Zhang Hanzhi, an elegant Chinese diplomat who was Mao Zedong's English tutor and U.S. President Richard Nixon's interpreter during his historic 1972 trip to China, has died. She was 72.

The Zhang family remained good friends with Mao and in 1963, Zhang Hanzhi, 28, lecturer at Beijing Foreign Studies University, was invited at Mao's 70th birthday to be his English tutor.