01/04/2017 Witness

outside the European Union is clear. Nicola Sturgeon is this scholar must

be given a choice. Now, stalemate. Now, it is time for Witness with

Tanya Beckett. Hello. I'm Tanya Beckett. Welcome to

Witness here at the British library in London. This month, we have

another five people who have witnessed extraordinary moments in

history, first-hand. We will hear from a woman who volunteered with

Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta. The worst crash in civil

Asia Asian history, and the environmentalist behind one of the

world's first bans on cars. But first, in 1972, US President Richard

Nixon travelled to China for an historic meeting for building

relations between the countries after more than 22 years of Cold

War. Western Lord was one of the American AIDS on the trip. Today,

President Nixon is visiting China. The first American statesman to have

settled on Chinese soil since Chairman Mao came to power in 1949.

-- Winston Lord. Many of us were a little disappointed in the arrival

arrangements. This was a huge geological event and we navy thought

there would be big crowds and in fact there were a few people. --

naively. We then realised this was keeping in line with the fact we

have been enemies for years and you could not turn a page immediately.

And so these two great countries, the most powerful nation on Earth

visits the most populous nation on earth. I was special assistant to a

Henry Kissinger, the National Security Adviser, and I was in

charge of orchestrating and putting together the thick briefing books

were the President for his trip to China. My first impressions that

Beijing was that it was a very bleak, rather depressing place. It

was very drab. Everybody was dressed the same. Very few cars. Mostly

bicycles. We arrived at the guesthouse and to our surprise, they

announced that Chairman Mao would like to see President Nixon right

away. This was Chairman Mao acting like a traditional Chinese emperor,

not giving you any warning as to when you go to be summoned to his

presence. I worked for many presidents, including several

close-up. President Nixon was by far the most well versed in strategic in

international relations. He was extraordinary. Whatever his claws,

one has to grant him bat. As a person, he was quite shy. He was

always somewhat engaging in banter or small talk. -- flaws. Both sides

had clear reasons for trying to reopen communications after 22 years

of mutual enmity and indeed fighting each other in Korea. When you meet

someone of historic significance you have two figure out whether you are

impressed with the personality because you know he is important, or

whether you would be impressed if you did not know who he was.

Kissinger and I agreed that even if we went to a cocktail party and

Chairman Mao was there and we did not know who he was, he would have

exceeded some power and attraction. This is not to glorify him, he was a

monster in many ways. The meeting itself, at first, puggle asked. It

was only about an hour with translation. -- puzzled us. But it

was declared a success from the very beginning. At the conclusion of the

meeting, the Chinese came in with photographs of all of us at the

meeting. Resident extent and Kissinger looked at each other and

said that Mr Lord was not at his meeting. Cut out all the voters. --

President Nixon. It was a ready humiliating for the US Secretary of

State not to be the meeting while the National Security Adviser was.

But to have in addition to that some punk in his early 30s also sitting

in on the meeting... It is worth coming 16,000 miles just to stand

here and see the wall. Join me in raising your glasses to Chairman Mao

and to the future of the Chinese and American people. We were in the

middle of a geological earthquake. There was a combination of nurses

deal working on this, but also a sense that we were frankly in the

midst of making history. And Mr Lord went on to be the ambassador to

China and was involved in the country for the rest of his career.

Next, in March, 1997, Catholic nun Mother Teresa step down from her

charity work with the poor in India due to her failing health. It was

known as one of the poorest cities in the world. You would see people

who were lying in a pool of their vomit, that Esk River, in filthy

clothes covered in life. So to go and lift of those people and taken

to the home and clean them, it took a lot of kindness to do the kind of

work they did. -- excreta. Mother Teresa and her sisters of Charity

live in one of Calcutta's poorest slums. In addition to the

traditional vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the sisters

take a doormat one of service and obedience to the poor. -- the

sisters take one of service. We saw her every morning on the way to

school. We had a Mother Teresa nun who came and said if you would like

to come and help come you can come to the baby's home. -- babies' home.

It was quite overwhelming. They had rules doormat rows and rows of cots.

-- they had rows and rows of cots. So we went and spent a morning

helping to give the baby is a bath. It was nice to hold the bottle and

feed a baby and these children, they needed affection a lot, so the

babies liked to be cuddled. My sister went around with Mother

Teresa's nuns and they used to regularly visit a washing clinic and

pick up live babies from abortion buckets. -- abortion clinics. We

once saw a baby thrown in a garbage dump. I found the very authoritarian

way in which the order was run not something that I would ever be able

to agree with. I remember thinking that the nuns lived such an austere

life. She said you should suffer for Christ and offer your suffering to

God. And I could not bear that, because I thought we should try to

fight poverty, and that people don't have to suffer so much on earth.

I saw Mother Teresa again many, many years later. She was that much

older, more wrinkled. My mother asked Mother Teresa to bless her

grandchildren. And my mother said to her, my daughter used to come and

volunteer. Then she said very, quite arrogantly, I felt, at the time, it

she said yes, yes, used to do these things when your little. What do you

do now? -- you used to. I have never doubted for a second that I have

done the right thing and this was the will of God. It was his choice.

There were millions out for her funeral. Things like sense, that is

not my thing at all, but since millions of people wanted her to be

a state, I did the work she did was exceptional. And if she has to be a

saint, she has to be a saint. Mary speaking at home in Bangalore. In

March 1970 seven, two jumbo jets collided, killing 583 people. It was

the worst crash in aviation history. Captain Robert Brand was the

co-pilot on the Pan Am plane that was one of the few who survived the

collision. The jumbo swept out of the mist and more than 150 miles an

hour. -- at more than. It crashed into the plane straddling the

runway. The fog came in and the visibility was just about nil. And

the captain was taxiing the aeroplane only at about three knots,

because that was as fast as he felt like it was safe to go. The Pan Am

aircraft was given permission to leave the standard had done the taxi

Wakerley takeoff point. Now, the Pan Am pilot says that he was told to

proceed down the main runway, and to leave the main runway and back onto

the taxiway, at the next Russian. He was Neville able to do that, because

that was the point of impact. -- he was never able to. We looked up and

saw him coming down the runway at us. I saw his landing light shaking,

and that is how I knew he was moving. I could not believe that man

was taking off. I started yelling to get off the runway and the captains

started turning the aeroplane. I looked back out my right side

window, and saw him lifting off the runway. So I close my eyes and duct.

And basically said a very short prayer that he missed us. When he

does, all that was, was a short bump. No big noise, no big shaking.

I thought, thank ITV staff. Then I looked up for the fire control

handles. And that is what -- that is when I first noticed that the top of

the aeroplane was gone. So I jumped to the ground, which was 40 feet

from the cockpit floor to the ground. And I think the Lord that I

hit on some grass. -- I thank. There were about 50 people that had

already gotten out on be left wing of the aeroplane. And I started

yelling at them to jump off. And one poor lady, she jumped first, and

everybody else jumped right on her and broke her back and both legs and

both arms. After we had been out there probably five minutes, the

centre fuel tank blew up. And that sent a flame probably 250 feet in

the air. And then the air plane just fell apart. We only had like 65 that

got out of our plane altogether. The plane burst into flames and carried

on down the runway, disintegrating as it went, until the main piece of

the fuselage came to rest more than half a mile away from the point of

impact. No one survived the KLM crash. I always from day one

believed it was the KLM's captain's fault. -- KLMcaptain's fault. He

disregarded all procedure when he went to take the takeoff. Nobody

will ever know why he was in such a hurry and to got the way he did.

The Captain Cook did you to fly until he retired and he spoke to us

in 2016 and has since sadly passed away. Remember, it can watch Witness

every month on the BBC News Channel, or catch up on over 1000 radio

programmes on our online archive. Just go to the website below. Next,

we are going back to 1989, when Mexico City took the unprecedented

step of severely restricting private car use on its streets. Our guest

was the person behind the effort to cut pollution.

Another miserable, choking day in this gives you -- big cyclicity,

undoubtedly the most deluded capital on earth. The smog slowly poisoned

the 20 million inhabitants. Just breathing is like smoking 40

cigarettes a day. Mexican traffic is the worst in the

world. Millions of large, thirsty American cars criss-crossing the

world's largest city without a thought for fuel conservation.

And he still campaigns on environmental issues in Mexico.

Finally this month, we're going all the way back to prerevolution

Russia. A pioneering photographer travelled to the furthermost corners

of the Russian empire and recorded a disappearing lifestyle in

magnificent colour. Michelle is his grandson. -- Michel.

My grandfather was one of the pioneers of colour photography. It's

a unique example of this quality of colour. This is close to 100 years

old. At that time you have to realise that the only photograph in

colour were taken indoors. It was probably the first to do a lot of

work outside. -- he was. This is a very nice pic on the canal, where he

did a lot of shots. You really feel something extremely natural. You can

really feel that this guy was very pleased to be taken and at the same

time the composition of the picture is great. He was able to travel

anywhere in the empire. He got permission from the tsar to travel

everywhere, even the areas that were very difficult to access. Bukarah

today is use -- Uzbekistan. It is in the south-east of the empire,

bordering Iran, Afghanistan and China. My grandfather was somebody

who was extremely open-minded. He was really a Renaissance man and in

his work he tried to show the different categories of people, in

terms of religion, origin. This is a Jewish school. A teacher

and some pupils. The image was obtained by projecting the free

negative on glass, in black and white, through a colour lens for the

projection, recreating the colour. This is the original notebook of my

grandfather, with a lot of technical description and some eventually

document, like with free pictures in colour. It is a kind of eccentric

Renaissance man. I like that it was a little bit like that also, I try

to be. And the more you learn the more you find this person extremely

attractive and quite fascinating. He left Russia shortly after the

revolution. He died in Paris in 1944. That's all from us this month.

I hope you will join me next month, IKEA at the British library. We will

have five extraordinary account of history through the eyes of the

people who were there. For now, from me and the rest of the team at

Witness, goodbye. Hello. This past week has seen some

really varied weather, but this weekend we will even out the

differences. We are all pretty much in the same