Sidney Rittenberg was a confidant of Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, Premier Zhou Enlai and much of the Chinese communist leadership even before they took power in the late 1940s, was imprisoned for years (spending a total of 16 years in solitary confinement), and later in life his advice was sought by Americans like Bill Gates and Henry Kissinger. 

Sidney Rittenberg passed away last week at the age of 98. In this interview with The Think Tank from 2017, he talks about some of his fascinating life story.