Bao Tong
Zhao's published autobiography is based on approximately thirty cassette tapes which Zhao secretly recorded between 1999 and 2000. According to Zhao's friend and former co-worker, Du Daozheng, Zhao only recorded the tapes after being convinced by his friends to do so. The tapes were smuggled out to Hong Kong by Zhao's friends, one of which was Bao Tong. The tapes were then translated to English by his son Bao Pu, who then approached Adi Ignatius to edit the memoir in 2008. The material in his biography was largely consistent with the information from the "Tiananmen Papers", an unauthorized collection of Chinese government documents published in 2001. The book was also consistent with material from "Captive Conversations", a record of conversations between Zhao and his friend Zong Fengming, which was published only in Chinese.