Chinese activist says he wants to go to U.S.

The Chinese activist who left the refuge of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said Thursday that he regrets the move and now wants U.S. officials to help get him and his family to the United States.
"I want them to protect human rights through concrete actions," Chen Guangcheng told CNN from his hospital room in Beijing. "We are in danger. If you can talk to Hillary, I hope she can help my whole family leave China."
Chen was referring to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived Wednesday for trade talks and found herself in the middle of a diplomatic firestorm.
U.S. officials in Beijing said Thursday they would do what they can to help Chen, but stressed that the decision to leave the embassy was his own.
 Chen says U.S. government let him down
"I can tell you unequivocally that he was never pressured to leave," the U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke, said at a briefing with reporters. "He was excited and eager about leaving."
 Senior U.S. official on Chen Guangcheng
The United States will do what it can to help Chen and his family leave China if that is what they want to do, a senior U.S. State Department official said.
Last month, the 40-year-old blind, self-taught lawyer escaped house arrest in the eastern China province of Shandong and fled to Beijing, where he took refuge in the embassy for six days but left Wednesday for a hospital.