27 Years Ago in TIME

President Hu Jintao of CHINA, who travels to Washington next week, leads a country whose economic might is in many ways the legacy of Deng Xiaoping, the first top Communist Chinese leader to visit the U.S.

In Washington, where Kings, Prime Ministers and Presidents are routinely received with equanimity bordering on boredom, Teng's [sic] arrival provoked the keenest excitement. Not since Nikita Khrushchev flew in from Moscow to take a crack at detente 20 years ago has a state visit aroused so much exhilaration ... Teng's determination to modernize China's backward industry by the year 2000 led him to request tours of the advanced technology production lines for which U.S. industry is celebrated. During a 24-hr. swing through Georgia, he will visit the Ford Motor Co.'s assembly plant near Atlanta. His tour guide: Henry Ford II. Dinner that night at the mansion of Georgia Governor George Busbee will feature spinach souffle, thinly sliced veal and vanilla mousse--all foods especially selected for eaters unskilled in the use of a knife and fork. TIME, Feb. 5, 1979

Read the entire article at time.com/years