Sidney Rittenberg

Sidney Rittenberg was an American journalist, scholar, and Chinese linguist who lived in China from 1944 to 1980. He worked closely with Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, and other leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Chinese Communist Revolution, staying with them at Yan'an. Working for the Xinhua News Agency and Radio Peking afterwards, much of his time in China was spent in long periods of solitary confinement. According to his book, The Man Who Stayed Behind, Rittenberg was the second American citizen to join the CCP, the first being Ma Haide.