Jiang Lin — back then a lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army and a military journalist who had a firsthand view of the decision-making behind closed doors — broke her silence in an interview with The Times in Beijing. She has since left China.

Details: She tells of being in the square as soldiers attacked, being injured and watching the wounded and the dead pour into the hospital. Her account sheds new light on how senior generals and military commanders tried to resist orders to use armed force, signing letters officially pushing back against martial law. One checked himself into a hospital.

Quotable: “How could fate suddenly turn so that you could use tanks and machine guns against ordinary people? To me, it was madness.”

Context: Authorities in Beijing still work to erase any traces of the massacre from history, resisting efforts to acknowledge that it was wrong and imprisoning former protest leaders and even parents of students and residents who were killed.