主题：【杂论】89年难道不就是所谓的革命吗？ -- 坐看风起云涌时

The first draft of history can be crude. Even if the thrust of a story is well described by journalists on the scene, some of its details might need refinement, and sometimes even correction.

Such was the case with the massacre in Beijing on 3 and 4 June, 1989. I was one of the foreign journalists who witnessed the events that night.

We got the story generally right, but on one detail I and others conveyed the wrong impression. There was no massacre on Tiananmen Square.

There were credible reports of several citizens being shot dead during the night on the outer perimeter of the square, but in places which strictly speaking could be said to be outside the square itself.

But we are far less certain of killings on Tiananmen proper. There were probably few, if any.

Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, who did some admirable detective work in Beijing hospitals in the weeks after the massacre, said in a report published on 21 June 1989 that "it seems plausible that about a dozen soldiers and policemen were killed, along with 400 to 800 civilians".

The standard line now used by foreign journalists is that "hundreds, possibly thousands" died.