JOAN HINTON CHECKS MILKING EQUIPMENT AT A DAIRY FARM IN BEIJING, 1998-06-21 (photo)

American Joan Hinton, 76, checks milking equipment at a dairy farm in Beijing. Joan, from Vermont, was an atomic physicist who helped build the atomic bomb in the U.S. but she quit and went to China to work as a farmer in the 1940s when Washington dropped the bombs on Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Joan married fellow American Sid Engst, a farmer from Gooseville Corners in upstate New York, in Hunan province in 1949 - the founding year of the People's Republic of China. The two veteran communists said they were glad U.S. President Bill Clinton will be visiting China this month to improve Sino-U.S. relationship but disillusioned to see China abandon Maoism. Picture taken 15JUN98. ASW/TAN