REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

The Spy Within: Larry Chin and China's Penetration of the CIA

Reviewed by Richard Desjardins

For several years, US and Canadian intelligence agencies have reported aggressive Chinese intelligence activities taking place on the North American continent. According to these reports, China has focused heavily upon acquiring Western technology as part of its larger focus on economic development. If it is no longer surprising to hear about these efforts, we should remember that it was not always so. If China is fast becoming the new strategic adversary, the Soviet Union held that position for nearly fifty years.

When the story of Larry Chin was first reported in the press in the early-1980s, it shed light on a Chinese ‘import’ with which the public was not familiar: Chinese espionage in the West. It was only a decade earlier that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had been recognized by Canada (1970) and the United States as the legitimate government of China. In large part because of its conscious policy of turning inward, China was largely an unknown entity to the rest of the world. In fact, much knowledge about China was based upon sketchy reports from refugees.

Tod Hoffman has made an important contribution to a subject that remains shrouded in secrecy and rumours. If China has made significant progress in ‘opening a window’ on its military, the domain of intelligence remains largely closed. Mr. Hoffman is providing us with a limited but very much needed account of Chinese intelligence practices.

Earlier accounts of Chinese intelligence activities took the form of ‘spy stories.’ French journalists Roger Faligot and Rémi Kauffer provided such a narrative in their biography of Chinese spy chief Kang Sheng. Another biography of Kang Sheng appeared shortly thereafter, purportedly based upon privileged access to Chinese government documents, thus lending this account greater credibility. However, these books failed to extract a textbook version of Chinese intelligence practices. Those interested had to wait until 1994, when Nicholas Eftimiades, a former CIA analyst, published what remains the only manual providing a description of China’s intelligence structure, including a description of its various agencies and their functions.

Most recently, various US agencies have begun paying closer attention to Chinese intelligence operations in the United States. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an agency established to explore all aspects of US-China relations, has revealed, in a recent annual report, extensive Chinese interest in American technology. Chinese intelligence has apparently been at the forefront of this effort. Reports of theft of US military technology have generally been fewer, and far between. During the Clinton Administration, there was the infamous case involving a native Taiwanese, scientist Wen Ho Lee, who had been suspected of providing nuclear technology secrets with respect to US missiles to the PRC. Lee, a US citizen, worked at the Los Alamos Laboratory. There is no doubt that the Chinese would be interested in acquiring American military technology. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is in the midst of a major transformation designed to bring it into the 21st Century.

Larry Chin’s story belongs to another era – that of the Cold War. Born in China in 1922, and educated in elite schools, Chin was not a natural supporter of the Chinese Communists. His interest appears to have had more nationalistic inclinations. He was drawn to assist the PRC as early as the Korean War (1950-1953), when he worked for the State Department and subsequently for the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), an agency closely linked to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and involved in the translation of foreign press reports, which included radio broadcasts.

Read more of this book review at NFCF

Lessons From Failed Cold War Spy Mission In China

I posted and commented on this story some six months ago - directly from the files of the CIA.  Go here: Two CIA prisoners in China, 1952-73.  Reflections in a Chinese Eye.  Though I've now read this story three times, the decision to again include it here is an easy one.  If you have not read it, I think that you will find it hugely interesting.  If this is your ssecond time around, you'll pick up facts that you might have missed on the first read.

Enjoy....

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Detail by painful detail, the CIA is coming to grips with one of the most devastating episodes in its history, a botched cloak-and-dagger flight into China that stole two decades of freedom from a pair of fresh-faced American operatives and cost the lives of their two pilots.

In opening up about the 1952 debacle, the CIA is finding ways to use it as a teaching tool. Mistakes of the past can serve as cautionary tales for today's spies and paramilitary officers taking on al-Qaida and other terrorist targets.

At the center of the story are two eager CIA paramilitary officers on their first overseas assignment, John T. Downey of New Britain, Conn., and Richard G. Fecteau, of Lynn, Mass., whose plane was shot from the night sky in a Chinese ambush.

The mission was quickly smothered in U.S. government denials, sealed in official secrecy and consigned to the darkest corner of the spy agency's vault of unpleasant affairs.

Downey was the youngest of the four. At 22, with one year of CIA service, he was destined to spend the next 20 years, three months and 14 days in Chinese prisons. His CIA partner, Fecteau, was 25. He was behind bars for 19 years and 14 days.

Both survived. Their pilots, Robert C. Snoddy, 31, a native of Roseburg, Ore., and 29-year-old Norman A. Schwartz of Louisville, Ky., did not.

Bits and pieces of the story surfaced over the years. But the lid was largely intact until a series of disclosures - some required of the CIA, some not - revealed a tale of tragedy, miscalculation, misery and personal triumph, as well as the agency's misplaced confidence it could manipulate events in China.

Three years ago, the CIA declassified an internal history of the affair. Now it's hired a filmmaker to produce an hourlong documentary. The CIA does not plan to release the film publicly. But the agency premiered it for employees on Tuesday at its Langley, Va., headquarters, and an AP reporter attended.

Downey and Fecteau declined through CIA officials to be interviewed for this story. They attended the film screening and were flooded with applause and agency autograph seekers.

Their tale forms part of the backdrop to today's uneasy U.S.-China relationship, especially Beijing's anger over American military support for China's anti-communist rivals on Taiwan.

In the early years of the Cold War, the CIA had a rudimentary paramilitary force - those with specialized skills to conduct high-risk, behind-the-lines operations.

Downey and Fecteau were assigned to a covert program called "Third Force," intended to create a resistance network. Small teams of noncommunist Chinese exiles were airdropped into the Manchuria area of China to link up with disaffected communist generals.

The goal was to destabilize Mao Zedong's new government and distract it from the Korean War, which Chinese forces had entered two years earlier.

The plan failed - badly.

Read more atCBS News