Sidney Rittenberg has known every Chinese leader: Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the notorious Gang of Four, Deng Xiaoping, and the present president and premier.

The Army trained Mr. Rittenberg in Chinese Studies during World War II, and sent him to China. He later joined the UN Relief Program, met and formed a friendship with Zhou Enlai, and in 1946 accepted the invitation to help train Chinese journalists working in English. He became a leading translator for the works of Mao Zedong, and was the only American citizen accepted into the Chinese Communist Party, until the Cultural Revolution.

In China, Mr. Rittenberg found Yulin, his dream girl and lifetime partner; she has been for 48 years the source of his happiness and the strength behind his achievements.

Sixteen of Rittenberg's 35 years in China were spent as a prisoner in solitary confinement on charges of being an American spy. He was freed in 1977 and declared a true friend of China. His family became a myth and a legend, giving them easy entrée to China's leaders ­ a great advantage for their consulting work.

As consultants, Mr. Rittenberg and Yulin have helped clients such as Intel, Nextel, Levi Strauss, Teledesic, and ICO, as well as CBS's Dan Rather and Mr. Rittenberg's close friends, Mike Wallace and the Reverend Billy Graham.

Mr. Rittenberg has appeared on virtually every major TV and radio comment program, and frequently gives seminars on the China business. He has been a professor of History at the University of North Carolina, where an endowed chair has been announced in his honor. He is currently a visiting professor of China Studies at Pacific Lutheran University.

Mr. Rittenberg's 35 years in China are chronicled in The Man Who Stayed Behind, a book he co-authored with senior Wall Street Journal writer Amanda Bennett.