Were U.S. Allies in CIA Sights?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 15, 1999 | by Ralph De Toledano

Years ago, the Senate battled with the Red China lobby in the State Department about how far the United States would go to undermine Taiwan. Pretty far, it seems.

Fears and predictions of war in the Pacific were the daily diet of the media half way through the century. The Chinese Communists had taken time out from slaughtering millions of their own people and were threatening an invasion of the Republic of China on Taiwan, or ROC. With a good pair of binoculars, Red Chinese troops could be seen training near Amoy on the Communist-controlled mainland from the island of Quemoy, which the ROC had turned into a determined Gibraltar. The major political question, about which the Senate battled with the Red China lobby in the State Department, was: "How far will the United States go in defending Taiwan?" an ally and major trading partner and one of the first of the nations on the Pacific Rim moving into an era of unprecedented industrial development.

To the State Department, the success of President Chiang Kai-shek was anathema despite the fact that he steadily was bringing representative government and prosperity to Taiwan -- whose per-capita income was 40 to 50 times that of the Communist mainland. Most galling to the Red China lobby was the fact that the Republic of China on Taiwan had on its own, and with thanks, been the first beneficiary of U.S. foreign aid to declare that it would stand on its own feet and no longer needed the Yankee dollar.

It was at this point that the CIA, with tacit support from the State Department, decided, to impose its own kind of peace on the churning waters of the Taiwan Strait. Its solution was simple: Eliminate Chiang and Taiwan's will to resist the Communist onslaught would end. With Chiang out of the way, the Chinese Communists would be able to take Taiwan and the coastal islands of Quemoy and Matsu without firing more than a few shots. China thus would be united, and there would be no further threats of war in Asia into which the United States inevitably might be drawn.

So the CIA's great brains and subversion experts sat down at the drawing board on which, in later years, plans would be drawn for poisoning Fidel Castro or giving him a fatal case of hives. The plot to liquidate Chiang, a longtime U.S. ally was simplicity itself. The CIA earmarked $3 million for a mission to be led by a U.S. Army colonel. A team of CIA second-story men would accompany him, set up shop in Taipei and enlist disaffected Nationalists to do the job -- whether by bullet, knife or poison to be determined in the field.

The theory was that, with Chiang delivered to his ancestors, the Chinese Communists would become cognizant of their debt to Uncle Sam, and at least one phase of the Cold War would be ended. Or that is how the CIA figured it.

But conspiracy is a tricky business, and plots have a way of leaking.

Active at the time was Constantine Brown, a columnist for the Washington Star. Brown had more foreign-policy sources than any half-dozen columnists in Washington. Unlike some of his columnist colleagues, he also was an intrepid digger for facts. But when he had run down the story and was satisfied about to its accuracy, he realized that to write it would cause considerable mischief. Instead, he took it to Taiwan's Ambassador Tsiang, getting reassurances that it would not be made a public issue.

The ambassador passed on the information to Chiang, who listened calmly, thanked him and asked him to furnish such additional details of the plot as he could learn. Tsiang was taken aback: Didn't the president want him to make representations to the White House? No, said Chiang. Let them come here and set up their operations. This will give us a good idea of what traitors there may be in our midst. After the $3 million had been spent, largely into the pockets of Chiang's secret service, arrests would be made of the Chinese involved and the CIA team would be sent home quietly. Chiang would get the $3 million, the plot would have its teeth pulled and there would be no ruffling of diplomatic feathers.

The colonel and his men came home to the United States, the money gone, and probably received promotions at the CIA. The newspapers reported arrests of some low-ranking politicians and military men who, in lieu of Chiang, had joined their ancestors sooner than they expected. China-watchers read those stories and wondered what lay behind them, but we knew that the Chinese can be as the Sphinx so we simply filed the stories in our memories.

But newspapermen -- that's what we were at the time, and "journalist" was a term of ridicule -- never are totally discreet, and in their cups or their anecdotage they sometimes succumb to the temptation to talk or even to boast. And so Brown confided to a few of us. In my naivete, I found his account hard to believe. I might have taken the story to the CIA, but I never was popular in those quarters. I toyed with the idea of going to J. Edgar Hoover, who had no love for the CIA -- but he would have told me nothing.