sunday. chris, we talk a lot about the unknowns in political campaigns and a week ago, i don t think we knew the name chen guangcheng and now, this is huge. and they are saying this is the big of the showdown between the united states and china since back in 2001 when they captured that reconnaissance plane. is it your sense, chris, the president knew this, or was he surprised how big this mushroomed? chris: we do not have any sense what the president specifically knew but, clearly, the administration and particularly the united states embassy in beijing seems to have been somewhat surprised by it and, obviously, from their point, difficult, sensitive coincidence of this happening just as clinton and treasury secretary geithner everyone arriving in beijing. the caveat that mike raised at the end of the piece was appropriate. all the chinese foreign ministry said is he can apply like any
attack. but the u.s. ambassador to china, gary locke, says chen was never pressured to leave that united states embassy in beijing. suddenly he jumped up and said, let s go. before we got in the van i asked him again, is this what you really want to do? do you want to leave the embassy? are you ready to go? and he said, yes. as i said, chen has now changed his mind on that. he also told the associated press, did chen, that u.s. diplomats have been blocked from seeing him for two days, adding that his calls to american officials are cut off after just a few sentences. stay tuned to this one. just days after the one-year anniversary of the death of osama bin laden, documents retrieved by the navy s.e.a.l.s who stormed his compound in pakistan are being released to the public. the information shows a terror group split on strategy, and an aging leader struggling to keep control. nbc s chief pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski has more from washington. reporter: holed up in h
allowing him to live in china. and there is no indication he wants to come to the united states. as for the precise location, the human rights activists say he is not united states embassy in beijing but the u.s. government will neither confirm or deny that. the president assembly refused to talk generally about human rights at the resolution conference with the japanese li emphasizeer a short time ago. every time we meet with china the issue of human rights comes up. it is our believe it is the right thing to do because it comports with our principle our belief in freedom and human rights and because we actually think china will be stronger. as it opens up and liberalizes their system.
unfolding diplomatic crisis. and why do women only make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men? i m wolf blitzer, you re in the situation room. tomorrow marks one year since the u.s. mission that killed osama bin laden and today the terror leader s name is popping up out there on the campaign trail. the romney and obama campaigns are each trying to paint their candidate as the toughest, but for team romney, it s a built of an uphill battle right now. our national political correspondent jim acosta is watching all this unfold. what s going on in this fight? for months, mitt romney has been on offensive. he in this debate over the killing of osama bin laden, romney has been on defense, just the way the president wants it. as mitt romney was shaking hands in new hampshire, he was asked the question, he had given the same order to kill osama bin laden. even jimmy carter would have given that order. cnn breaking news. tonight i can report to the american people a
called were in this order george walker bush and then bill clinton because he knew at some level both men had tried to actually kill bin laden and had been unable to do it. reporter: public reaction a year ago may not have been as solemn as the phone calls sound. it is nonetheless true that bin laden s death was greeted then across party lines as a matter of justice, not politics. candy crowley, cnn, washington. top of the hour. i m suzanne malveaux. want to get you up to speed. a witness to robert kennedy s assassination says there was a second gunman. nina says her claim was overlooked back in 1968 and that someone altered the testimony she gave. but she remembers it vividly. i can hear the rhythm of the gunshots in my head, and i know first i thought it was flash bulbs. it was pop, pop and then pop, pop, pop, very rapid fire to my right in back of senator kennedy. convicted assassin sirhan sirhan is asking a court to release him from prison or give him a new tria