The World Was Going Our Way (50 page)
Read The World Was Going Our Way Online
Authors: Christopher Andrew
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #True Accounts, #Espionage, #History, #Europe, #Ireland, #Military, #Intelligence & Espionage, #Modern (16th-21st Centuries), #20th Century, #Russia, #World
In April 1968 the Politburo also approved a further reinforcement of Soviet forces along its 4,000-mile frontier with China, the longest armed border in the world.
38
About one third of Soviet military power was eventually deployed against the PRC.
39
Mao, Moscow feared, was intent on regaining large tracts of territory ceded to Tsarist Russia under the ‘unequal treaties’ of the nineteenth century.
40
During 1969 there were a series of armed clashes along the border. The first, on a remote stretch of the Ussuri river 250 miles from Vladivostok, does not seem to have been planned by either Beijing or Moscow. The trouble began when soldiers on the Chinese side of the river, offended by the allegedly aggressive behaviour of a Soviet lieutenant on the opposite bank, turned their backs, dropped their trousers and ‘mooned’ at the Soviet border guards. During the next ‘mooning’ episode, the Soviet soldiers held up pictures of Mao, thus leading the Chinese troops inadvertently to show grave disrespect to the sacred image of the Great Helmsman. These and other episodes led on 2 March to the Chinese ambush of a Soviet patrol on the small, disputed island of Damansky in the Ussuri river.
41
Twenty-three of the patrol were killed. Both Moscow and Beijing responded with a furious denunciation of the other. This was the first occasion on which either side had reported an armed clash along the border. On 7 March a reported 100,000 Muscovites attacked the Chinese embassy and smashed its windows. Not to be outdone, Beijing Radio claimed that 400 million Chinese, half the country’s population, had taken part in protest demonstrations.
42
38
About one third of Soviet military power was eventually deployed against the PRC.
39
Mao, Moscow feared, was intent on regaining large tracts of territory ceded to Tsarist Russia under the ‘unequal treaties’ of the nineteenth century.
40
During 1969 there were a series of armed clashes along the border. The first, on a remote stretch of the Ussuri river 250 miles from Vladivostok, does not seem to have been planned by either Beijing or Moscow. The trouble began when soldiers on the Chinese side of the river, offended by the allegedly aggressive behaviour of a Soviet lieutenant on the opposite bank, turned their backs, dropped their trousers and ‘mooned’ at the Soviet border guards. During the next ‘mooning’ episode, the Soviet soldiers held up pictures of Mao, thus leading the Chinese troops inadvertently to show grave disrespect to the sacred image of the Great Helmsman. These and other episodes led on 2 March to the Chinese ambush of a Soviet patrol on the small, disputed island of Damansky in the Ussuri river.
41
Twenty-three of the patrol were killed. Both Moscow and Beijing responded with a furious denunciation of the other. This was the first occasion on which either side had reported an armed clash along the border. On 7 March a reported 100,000 Muscovites attacked the Chinese embassy and smashed its windows. Not to be outdone, Beijing Radio claimed that 400 million Chinese, half the country’s population, had taken part in protest demonstrations.
42
In mid-April 1969 there was fighting 2,500 miles farther west on the Kazakh-XUAR border, followed by further sporadic clashes in the same area over the next four months. Henry Kissinger, recently appointed as President Nixon’s National Security Advisor, was originally inclined to accept Soviet claims that these clashes were started by the Chinese. When he looked at a detailed map of the frontier region, however, he changed his mind. Since the clashes occurred close to Soviet railheads and several hundred miles from any Chinese railway, Kissinger concluded that ‘Chinese leaders would not have picked such an unpropitious spot to attack’.
43
His conclusion that Soviet forces were the aggressors is strengthened by the evidence in KGB files. On 4 June two KGB agents in the VTNRP, codenamed NARIMAN and TALAN, both based in Kazakhstan, crossed secretly into the XUAR to make contact with the underground Party leadership. On their return on 9 July, they reported, probably with considerable exaggeration, that the VTNRP had 70,000 members and a Presidium of forty-one (ten of whom were ‘candidate’, non-voting members). But it had not been a wholly successful mission. Within a few days of their arrival in the XUAR, the agents’ automatic weapons and radio telephones had been stolen by TALAN’s relatives. NARIMAN and TALAN also explained that they had been unable to set up a dead letter-box in an agreed location because of the presence of nomadic herdsmen. They reported that many former members of the VTNRP Presidium were in prison. The Mongolian security service concluded that the VTNRP was not ready for ‘active operations’ but should concentrate instead on strengthening its underground organization. Though Mitrokhin’s notes do not record the Centre’s assessment, it must surely have reached the same conclusion.
44
43
His conclusion that Soviet forces were the aggressors is strengthened by the evidence in KGB files. On 4 June two KGB agents in the VTNRP, codenamed NARIMAN and TALAN, both based in Kazakhstan, crossed secretly into the XUAR to make contact with the underground Party leadership. On their return on 9 July, they reported, probably with considerable exaggeration, that the VTNRP had 70,000 members and a Presidium of forty-one (ten of whom were ‘candidate’, non-voting members). But it had not been a wholly successful mission. Within a few days of their arrival in the XUAR, the agents’ automatic weapons and radio telephones had been stolen by TALAN’s relatives. NARIMAN and TALAN also explained that they had been unable to set up a dead letter-box in an agreed location because of the presence of nomadic herdsmen. They reported that many former members of the VTNRP Presidium were in prison. The Mongolian security service concluded that the VTNRP was not ready for ‘active operations’ but should concentrate instead on strengthening its underground organization. Though Mitrokhin’s notes do not record the Centre’s assessment, it must surely have reached the same conclusion.
44
In August and September Moscow began sounding out both Washington and European Communist parties on their reaction to the possibility of a Soviet pre-emptive strike against Chinese nuclear installations before they were able to threaten the Soviet Union. A series of articles in the Western press by a journalist co-opted by the KGB, Victor Louis (born Vitali Yevgenyevich Lui), mentioned the possibility of a Soviet air strike against the Lop Nor nuclear test site in the XUAR. Louis claimed that a clandestine radio station in the PRC had revealed the existence of anti-Mao forces (probably a reference to the XUAR) which might ask other socialist countries for ‘fraternal help’. Even the KGB officers who spread such rumours were uncertain whether they were engaged simply in an active measure designed to intimidate the Chinese or warning the West of proposals under serious consideration by the Soviet general staff. In retrospect, the whole exercise looks more like an active-measures campaign.
45
Though the Soviet Defence Minister, Marshal Andrei Grechko, appears to have proposed a plan to ‘get rid of the Chinese threat once and for all’, most of his Politburo colleagues were not prepared to take the risk.
46
45
Though the Soviet Defence Minister, Marshal Andrei Grechko, appears to have proposed a plan to ‘get rid of the Chinese threat once and for all’, most of his Politburo colleagues were not prepared to take the risk.
46
As a result of the lack of any high-level Soviet intelligence source in Beijing, Moscow seems to have been unaware of the dramatic secret response by Mao to its campaign of intimidation after the border clashes. Mao set up a study group of four marshals whom he instructed to undertake a radical review of Chinese relations with the Soviet Union and the United States. Marshals Chen Yi and Ye Jianying made the unprecedented proposal that the PRC respond to the Soviet threat by playing ‘the United States card’ .
47
Fear of a pre-emptive Soviet strike seems to have been a major reason for the Chinese decision to enter the secret talks with the United States which led to Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972 and a Sino-American
rapprochement
which only a few years earlier would have seemed inconceivable.
48
During Nixon’s visit, Kissinger gave Marshal Ye Jianying an intelligence briefing on Soviet force deployments at the Chinese border which, he told him, was so highly classified that even many senior US intelligence officials had not had access to it.
49
47
Fear of a pre-emptive Soviet strike seems to have been a major reason for the Chinese decision to enter the secret talks with the United States which led to Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972 and a Sino-American
rapprochement
which only a few years earlier would have seemed inconceivable.
48
During Nixon’s visit, Kissinger gave Marshal Ye Jianying an intelligence briefing on Soviet force deployments at the Chinese border which, he told him, was so highly classified that even many senior US intelligence officials had not had access to it.
49
There was prolonged discussion in the Centre in the early 1970s as to whether the PRC now qualified for the title ‘Main Adversary’, hitherto applied exclusively to the United States. In the end it was relegated in official KGB jargon to the status of ‘Major Adversary’, with the United States retaining its unique ‘Main Adversary’ status.
50
For China, by contrast, it was clear that the Soviet Union had become the Main Adversary. Mao’s suspicions of Moscow deepened as reports began to reach him of a plot by his heir apparent, Lin Biao. By the summer of 1970, according to his doctor, Li Zhisui, ‘Mao’s paranoia was in full bloom.’ Li was afraid even to tell Mao that he had pneumonia for fear of being accused of being part of Lin Biao’s conspiracy. ‘Lin Biao wants my lungs to rot,’ Mao told him. In August 1971 Mao was told that Lin’s son had set up a ‘secret spy organization in the air force’ to prepare a coup. On the evening of 12 September Mao was informed that Lin Biao had fled by air from Shanhaiguan airport. Li noted that ‘Mao’s face collapsed at the news.’ Lin’s plane had taken off with such haste that it had not been properly fuelled and had no navigator, radio operator or co-pilot on board. It was also clear, since the aircraft had struck a fuel truck during the take-off and lost part of its landing gear, that it would have difficulty landing. As Chinese radar tracked Lin’s plane, it first flew west across Inner Mongolia, then turned abruptly north across the frontier of the Mongolian People’s Republic in the direction of the Soviet Union. Next day Mao received news that the plane had crashed before it reached the Soviet border, killing all on board.
51
Had the aircraft reached the Soviet Union, the public quarrel between Beijing and Moscow would doubtless have scaled new heights of hysteria. Even after the crash, there were Chinese charges of Soviet complicity in Lin Biao’s treason.
52
Mao never admitted that the Cultural Revolution had been a disastrous mistake. ‘But’, according to Li, ‘Lin Biao’s perfidy convinced him that he needed to change his strategy. He put Zhou Enlai in charge of rehabilitating many of the leaders who had been overthrown.’
53
50
For China, by contrast, it was clear that the Soviet Union had become the Main Adversary. Mao’s suspicions of Moscow deepened as reports began to reach him of a plot by his heir apparent, Lin Biao. By the summer of 1970, according to his doctor, Li Zhisui, ‘Mao’s paranoia was in full bloom.’ Li was afraid even to tell Mao that he had pneumonia for fear of being accused of being part of Lin Biao’s conspiracy. ‘Lin Biao wants my lungs to rot,’ Mao told him. In August 1971 Mao was told that Lin’s son had set up a ‘secret spy organization in the air force’ to prepare a coup. On the evening of 12 September Mao was informed that Lin Biao had fled by air from Shanhaiguan airport. Li noted that ‘Mao’s face collapsed at the news.’ Lin’s plane had taken off with such haste that it had not been properly fuelled and had no navigator, radio operator or co-pilot on board. It was also clear, since the aircraft had struck a fuel truck during the take-off and lost part of its landing gear, that it would have difficulty landing. As Chinese radar tracked Lin’s plane, it first flew west across Inner Mongolia, then turned abruptly north across the frontier of the Mongolian People’s Republic in the direction of the Soviet Union. Next day Mao received news that the plane had crashed before it reached the Soviet border, killing all on board.
51
Had the aircraft reached the Soviet Union, the public quarrel between Beijing and Moscow would doubtless have scaled new heights of hysteria. Even after the crash, there were Chinese charges of Soviet complicity in Lin Biao’s treason.
52
Mao never admitted that the Cultural Revolution had been a disastrous mistake. ‘But’, according to Li, ‘Lin Biao’s perfidy convinced him that he needed to change his strategy. He put Zhou Enlai in charge of rehabilitating many of the leaders who had been overthrown.’
53
For the remainder of the Soviet era the KGB sought, without much apparent success, to compensate for its inability to penetrate the government in Beijing by two other strategies: cross-border agent infiltration, particularly from Kazakhstan to the XUAR, and the penetration of PRC groups outside China. In 1969 the Kazakhstan KGB was given an additional fifty-five operations officers, followed by another eighty-one in 1970.
54
To assemble an appropriate wardrobe for KGB agents, clothes were taken from Chinese refugees crossing the Kazakhstan border.
55
In 1970 operation ALGA, mounted by the Kazakhstan KGB in collaboration with ‘special actions’ officers from the Centre, set out to create a sabotage base in the XUAR with caches to conceal arms and explosives. After a preliminary cross-border expedition by two agents ran into difficulty, however, the operation was suspended as premature and plans to infiltrate an armed group of seven or eight refugees back into the XUAR were cancelled.
56
54
To assemble an appropriate wardrobe for KGB agents, clothes were taken from Chinese refugees crossing the Kazakhstan border.
55
In 1970 operation ALGA, mounted by the Kazakhstan KGB in collaboration with ‘special actions’ officers from the Centre, set out to create a sabotage base in the XUAR with caches to conceal arms and explosives. After a preliminary cross-border expedition by two agents ran into difficulty, however, the operation was suspended as premature and plans to infiltrate an armed group of seven or eight refugees back into the XUAR were cancelled.
56
Over the next few years there were a series of other failed penetrations. Among them was the Chinese refugee MITOU, former head of the Department of Chinese Literature at a technical institute, who had fled to the Soviet Union in 1968 at the height of the Cultural Revolution when centres of higher education were closed for several years. After being recruited as a KGB agent and trained in the use of dead letter-boxes (DLBs), radio communication, ciphers and photography, he was smuggled into the XUAR across the Mongolian frontier in August 1971. Though MITOU collected money and food coupons which had been left for him in a DLB, no more was heard from him. His file concludes that he was probably too frightened to carry on working as an agent.
57
LIVENTSOV was another Chinese agent infiltrated into the XUAR through Mongolia. In 1972 he was used for operation STRELA which was intended to carry out visual reconnaissance of nuclear and defence industry plants. He was taught to distinguish different kinds of smoke and effluents from factory chimneys, take soil and water samples and make careful notes of what he observed. As in the case of MITOU, however, LIVENTSOV’s deployment ended in complete failure.
58
57
LIVENTSOV was another Chinese agent infiltrated into the XUAR through Mongolia. In 1972 he was used for operation STRELA which was intended to carry out visual reconnaissance of nuclear and defence industry plants. He was taught to distinguish different kinds of smoke and effluents from factory chimneys, take soil and water samples and make careful notes of what he observed. As in the case of MITOU, however, LIVENTSOV’s deployment ended in complete failure.
58
Probably because of the high failure rate among Chinese agents infiltrated over the border, the KGB devised an unusual method of testing their reliability under operational conditions. In operation ZENIT the agents being tested were told they would be crossing the Chinese border in an area near the Ussuri river first to locate a DLB and replace a malfunctioning radio which had been left in it with a working model, then to meet an agent operating inside China at a pre-arranged location in order to pass on instructions. The agents being tested, however, were unaware that the area where they were carrying out these operations was actually inside the Soviet Union and that they were being closely observed from surveillance posts equipped with night-vision equipment and tape recorders. ZENIT was one of five border zones in which similar tests took place. In 1974 sixty-six agents were put through their paces; in 1975 their number rose to 107.
59
In addition to sending agents on foot across remote areas of China’s northern borders, the KGB also investigated two other methods of infiltration: by sea using inflatable dinghies which could be hidden after landing and, more ingeniously, by concealing an agent in the ventilation pipe of the mail carriages of trains crossing the Chinese border. The latter method was thought to be practicable only in summer because of the danger in winter that the agent would freeze to death.
60
The files seen by Mitrokhin do not make clear whether either of these methods was actually used.
59
In addition to sending agents on foot across remote areas of China’s northern borders, the KGB also investigated two other methods of infiltration: by sea using inflatable dinghies which could be hidden after landing and, more ingeniously, by concealing an agent in the ventilation pipe of the mail carriages of trains crossing the Chinese border. The latter method was thought to be practicable only in summer because of the danger in winter that the agent would freeze to death.
60
The files seen by Mitrokhin do not make clear whether either of these methods was actually used.
Operational conditions in the PRC were simply too difficult for cross-border infiltration by any route to achieve significant success. As Jung Chang was later to write in
Wild Swans
, ‘The whole of China was like a prison. Every house, every street was watched by the people themselves. In this vast land there was nowhere to hide.’
61
Strangers and strange behaviour quickly aroused suspicion. A Chinese agent smuggled across the Amur river in the Soviet Far East after a ten-year absence from the PRC discovered that the cigarettes he had been given to take with him were now available only in hard-currency shops reserved for foreigners. He made the further mistake, when out of cigarettes, of asking strangers for a smoke - a habit he had picked up in the Soviet Union which immediately attracted attention in the PRC. Having become accustomed to the metric system, the agent also ran into difficulties with Chinese weights and measures and found himself hesitating in mid-sentence while he attempted the necessary mental arithmetic. Even asking for directions caused problems. In Russia he had learned to think in terms of ‘left’ and ‘right’, instead of referring to points of the compass as was usual in China. On one occasion, when told that the entrance to an eating place was the south door, he asked where the south door was - only to be informed that it was opposite the north door.
62
Wild Swans
, ‘The whole of China was like a prison. Every house, every street was watched by the people themselves. In this vast land there was nowhere to hide.’
61
Strangers and strange behaviour quickly aroused suspicion. A Chinese agent smuggled across the Amur river in the Soviet Far East after a ten-year absence from the PRC discovered that the cigarettes he had been given to take with him were now available only in hard-currency shops reserved for foreigners. He made the further mistake, when out of cigarettes, of asking strangers for a smoke - a habit he had picked up in the Soviet Union which immediately attracted attention in the PRC. Having become accustomed to the metric system, the agent also ran into difficulties with Chinese weights and measures and found himself hesitating in mid-sentence while he attempted the necessary mental arithmetic. Even asking for directions caused problems. In Russia he had learned to think in terms of ‘left’ and ‘right’, instead of referring to points of the compass as was usual in China. On one occasion, when told that the entrance to an eating place was the south door, he asked where the south door was - only to be informed that it was opposite the north door.
62
Probably late in 1973 the Centre sent a directive to residencies around the world entitled ‘Measures designed to improve work against China from third countries’ during the period 1974-78. Residencies were instructed to cultivate PRC citizens living abroad, as well as members of the Chinese diaspora, Taiwanese citizens and foreigners with contacts in the PRC. They were also told to penetrate Maoist groups and centres of Chinese studies, to plant ‘operational devices’ (bugs) on appropriate cultivation targets, identify active-measures channels and report on agents who could be sent on missions to the PRC.
63
The KGB residency in Prague reported in 1975 that it was using thirty agents to cultivate the Chinese embassy. Of seventy-two Czechoslovak citizens who attended a reception at the embassy in October 1975 to mark the anniversary of the foundation of the PR C, twenty-three were agents of the KGB or the Czechoslovak StB.
64
There is no evidence in any of the files noted by Mitrokhin that either this or any similar cultivation achieved any significant results. Most Chinese embassies appear to have proved as difficult targets as the PRC itself.
63
The KGB residency in Prague reported in 1975 that it was using thirty agents to cultivate the Chinese embassy. Of seventy-two Czechoslovak citizens who attended a reception at the embassy in October 1975 to mark the anniversary of the foundation of the PR C, twenty-three were agents of the KGB or the Czechoslovak StB.
64
There is no evidence in any of the files noted by Mitrokhin that either this or any similar cultivation achieved any significant results. Most Chinese embassies appear to have proved as difficult targets as the PRC itself.
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