Mao held [Zhou] in contempt". Some observers have criticized him as being too diplomatic: avoiding clear stands in complex political situations and instead becoming ideologically elusive, ambiguous, and enigmatic. Several explanations have been offered to explain his elusiveness. Dick Wilson, the former chief editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, writes that Zhou's only option "was to go on pretending to support the [Cultural Revolution] movement, while endeavoring to deflect its successes, blunt its mischief and stanch the wounds it was inflicting." This explanation for Zhou's elusiveness was also widely accepted by many Chinese after his death. Wilson also writes that Zhou "would have been hounded out of his position of influence, removed from control of the Government" were he to "make a stand and demand that Mao call off the campaign or bring the Red Guards to heel."


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Zhou's involvement in the Cultural Revolution is thus defended by many on the grounds that he had no choice other than political martyrdom. Due to his influence and political ability, the entire government may have collapsed without his cooperation. Given the political circumstances of the last decade of Zhou's life, it is unlikely that he would have survived a purge without cultivating the support of Mao through active assistance.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Zhou received a great deal of praise from American statesmen who met him in 1971. Henry Kissinger wrote that he had been extremely impressed with Zhou's intelligence and character, describing him as "equally at home in philosophy, reminiscence, historical analysis, tactical probes, humorous repartee... [and] could display an extraordinary personal graciousness." Kissinger called Zhou "one of the two or three most impressive men I have ever met," stating that "his commands of facts, in particular his knowledge of American events and, for that matter, of my own background, was stunning." In his memoirs, Richard Nixon stated that he was impressed with Zhou's exceptional "brilliance and dynamism".


title: Zhou Enlai

text: After coming to power, Deng Xiaoping may have overemphasized Zhou Enlai's achievements to distance the Communist Party from Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, both of which had seriously weakened the Party's prestige. Deng observed that Mao's disastrous policies could no longer represent the Party's finest hour, but that the legacy and character of Zhou Enlai could. Furthermore, Deng received credit for enacting successful economic policies that Zhou initially proposed. By actively associating itself with an already popular Zhou Enlai, Zhou's legacy may have been used (and possibly distorted) as a political tool of the Party after his death.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: Zhou remains a widely commemorated figure in China today. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhou ordered his hometown of Huai'an not to transform his house into a memorial and not to keep up the Zhou family tombs. These orders were respected within Zhou's lifetime, but today his family home and traditional family school have been restored, and are visited by a large number of tourists every year. In 1998, Huai'an, in order to commemorate Zhou's one hundredth birthday, opened a vast commemorative park with a museum dedicated to his life. The park includes a reproduction of Xihuating, Zhou's living and working quarters in Beijing.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: The city of Tianjin has established a museum to Zhou and his wife Deng Yingchao, and the city of Nanjing has erected a memorial commemorating Communist negotiations in 1946 with the Nationalist government which features a bronze statue of Zhou. Stamps commemorating the first anniversary of Zhou's death were issued in 1977, and in 1998 to commemorate his 100th birthday.


title: Zhou Enlai

text: The 2013 historical drama film The Story of Zhou Enlai features the trip of Zhou Enlai in May 1961 during the Great Leap Forward, when he investigated the rural situation in Huaxi of Guiyang and a former revolutionary base Boyan Township of Hebei.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: Vivek Anand Oberoi (born 3 September 1976) is an Indian actor who mainly works in Hindi cinema, in addition to working in few Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil films.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: Vivek Oberoi was born in Hyderabad, Telangana, to a Punjabi father, Suresh Oberoi, an actor. In 1974, Suresh married Yashodhara, whom he describes as "a girl from a Punjabi business family who had lived in the south", in Chennai. Because of his mother’s family being assimilated in the region, Vivek is himself fluent in Tamil.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: Oberoi went on to study at Mayo College, Ajmer and Mithibai College, Mumbai. At an actors' workshop in London, he was spotted by the director of New York University who took Vivek to New York, where he completed his master's degree in film acting.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: Oberoi made his debut with Ram Gopal Varma's film "Company". He received Filmfare Awards for "Best Debut" as well as "Best Supporting Actor". He then starred in the action films "Road" and "Dum".


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: In 2002, he starred in "Saathiya", directed by Shaad Ali. The film was a success at the box office and earned him a Filmfare nomination in the Best Actor category.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: In 2006, he appeared in "Omkara", an adaptation of Shakespeare's play "Othello", playing the character of Kesu, based on the character Michael Cassio in the original play. After seeing Oberoi's performance, Gulzar congratulated him.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: In 2008, Oberoi starred in "Mission Istanbul", directed by Apoorva Lakhia and produced by Ekta Kapoor. He performed to the song "Apun Ke Saath", produced for the film by Vikas Kohli, at the 2008 International Indian Film Academy Awards.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: In 2009, Oberoi played a supporting role in the movie "Kurbaan". Kurbaan received positive reviews from critics, with praise for its direction, screenplay, soundtrack, and performances of the cast, with particular praise directed towards Kapoor's performance. However, despite critical acclaim, it was declared a flop by Box Office India. Critic Taran Adarsh in his review for "Bollywood Hungama" gave the film 4 (out of 5), noting ""Kurbaan" is embellished with superlative performances. Khan is extraordinary in a role that only proves his versatility once again. He claimed the film as "the most powerful film to come out of the Hindi film industry in 2009, so far. The film has a captivating plot, gripping screenplay, superb performances and a riveting climax." Rajeev Masand from "CNN-IBN" noted "It's a compelling thriller that doesn’t shy away from touching prickly issues, director Rensil D’Silva makes a confident debut with a film that is respectable and engaging." He assigned a score of 3 on 5. Shubhra Gupta of "The Indian Express" rated the film 3 out of 5, noted: "Written sharply by producer Karan Johar, and directed intelligently by first-timer Rensil D'Silva, the film enunciates, with admirable clarity, contemporary conundrums."


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: In 2010, he appeared in "Prince", which failed to receive a good response from the audience, despite initial box office success. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama rated it 3 out of 5, saying "Prince has all merits to strike a chord with the youth", praising Vivek Oberoi's 'bravura' performance, the film's 'Hollywood style' look and action sequences, as well as the music. Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India gave 3 out of 5, saying, "once you are willing to let go off your beliefs and logic – like you really can't jump off a cliff on your bike and remain unscratched – you would like the film." On the other hand, Omar Qureshi of Zoom rated "Prince" 2.5 out of 5, saying, "The film is over the top and unrealistic." "Indiatimes.com" rated it 2 out of 5 stars saying, "The film has taken the audience for granted, which shows us gadgets hard to believe and futuristic and that such futuristic shows should be limited to Hollywood.". Subhash K. Jha gave 2 out of 5 stars, and said, ""Prince" wears its super-cool shirt with the slogan 'Come Watch Me' with a little bit too much aggression. But if you love popcorn crunching adventure stories watch Vivek Oberoi play the hero from the hemisphere of hijinks." He praised Oberoi's acting and the action sequences, saying that "To his credit, Oberoi carries off the ceaseless stint with the stunt with arresting aplomb[...]The expertly-executed stunts frequently see our hero jumping down high-rise buildings in breathtaking leaps of fate, with the camera pulling back in respectful awe."


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: In the same year, he appeared in Ram Gopal Varma's "Rakht Charitra" playing the role of the Telugu politician Paritala Ravi. Vivek Oberoi's performance in the role of Paritala Ravi drew widespread praise, while Abhimanyu Singh's devious turn as Bukka Reddy, modelled on the real-life Obul Reddy, was regarded as one of the most terrifying villainous acts captured on celluloid in a long time. Renuka Rao of DNA India gave the movie 4 stars in a scale of 5, concluding that RGV has surprisingly thrown at the audience a film that could actually evoke some emotions in you. A must, must watch." Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" gave the movie 4 stars in a scale of 5, saying that "On the whole, RAKHT CHARITRA is not for the faint-hearted or the lily-livered. The violence, the blood and gore depicted in the film will shock and disconcert you, which only goes to establish as to how proficiently the subject material has been treated." Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India gave the movie 3 stars out of 5, stating that "Rakta Charitra holds up a brutal mirror on the muck that masquerades as democracy in India." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars, noting that "Rakta Charitra is a bold, disturbing film that’s bursting with the kind of confidence we haven’t seen from the filmmaker recently. If the sight of blood doesn’t make you uncomfortable, chances are you’ll enjoy this film."


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: Vivek produced a film named "Dekh Indian Circus" in 2011. The film was featured in the 16th Busan Film festival, winning the Audience Choice Award for Best Film from 3000 films worldwide and amongst 380 films screened. In 16 years of the history of Busan, this is the First Indian Film to win the award. The film has already received rave reviews from international critics and reporters from The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Screen International. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from the critics. Richard Kuipers of "Variety" praised it for "bringing the themes of inequality and class divisions together in the highly entertaining visit to the big top." Kirk Honeycutt in his review for "The Hollywood Reporter", praised director Mangesh Hadawale for portraying third-world issues through a family comedy that contains a stinging satire of contemporary India and its rampant corruption.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: Vivek Oberoi's film "Kismat Love Paisa Dilli", which was released in October 2012, failed to impress the audience and was a box office failure.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: He also played supervillan Kaal in Krrish 3 (2013). Critics directed praise towards cast performances (particularly Hrithik Roshan, Kangana Ranaut and Vivek Oberoi), VFX, cinematography, background score, direction and entertainment value, but criticism has been directed towards the film's lack of originality, soundtrack and writing. Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" gave the film 4.5 out of 5 stars and stated that "the film has all the ingredients that make a splendid superhero film, besides being Rakesh Roshan's most accomplished work so far." Madhureeta Mukherjee of "The Times of India" gave it 4.5 stars while commenting "For sheer vision, bravado and superlative execution, this one soars to new orbits. Latch on to this cape for an exhilarating ride." Raedita Tandan of "Filmfare" awarded it 4 out of 5 stars, remarking "Hats off to Rakesh Roshan for dreaming big and actually pulling off this risky proposition. It's not perfect. But it has all the elements a good, entertaining film must have. All you Marvel superheroes, better watch out. Krrish is here to stay." Anupama Chopra of the "Hindustan Times" gave it 3.5 stars and said, "Filmmaker Rakesh Roshan deserves a round of applause for giving us a homegrown superhero. Krrish 3 is ambitious and exciting." Sarita Tanwar of "DNA" gave it 3.5 stars and wrote, "Krrish 3 is fast-paced and the VFX effects are smashing." Rohit Khilnani of "India Today" gave it 3.5 stars noting, "The only part where the movie dips are during the songs. The music sounds too dated for this action-packed film."


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: Oberoi has dubbed the voice of Electro in the Hindi-dubbed version of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2", which was released in May 2014.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: In 2017, Oberoi made his Tamil debut in supporting role alongside Ajith Kumar in action thriller film Vivegam. The film received mixed reviews from critics. "The Times of India" rated the film 3 out of 5 and said "Vivegam is an over-the-top but engaging action thriller with a calculated mix of brawn and brain, action and sentiment, smartly pandering to fans while giving families something to connect with." NDTV rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and cited "Ajith Is Charismatic But Let Down By Silly Scenes". "Behindwoods" rated the film 2.25 out of 5, stating, "Vivegam – High on production value and action. Heavily dependent on Ajith's persona, engagement factor takes a beating". "Mirchi9" gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, saying " Overall, Vivekam is for the fans and fans alone for whom just watching the star on screen is enough. There is ample style and punch dialogues with a healthy dose of action. For everyone else, it is an utterly boring film". "Nowrunning" rated the film 1.5/5 and said "Director Siva had collected a bunch of Spy movies from Hollywood and made a mashup of them. He picked up all the action blocks and combined it with loud background score which will only irk the audience. Even the action is also missing in the second half and there is no logic at all. The climax is stretched further which disappoints the audience".


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: He also appeared in Ram Charan starrer Telugu film "Vinaya Vidheya Rama" (2019), It received negative reviews from critics and became a box-office bomb, which prompted Charan to issue an apology letter. "The Indian Express" gave 1 out of 5 stars stating "Vinaya Vidheya Rama is like watching a Balakrishna action film on steroids. Clumsy and unconvincing screenplay". "The New Indian Express" gave 1.5 out of 5 stars stating "If there is a plot and a story that is worth a notice, then it is lost between all the fights, songs, dances and random elevation dialogues". "Hindustan Times" gave 0.5 out of 5 stars stating "The film itself feels dated. It is a mess that even Ram Charan – with all the weird stunts -- cannot punch his way out of". "Firstpost" gave 1.5 out of 5 stars stating "Realism has absolutely no place in the world of Vinaya Vidheya Rama".


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: In 2019, Oberoi made his Malayalam debut with Mohanlal in Prithviraj Sukumaran's directorial debut, "Lucifer", as the main antagonist, Bobby, in which his performance as a villain was well received by critics and the audience. Times of India gave the film 3.5 out of 5 writing "Lucifer is a 'mass entertainer’ that is sure to please the fans and has enough going for to make it an engaging thriller as well. And apart from the mandatory Stan Lee, correction, Antony Perumbavoor cameo, watch out for Stephen's second avatar in the film."


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: He has featured as a talent judge for three seasons of the reality show India's Best Dramebaaz. He portrayed the role of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in "PM Narendra Modi". The film was universally panned by critics, who termed it a hagiography and criticized Oberoi's performance. Renuka Vyavahare of "The Times of India" gave the film two and a half stars out of five and criticised the script, opining, "This one is too lopsided for you to appreciate. It leaves a lot unanswered. While it firmly believes ‘Modi ek insaan nahi, soch hai’, we wish the script was as thoughtful". However, she was among the few who appreciated Oberoi's performance- "He gets the mannerisms, accent and tone right and thankfully doesn't overdo it". Writing for "The Indian Express", Shubhra Gupta gave the movie two stars out of five and stated, "The film is not a mere bio-pic, it is a full-fledged, unabashed, unapologetic hagiography". Kennith Rosario of "The Hindu" summarised the movie's narrative as "a obsequious love letter" to the protagonist which tells the audience "how sincere, hardworking, fair and honest Modi is, [and] that it makes you wonder if life is a parody of this film".


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: Oberoi's full first name, Vivekanand, is based on that of the Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda; his father and grandfathers were followers of the monk. He says he dropped Anand when he joined movies out of respect for Vivekananda, as he considered it would be embarrassing romancing and dancing on screen with the name of the monk.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: Oberoi dated his "Kyun! Ho Gaya Na..." co-star Aishwarya Rai. In 2003, Oberoi claimed that Rai's former boyfriend, Salman Khan, had threatened him. In 2005, Oberoi and Rai broke up.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: On 29 October 2010, Oberoi married Priyanka Alva, daughter of Karnataka minister Jeevaraj Alva, in Bangalore. The couple have a son and a daughter.


title: Vivek Oberoi

text: Oberoi's company, Karrm Infrastructure Pvt Ltd., has donated 25 flats in the Thane district of Maharashtra to the families of Central Reserve Police Force officers killed in action. In all, Vivek has donated about 3 million and helped raise 25 million.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The Lamborghini Countach () is a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive sports car produced by the Italian automobile manufacturer Lamborghini from 1974 until 1990. It is one of the many exotic designs developed by Italian design house Bertone, which pioneered and popularized the sharply angled "Italian Wedge" shape.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The style was introduced to the public in 1970 as the Lancia Stratos Zero concept car. The first showing of the Countach prototype was at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show, as the Lamborghini LP500 concept.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The "Countach" nameplate was reused for the Sián-based limited-production hybrid-electric model called the Countach LPI 800-4 in 2021.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The development of the Countach was initiated by Ferruccio Lamborghini with the goal of creating a successor to the Miura. The Miura was widely acclaimed after its introduction in 1966, but by 1970 new competitors including the Ferrari Daytona had been introduced to the market, and the Miura was showing its age. Chief engineer Paolo Stanzani and his staff began work on the Miura successor in 1970 under the project name "LP112." From the beginning of the project, Stanzani's collaborators included test driver Bob Wallace, assistant engineer Massimo Parenti and designer Marcello Gandini of Bertone.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: Stanzani and Ferruccio Lamborghini agreed that the Miura's successor required a mechanical design that enabled the greatest possible performance as well as a body that was both aerodynamically efficient and aesthetically daring. These principles had formed the Miura's development and enabled the commercial success of that model. Despite Mr. Lamborghini's preference for comfortable grand tourers, he recognized the commercial value of a more uncompromising sports car like the Miura and gave Stanzani's team permission to further push boundaries with the LP112 project. The resulting Countach incorporated successful aspects of the Miura, such as the rear mid-engine, rear wheel drive layout along with many new engineering and styling innovations. Lamborghini's engineering team addressed several flaws in the Miura design, improving high-speed stability and reducing lift-off oversteer as well as addressing the limited maintenance access, uneven weight distribution and cooling issues endemic to the Miura's transverse engine layout.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: After a year of intensive development work, the first Countach prototype, designated LP500, was shown to the public at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show. Subsequently, the Lamborghini engineering team spent three years refining this radical prototype into the production-ready LP400 Countach, which debuted in 1974.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The Countach name originated in late 1970 or 1971, near the beginning of the LP112 project. Most previous and subsequent Lamborghini car names are associated with famous bulls and bullfighting, but the Countach broke with this tradition. The name originated from the word (), an exclamation of astonishment in the Piedmontese language.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: Lamborghini used a system of alphanumeric designations in order to further delineate Countach models. This designation begins with "LP", an abbreviation of the Italian , meaning "longitudinal rear". This refers to the engine orientation and placement shared by all Countach models. For the prototype and early production models, "LP" was followed by a three digit number designating nominal engine displacement, "400" for 3.9-litre engines and "500" for 4.8 and 5-litre engines. Therefore, the full name of the first production Countach was the Lamborghini Countach LP400. As in the Miura, the letter "S" (short for Sport) was added for later high performance variants. This naming scheme was disrupted by the 1985 LP5000 Quattrovalvole equipped with a 5.2-litre engine, also called the 5000QV. The LP- designation was dropped entirely for the 1988 25th Anniversary Edition, also called the Anniversary.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The Countach was styled by Marcello Gandini of the Bertone design studio. His design for the Countach's predecessor, the Miura, achieved commercial success and critical acclaim from the automotive press when it was introduced in March 1966. Following the Miura's debut, Gandini began experimenting with a new, more angular and geometric design language in a series of concept cars for Lamborghini, Alfa Romeo and Lancia. In particular, the 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo and 1970 Lancia Stratos Zero were direct styling precursors to the Countach. Like the Countach, they were both entirely wedge-shaped, mid-engine designs with a low, flat front, truncated tail and angular details. Both of these concept cars featured unconventional methods of entry into the passenger compartment—a hinged windshield for the Stratos Zero and scissor doors for the Carabo—foreshadowing the scissor doors used on the Countach.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: At the start of the LP112 project in 1970, Lamborghini commissioned Gandini and his team at Bertone to develop a body for the then-unnamed prototype. Chief engineer Paolo Stanzani supplied the design team with chassis information so that body design could proceed while the mechanical details of the prototype were finalised. Shortly before the 1971 Geneva Auto Show, the finished chassis was shipped to Bertone, where the prototype bodywork and interior were installed. The resulting Countach LP500 prototype was unveiled at the 1971 Geneva Auto show, where its unconventional design drew great public interest and extensive press coverage. The LP500 prototype had a crisp, wedge-shaped design that, compared to the Miura, was wide and very low but shorter in overall length. Overall dimensions of the prototype were wide, tall, and long. The nose of the prototype tapered sharply to a thin grille, an uninterrupted slope enabled by headlights in retractable housings that flipped down inside the body when not in use. The prototype's body lacked bumpers, aerodynamic spoilers, side mirrors and any other addition that would have interrupted the lines of Gandini's design. Trapezoidal shapes appeared throughout the body, including in the windshield, side windows, door openings, hood and engine covers and taillights. Air was supplied to the engine and side-mounted radiators through louvered vents immediately behind the side windows, although road testing quickly demonstrated these vents alone were inadequate to control engine temperatures.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The interior of the prototype was equally notable to contemporary audiences as the exterior, as it incorporated new technologies and bold styling decisions. Gandini initially sketched a dashboard with all-digital readouts for the Countach. This dashboard design was not fully realised in time for the debut, the LP500 prototype instead used a conventional analog speedometer and tachometer. However, the LP500 dashboard incorporated other innovations from Gandini's original sketches, including aircraft or spaceship-inspired warning lights placed centrally on the steering column, within the arc of the steering wheel. One of these warning lights functioned similarly to a modern cruise control system, illuminating when a set speed was exceeded. Another innovation was the inclusion of an on-board diagnostic system (long before their standardization and widespread adoption) that displayed the status of the car's individual subsystems superimposed on a schematic view of the entire car, located on the dashboard to the driver's left. Due to the poor rearward visibility inherent in the Countach design, a periscope was integrated into the passenger compartment roof, instead of a conventional rear-view mirror. This periscope system was obtained from Donnelly Mirrors, who had first developed it for an ESV project. Gandini also used a single-spoke steering wheel and deeply recessed bucket seats, which shared a stylised motif of segmented blocks. The low seating position, prominent transmission tunnel and wide door sills all contributed to the sensation of being inside a race car cockpit.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The scissor doors of the Countach prototype were a prominent design feature carried over to the production Countach as well as many subsequent Lamborghini models. First appearing on Gandini's 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo concept car, they attached to the vehicle structure at the front of the door using horizontal hinges, so that they lifted up and tilted forward when opened. The mechanism was assisted by gas struts, which supported the weight of the doors and smoothed the opening and closing motion. Gandini incorporated this door design as both a styling gesture and to facilitate entry. The car's wide chassis and high and wide doorsills made entry using conventional doors difficult in narrow spaces. Conversely, care needed to be taken in opening the scissor doors under low ceilings. Due to poor rearward visibility and the wide sills, many Countach drivers park by opening the door, sitting on the sill, and reversing into the parking spot while looking over the back of the car from outside. The scissor doors made it difficult to exit the car following a rollover accident. Lamborghini engineers studied solutions to this problem including an easily removable "kick-out" windscreen or using explosive bolts to remove the doors following an accident, although neither were incorporated into the production Countach.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: Following the LP500 prototype's public debut, the body design was progressively altered during pre-production testing to improve aerodynamic performance, high speed stability, engine cooling and ability to meet mandated safety requirements. This resulted in many differences between the LP500 prototype and the production LP400. The most visible change was the addition of several vents to improve engine cooling and air intake. These included NACA ducts spanning the doors and rear wings on each side and protruding air intake boxes, which replaced the louvered vents behind the side windows. The slope of the nose was made shallower to reduce excessive front-end downforce that destabilized the prototype during braking. The side windows inset with small trapezoidal glass sections were changed to horizontally-split two piece windows with a retractable lower half. Additional small windows were added behind the side windows, slightly improving rearward visibility. The futuristic dashboard and diagnostic displays seen on the prototype were replaced with a conventionally-styled dashboard using Stewart-Warner analog gauges, while the single-spoke steering wheel was replaced with a three spoke wheel similar to those used on other production Lamborghinis. The periscope rear-view mirror was retained for the LP400, but for subsequent Countach models it was replaced with conventional rear view mirrors. The overall dimensions of the LP400 were slightly larger than the prototype, at wide, tall, and long.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The styling of the Countach was continually altered as new production models were introduced. Later additions—including flared arches, spoilers, carburetor covers and bumpers—progressively changed the Countach body in order to improve the model's performance, safety and appearance. Despite these updates, the basic shape of the first Countach prototype revealed in 1971 remained virtually unchanged over its 19-year lifespan.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The Countach was designed around the existing Lamborghini V12 engine in a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. In contrast to the Miura's transversely-mounted engine, the engine in the Countach was longitudinally-mounted. This layout was a first for a road-going V12, previously used only in the Ferrari P-series racing cars. However, chief engineer Paolo Stanzani wanted to improve the weight distribution of the car even further and devised a new type of longitudinal layout that would avoid placing the mass of the transmission at the rear of the car. The resulting configuration had the output shaft at the front of the engine, immediately connecting through the clutch assembly to the transmission. The transmission itself was a 5-speed manual with Porsche-type synchromesh and was mounted in the middle of the car between the two seats. The driveshaft ran from the transmission through the engine's oil sump to a differential at the rear. This arrangement effectively sandwiched the length of the engine between the mid-mounted transmission and the rear-mounted differential. This configuration had numerous advantages over the Miura's transverse engine, including an increase in stability from placing more mass near the car's center, a shorter overall wheelbase, a more direct gear-shift linkage for easier and faster shifting, better cooling and easier maintenance access to engine components.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The Lamborghini V12 used in the Countach originated in 1963 and was designed by Giotto Bizzarrini. Versions of this engine were used in preceding and then currently produced Lamborghini models including the 350 GT, 400 GT, Islero, Espada and Miura. As used in the Miura, this engine had a displacement, a 60º cylinder bank angle, double overhead camshafts per bank, two valves per cylinder, lubrication and distributor ignition. Paolo Stanzani's engineering team wished to increase the Countach engine's power over the maximum of as seen on the Miura SV. The 3.9-litre version had been tuned to be rated approximately between in the experimental P400 Jota, but an engine of this specification was expensive to manufacture and was difficult to handle in normal city driving due to lack of low-RPM power. Therefore, the engineers decided to increase the engine's displacement to 5-litre, in order to extract more power while avoiding the usability problems of a race-tuned engine. This increase in displacement would require a major redesign of the existing V12. Lamborghini's plan was to produce the 5-litre engine in time for series production and published specification sheets for the proposed production 5-litre engine at the 1971 debut of the prototype. Lamborghini reported this engine would be rated at at 7,400 rpm. One experimental engine was constructed by boring out a conventional 3.9-litre engine block and was fitted to the Countach LP500 prototype for testing purposes. It incorporated many lightweight castings made from Elektron, an expensive magnesium alloy. This engine self-destructed during a 1971 road test by Bob Wallace. This made it clear that further revisions to the basic engine design were required to improve durability. The LP500 prototype was subsequently fitted with a 3.9-litre engine for the remainder of pre-production testing.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The first production cars used a 3.9-litre engine as durability issues with the new 5-litre engine could not be resolved in time. As equipped to the 1974 Countach LP400, the engine was rated at at 8,000 rpm. The stated power output was less than that of the Miura SV, which was blamed on the use of side-draft Weber 45 DCOE carburetors instead of the down-draft carburetors used on the Miura. Later engine development eventually increased the engine displacement to in the 1982 LP500S, and then to with four valves per cylinder in the 1985 LP5000 Quattrovalvole. All variants of the Countach were equipped with six Weber carburetors until the arrival of the LP5000 QV model, some of which used Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection to meet US emissions regulations. European-specification cars continued to use carburetors until the arrival of the succeeding Diablo.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: Paolo Stanzani and the Lamborghini engineering team developed an all-steel partial space frame chassis for the LP500 Countach prototype. This prototype chassis was constructed of both a steel sheet and square-section steel tubing, with wall thicknesses between . The front section primarily used stamped and spot-welded sheet steel, with certain areas stiffened by stamped ribs and welded reinforcement panels. Stiffening frames constructed of sheet steel and tubing extended through the center of the car, along both door sills and around the central transmission tunnel. The rear section of the chassis consisted of almost entirely square-section tubing and included diagonal bracing and multiple cross-members for strength. This prototype chassis was constructed by Marchesi of Modena, which had produced chassis for earlier Lamborghini models.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The prototype chassis was stiffer and heavier than the Miura chassis. It weighed , while the Miura's chassis weighed . The additional weight was partially due to the lack of the lightening holes used in the Miura and partially due to the need to construct an extra-durable chassis for pre-production testing. In addition to the strength and stiffness improvements over the Miura design, engineers believed that greater use of steel tubing would result in a chassis that was easier for the factory to fabricate and easier to protect from corrosion.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: Following testing of the LP500 prototype during 1971, Stanzani and his team decided to further revise the chassis design. The dimensions and layout were similar, but the steel sheet and square tube construction used in the prototype was entirely disregarded in favor of a full space frame constructed of welded round-section steel tubing. Compared to the prototype, this design used a much more complex welded assembly of cross-braced tubular frames and was reinforced with sheet metal gussets in a few key areas. Tubes of , , and diameter were used, all with wall thickness. Overall, this new design was stiffer and weighed less, at . At the time, this construction technique was used in Formula One but was extremely advanced for a road-going automobile. In addition to the performance benefits of this design, engineers recognized that building a technologically advanced and visually complex chassis would align with Lamborghini's marketing strategy and sell better than a conventional design. The full space frame chassis was tested in a second Countach prototype and would be used basically unchanged on subsequent production cars. Chassis fabrication added a significant amount to the cost of the car as each chassis required laborious hand-welding, first by Marchesi then again during final assembly at the Lamborghini factory. However, logistically this method of fabrication was relatively easy to incorporate into the low-volume, manually-skilled production line.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: Prototype and production Countach bodies were constructed primarily of unstressed aluminum panels. Stanzani had initially considered fabricating body panels from the lightweight alloy Avional, primarily used in aircraft construction, but found it expensive and difficult to obtain. A more conventional aluminum alloy was used instead. Prototypes used aluminum panels between 1–1.2 mm thick, increased to for the production LP400. The aluminum body panels were fabricated by Bertone. These panels were supported by thin steel frames welded to the main chassis. Once the panels were in place, factory workers would then hand-form them in order to adjust the final body shape, surface smoothness and gaps between panels. As the spaceframe chassis did not have an integrated floor panel, a separate fiberglass and aluminum panel was installed underneath the passenger compartment. Although the LP400 used an all-aluminum body, later versions of the Countach would incorporate body components made of fiberglass and carbon composites.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: Lamborghini created three pre-production Countach prototypes prior to the introduction of the LP400 production model.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The first prototype was the LP500, which was displayed at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show and later used for pre-production testing and development by the factory. This car had many mechanical and styling differences compared to the production LP400. It was built on a partial spaceframe steel chassis which was heavier and simpler compared to the production version's full tubular spaceframe. The bright yellow bodywork closely followed Gandini's original design for the car but was modified during testing with additional air inlets to improve engine cooling. The 5.0 liter V12 engine initially fitted to the LP500 was destroyed during testing and replaced with a 3.9 liter V12, similar to the engine used on the production LP400. The LP500 prototype was destroyed in a crash test on March 21, 1974 at the MIRA facility in England to gain European type approval, even though its construction method was utterly unlike production vehicles. In 2017, a recreation of the LP500 prototype was constructed by Lamborghini Polo Storico, the Lamborghini factory's restoration division. The completed recreation was first displayed to the public at the 2021 Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The second Countach prototype (chassis number 1120001) was shown to the public at the 1973 Geneva Motor Show (painted red) and at the 1973 Paris Motor Show (painted green). The bodywork of this car was much closer to that of the LP400 production model, and now incorporated the side NACA ducts and air intake boxes tested on the first prototype. This car showed some styling details from the first prototype that would not carry over into production, including trapezoidal windows and a bumperless nose with silver, recessed grill. This was the first car to be equipped with the tubular full spaceframe chassis used on production models. This car was fitted with the 3.9-litre engine, although contemporary press releases still designated it as an "LP500", possibly because Lamborghini engineers still intended to use a 5.0-litre engine in the production version. In addition to appearing at motor shows, Lamborghini engineers used the second prototype for road testing and as a reference to create the wooden master pattern for all body panels. This car currently resides in the Lamborghini factory museum.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The third Countach prototype (chassis number 1120002) was shown at the 1974 Geneva Motor Show and was the first to be constructed entirely in the Lamborghini factory, except for the chassis built by Marchesi. It is sometimes called the first pre-production or first production LP400 Countach. This car was painted bright yellow and had the finalized production LP400 body style, which was longer than the previous prototype bodies to increase interior space. The trapezoidal side windows seen in the first prototypes were replaced with a three-panel design, which was easier to manufacture. The wheel arch shape was slightly changed to prevent the rear tyres from rubbing when the suspension was compressed. To improve long-term durability`, the thickness of the body sheet metal was increased from 1.2 mm to 1.5 mm and the suspension and gearbox mounting points were made from tubing with a greater wall thickness. The interior was changed to final production form, losing Gandini's electronic diagnostic displays from the first prototype and using instead conventional gauges manufactured by Stewart-Warner.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The first production model of the Countach was the LP400, produced from 1974 until 1978. It was first offered for sale at the 1974 Geneva Auto Show, where 50 orders were placed. The LP400 was equipped with a engine delivering . This engine was given the type designation "L 406."


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: Externally, little had changed from the second prototype. The nose panel was altered, the side windows now split horizontally, and various details of interior trim were changed. The LP400 was equipped with Michelin XWX tires, sized front 205/70R14 and rear 215/70R14. The narrow tires and the slick styling meant that this version had the lowest drag coefficient of any Countach model. The emblems at the rear simply read "Lamborghini" and "Countach", with no engine displacement or valve arrangement markings as is found on later variants.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: The LP400 chassis was constructed by Marchesi, then delivered to the Lamborghini factory at Sant'Agata where the car was assembled and painted. The engine and transmission were also manufactured at Sant'Agata. Each engine was run for a total of 5 hours and inspected before being installed in the car. The LP400 production line was developed and supervised by Giancarlo Guerra, a former Scaglietti employee who worked closely with Stanzani. By the end of production in 1978, the company had produced 157 Countach LP400s.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: In 1978, a new LP400 S model was introduced. Though the engine was slightly downgraded from the LP400 model at , the most radical changes were on the exterior, where , and fiberglass wheel arch extensions were added, giving the car the fundamental look it kept until the end of its production run. An optional V-shaped rear wing was available over the rear deck following the popularity generated from the rear wing of the Walter Wolf Countach, which, while improving high-speed stability, reduced the top speed by at least . Most owners ordered the car with the wing despite this disadvantage. The LP400 S' handling was improved by the wider tyres, which made the car more stable while cornering. The standard emblems ("Lamborghini" and "Countach") were kept at the rear, but an angular "S" emblem was added after the "Countach" on the right side.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: 1982 saw another update to the Countach. this time with a bigger, more powerful engine. The bodywork was unaltered, however, the interior was given an update. This variant is sometimes called the 5000 S in some markets, which may cause confusion with the later 5000 QV. 321 cars were built.


title: Lamborghini Countach

text: In 1985, the engine design evolved again, as it was bored and stroked to and given 4 valves per cylinder—"quattro valvole" in Italian, hence the model's name, Countach LP5000 Quattrovalvole or 5000 QV in short. The carburetors were moved from the sides to the top of the engine for better cooling—unfortunately this created a hump on the engine cover, reducing the already poor rear visibility to almost zero. Some body panels were also replaced by Kevlar. In later versions of the engine, the carburetors were replaced with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection system. The Fuel injected engine was rated at . The European carbureted (also known as "Downdraft" or "DD") versions used six Weber carburetors and were rated at at 7,000 rpm and of torque at 5,200 rpm. 610 cars were built in this specification, with 66 having the fuel injection system.