A Friendly Call from Chiang Ching-kuo
Roche, John P.
John P. Roche A Friendly Call from Chiang Ching-kuo A speculative account of two Kremlin conversations following President Carter's China initiative. LOCATION: Situation Room, the Kremlin TIME:...
...But when Brezhnev gives him the cold eye, he goes off to see his doctor...
...Jung Jing did go to school together, they could have a warm-up chat while we sober up somebody above the rank of deputy assistant secretary of the Politburo...
...He'd have taught him manners...
...Oh, here's the slip: The call came from Taipei, but the name is hard to read...
...For...
...Brezhnev: Wise bastard-too bad the Old Man didn't catch up with him...
...If you wish, I'll assign someone to full-time liaison with your Far Eastern Intelligence Bureau...
...And I'm overdue for another star...
...We have no voice-coding facilities on Taiwan so Suslov's talk by now is probably a poster in that Peking Square...
...You know how inscrutable those Asians are...
...Utsinov: When I need your help, I'll let you'know...
...Another one of those CIA gags...
...Next to page 14 and repeat...
...Speaks perfect Russian...
...The one-time scrambler has the same advantage...
...Andropov will love to stick it to the GRU...
...So we got shafted-all because Gorshkov and his admirals wanted to hang onto some crazy islands you can't find on a map without a microscope...
...He says the Americans have been pawning off antiques on his air force...
...Right now I'd like to hear what Comrade Suslov heard from his old girl friend and her husband...
...Taipei:, you nitwit, happens to be the capital of the so-called "Republic of China" on Formosa, or whatever they call it now...
...In a word, he wants protection and a guarantee against Soviet-inspired destabilization...
...He also inquired whether, since Egypt gave some 23s to Peking, we would not like Peking diverted from a one-front operation against us...
...Jung, Jing, Whoa" ? What else did he say...
...Suslov: I was amused to hear Utsinov refer to inscrutable Asians...
...Min.: What about the Old Man...
...And Colonel Ivan Ivanovich is not a "lazy TASS bastard...
...To over-simplify, suppose I said to you, "I will signal you by numbers based on page, line, word...
...No problem: Suslov is off in a corner thinking deep thoughts and worrying about his lungs...
...We were all responsible for the decision to hold the Kuriles-Admiral Gorshkov was very persuasive and our intelligence on Japanese intentions was clearly defective-or at least inadequate...
...LOCATION: Chairman Leonid I. Brezhnev's Conference Room TIME: Same day, evening CAST: Brezhnev...
...Brezhnev: I take it, comrades, we have enough information in hand to make a preliminary assessment of the Taiwan development...
...Wait a minute...
...It's around noon out there-no, 11 a.m.-and here we've got to dig somebody out of bed at five in the morning, and a Sunday morning at that...
...Suslov: Congratulations on your toys, Andropov, but aren't we getting carried away by marginalia...
...This is a serious failure in communications discipline...
...Laughter] And we should be prepared to engage immediately in back-channel discussions with these Chinese...
...LOCATION: Situation Room, the Kremlin TIME: Mid-December 1978 CAST: Duty Officer (Junior Grade), Foreign Ministry...
...Brezhnev: What book...
...There could be more than meets the ear, so to speak...
...that would start them searching for tonal patterns...
...Said he had extremely important "matters of state" to discuss with the Old Man...
...To summarize, I take it we look with great interest on this demarche by President Jung Jing of the Republic of China...
...Suslov...
...Six months ago Andrei was sitting right where you are telling us flatly the Japs would never dare sign on with Peking, that they would resist the anti-hegemony clause...
...Brezhnev: Sort that out later...
...Brezhnev: Let's not hear a rerun of that tape...
...The American computers must be having fits...
...Brezhnev...
...Brezhnev: That's intriguing, but I don't quite understand...
...Hell, one of our people was Foreign Minister of Chile, and if Philby had steered clear of those damned fags, he'd be head of British intelligence...
...Brezhnev...
...KGB: Considering what you talk about, it would hardly be worth it...
...Of course, the Americans have it too and must have recognized it in action, but they can't even get a clean voice-print from it...
...Yuri, arrange for me to have a conversation with President Jung Jing tomorrow...
...But, Suslov, to continue Utsinov's line of inquiry, which is much more profitable than crying over spilt vodka, what does Jung Jing want...
...He even made the pun in Russian...
...Did he say anything about diplomatic relations, recognition, the UN...
...But so were those Ethiopians until a year or two ago...
...Utsinov...
...Brezhnev...
...And what has probably screwed up their spooks is the assumption the conversation was in Chinese...
...It might be worth it to have one blow his cover: He's been the darling of the CIA for 15 years and it would lead to a full freeze in their Far Eastern Division while they did a damage assessment...
...He said he was once an alternative member of the CPSU but Stalin booted him out, adding that Stalin was a very evil man...
...Sorry, Comrade Suslov, but we had to tune in to make sure no technical difficulties arose...
...Comrade, comrade, we need no discussion of Stalin's sense of humor...
...Marshal Utsinov, Minister of Defense...
...Min.: Sorry, I didn't mean to be sarcastic...
...Min.: I didn't check the log-I thought it was a joke-but I'll have it run down in a minute...
...Suslov writes a tough game...
...Andropov: The Tokyo resident has been shipped to Upper Volta and we have wholly reorganized our Tokyo apparat...
...Of course, I would have told you but assumed your GRU sources would keep you fully in the picture...
...President Chiang Ching-kuo, renegade Communist, educated in Soviet Union, returned to China with Russian wife after 12 years...
...With Gromyko off playing games with the Americans, it must have fallen through the slats at the Foreign Ministry...
...and Suslov, Politburo member and senior theoretician of the CPSU...
...In this case we arranged for a leading Chinese businessman to provide President Jung Jing with the telephonic equivalent of a one-time pad, a scrambler good for one conversation only, and installed compatible equipment on our phones here...
...he is one of our ablest Far Eastern cadres...
...Let me sort them out...
...I've been on the African beat for three years and don't know my ass from my elbow about China, except that there are too damn many Chinks and they don't like us...
...But what's this about a Russian-speaking President of China...
...For...
...His father was Chiang Kai-shek who duped Stalin, but was secret Trotskyist-Bukharinite...
...Voronich would blow the whole caper sky-high, but our man in Hong Kong, Colonel Ivanovich, has deep cover as a "TASS" correspondent...
...Is it Jung Jing...
...But I still want to know why I was not...
...Can't your crowd ever secure our communications...
...It's cumbersome, but when you get a message, "23, 6, 8; 14, 2, 4; etc.," you look for page 23 of the book, then line 6, then the 8th word...
...A number of us encountered it firsthand...
...artificially created growth rate of 12 percent "...Good God...
...If I had been, I wouldn't be here...
...I remember in 1948...damn it, Suslov, your abstractionism is contagious...
...Ah, "China, Republic of (ROC...
...By the way, Utsinov, Jung Jing was not completely clear about the difference between the 23Es and Fs...
...You know, that has always struck me as one of his more eccentric tags: Trotsky and Bukharin were at opposite poles...
...Let's target a 10 a.m., our time, return call-you must have the number-and see if we have another recruit from the "Free World...
...Duty Officer (Senior Grade), KGB For...
...John P. Roche, a syndicated columnist and professor of civilization and foreign affairs at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, formerly served as a special consultant to President Johnson...
...He said that since the Americans, "inscrutable Americans," to be exact, felt Mig-23s in Cuba were not offensive weapons, Mig-23s in Taiwan could obviously cause no offense...
...I told him the Chairman was busy, but to try again in an hour...
...Meanwhile, we'll get in touch with a couple of moles we have in Jung Jing's intelligence apparat...
...Second, Comrade Utsinov's boys may have no facilities on Taiwan, but we do...
...God, they'll be hung over from here to Leningrad...
...However, the fact is Jung Jing is there, has the goods, and is prepared to tuck it to the Americans just the way they did it to him...
...Our own lines are clear...
...Yuri Andropov, Director of the KGB...
...In America, they may even have let Carter read it...
...I'll try to dry out Yuri and get him on an extension-as head of State Security, he should be in on this...
...I've got to hand it to those American spooks-a Russian-speaking "President of China...
...One of Jung Jing's pet phrases-he must have used it ten times-was "inscrutable Americans...
...Suslov: He dumped that one in our lap...
...You spot them after a while: I policed some pretty rough meetings under old Nikita, and just when the crunch came Mikoyan would vanish into the wallpaper...
...Maybe, as Mikoyan used to say, it's too bad everybody didn't catch up with everybody else when he was out of the country...
...Nobody else knows...
...Andropov: That's precisely the point...
...Before I leave we choose a book, same edition, etc...
...They'll be burning assets right and left, Brezhnev...
...What about Suslov...
...Now you'd think there had never been a Sino-Japanese war...
...He noted Hua and Teng could mop up Indochina in six months, but they can't walk on the water...
...Did he know the difference between Mig-23Es and Fs...
...China hasn't had a President since those lunatic hooligans drove old Liu nuts...
...I'm sure I met his wife in the early '30s-a beautiful young woman-and obviously Comrade Stalin was in one of his paranoid phases when he called them "Trotskyist-Bukharinites...
...Like the Armenian he's a survivor, not a competitor...
...Utsinov: Offhand, not a bad bargain...
...As is well known, Comrade Stalin took a dim view of friends of "Trotskyist-Bukharinites...
...Suslov: Or, turn it around...
...First, Jung Jing did know about the different configurations of the 23Es and Fs and wanted two squadrons of each for openers...
...Hell, it could be Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution or Nixon's Memoirs...
...it makes me nervous...
...I'll talk to Andrei about it as soon as he gets back from putting salt on Vance's tail...
...They would provide us with base facilities, sign a treaty of alliance, open up extensive trade, and retain the right to hang what he quaintly calls "their Stalinists...
...Min.: It was kind of funny...
...Let me look at the book...
...In a language where Chou is pronounced Joe and Teng, Dung, Jung Jing is close enough...
...Yuri, do you have a reliable man in that area...
...A bunch of imperialist stooges, if I recall the manual correctly...
...No problem, Comrade Chairman...
...He just says that Hua & Co...
...Also, without intruding into intelligence matters, was this delightful discussion conducted in clear, maybe to shake down the Americans...
...On a different level, Comrade Marshal Utsinov, he says the Republic of China has splendid technical facilities and some of the finest naval and air installations in Asia, well maintained by his former associates, and that Taiwan's strategic location would provide us with a real Asian bastion...
...If that was too sophisticated-he was a bit patronizing-we could send the Mongolian People's Republic out to do the job...
...If you will excuse a bit of abstractionism, he denounced the renegades Hua and Teng as raving Trotskyists, and said they were committed to permanent revolution, with Japan playing the role Trotsky assigned Germany, and in twenty years would be marching on what they call the "polar bears...
...Since his last T.B...
...But let's move on this...
...You know, he's right: They are "inscrutable...
...For...
...This is fascinating, but what does he want in return...
...have model 23s, and he's got nothing to match...
...It's too bad his old man didn't catch up with Mao, Choii, and the rest of those racist imperialists...
...Also, for my private information, what the hell is a "secret Trotskyist-Bukharinite'' ? KGB: What you and I may be if we don't get our asses in gear...
...his knowledge seemed to be based on American press accounts...
...In return, we would give them advanced military equipment, particularly aircraft...
...KGB: Drop that "Old Man" stuff-it gives my generation the jitters...
...That's enough: We'd better alert the upper echelons...
...For...
...attack, he's been off the white lightning, and if he and Mrs...
...KGB: Don't refer to Chairman Brezhnev as "the Old Man...
...Besides, we have a problem with Utsinov, who thinks his lousy military network is better than ours...
...By the way, the island they hold is called Taiwan...
...Is it actually impossible to unscramble the conversation ? Andropov: As I said, Comrade Chairman, it's like a cryptographer's one-time pad, a code used for only one message...
...They've done some dumb things before: If they'd provided the Angolan black nationalists with two gunships at the crucial moment, our crowd would be exiles sitting around Mozambique bitching and their boys would be in Luanda running Angola...
...Where was the call from...
...Utsinov: Perhaps they have some secret design-I've got my best people working on it-but there have been absolutely no indications that Carter & Co...
...16 million people...
...Andropov: The Defense Minister has raised a number of questions...
...And I wasn't her old boy friend...
...Perhaps it was an instance of Josef Vissariono-vich's perverse sense of humor, but then...
...plan, say, to provide Peking with a second-strike capacity-maybe half a dozen Polaris subs-so I'm inclined to suspect pure stupidity...
...It is funny in 1978 to hear someone ask for the same treatment we gave Kemal Atatiirk in the 1920s, but that was his analogy...
...Min,: That was a weird one, Boris Leontivich: some Chink calling in to talk with Chairman Brezhnev, says he is President of China...
...Write an essay about Stalin's sense of humor, but meanwhile, tell us what Jung Jing had to say...
...Why don't you check with that lazy "TASS" bastard in Hong Kong and see if he has any background...
...We obviously can't pull General Voronich from Hanoi...
...Utsinov: Comrade Chairman, I wish to note for the record that I was not informed of this amazing conversation until an hour ago...
...KGB: Listen, when you've been around here as long as I have, nothing will surprise you...
...You get to Suslov...
...It's Chiang Ching-kuo...
...Would he feel blind-sided if we put on Suslov...
...As Suslov noted, the term itself is a contradiction...
...Andropov...
...So-called Tree China,' established by Americans in 1949"...the usual uplifting crap...
...What did you tell them...
...Said his wife once dated Suslov- there's a laugh: Can't you see that sour-ass dating a Chink...
...Andropov: It was an accident, Comrade Marshal...
...He insisted on the recognition of the Republic of China, recognized the difficulties we might have with that, but suggested-he's a cagey old apparatchik-that maybe the Ukranian and Bylorussian sovereign states could recognize his Republic and propose membership in the UN...
...Suslov: In the plain language so beloved by you, Leonid Ilyich, and for that matter by your one-time friend Nikita Sergeyevich, he offered us the "Republic of China" on a platter...
...He could easily be sent to Taipei...
Vol. 12 • February 1979 • No. 2
