Notes from Tapes

Tape One

Starting to work with Poly.


I'd gotten away from the military in **** and went to work for Poly. I'd been in the military since 1978 and I'd spent **** year in a military academy in ******. I left because if I worked for Poly I'd get paid better. It was the place, the company, everyone wanted to get into. Before I quit the military services, I'd worked closely with individuals within Poly, on aircraft parts manufacture and importations. Like the ship-borne helicopter purchases, and the avionics and underwater software. Like sonar and acoustic hydronics.
I was in the technology department of the military, for the army, which controls the equipment of the airforce and the navy also. After I was in Beijing in 1985, and I didn't work for the military, but before that I worked in the military and was sent to Tibet.
The company is Poly Technologies, Inc., which was directly financed and controlled by the Army general staff. The individuals who worked for the company, through working with the company, I got to know them so well and I got to know everything about them. And how they were paid and what sorts of business scope that they were covering, and so of course I was interested. And so later on...their backgrounds, some of them had been transferred from the Army, some of them had been army officers and still were, but they dressed now in civilian clothes, and they worked now for the Company. Poly was such a famous institution, directly involved in the arms trade, both important export, of course, almost everyone involved in the world arms trade knows that company. It is the only company in China, that handles the military forces arms importation and exportation. They have their headquarters in Beijing in the CITIC Building. The tall building near the Jianguo Hotel. It used to be on the sixth floor of the building, but what is interesting is that after what happened in Tiananmen Square, because of the use of helicopters that our company purchased from France, and I don't recall the English name, because it was obviously a French name, the function that this helicopter performed at that time, they hovered over Tiananmen Square, and scattering pamphlets and that sort of thing, and that angered people, especially the students in the square, and it angered also the employees of companies that worked in the CITIC building, and they eventually stormed the building, the office, they questioned us, what kind of stupid company do you run here, who do you work for, you spend that kind of valuable hard currency which our country is short of and you bastards are spending the money on something like this. So later on, after that, to let our company be more secure, we moved to the seventeenth floor. No guards at the company door at that time.
The general manager of the company, use to be Wang Jung, the son of Wang Zhen, a very powerful person in the arms trade. Now the general manager is He Peng, a very powerful person in the arms trade. His wife is no longer involved in the business. He is not a general. And He Peng Fei, he was the director, now is the director of the general staff of armaments equipment department, that is a major general.
For these people, they had special privileges, but you had to be at the very top to have the special privileges. Now I was really small potatoes at the company, and began as a translator for the company, only, but later on I was promoted to a project manager. This special privileges were not granted to everyone, of course. These people that I mention by name, on the surface, of course, they didn't earn much more than we did. But actually, in reality, they had all the privileges and access to almost anything that they wanted to have. Like a car, and a nice apartment. They had several apartments for themselves, they wanted perhaps to sleep with one woman tonight and another woman on another night, dividing up night by night and they had those apartments at their disposal. And they had these apartments then at their disposal. While the other girls friends and the wife would have no idea where they spent the night before, naturally. If you look at...well, they had a lot of apartments. And they owned, virtually owned, one car. That was not a very luxurious car, of course, that people would point out. Not like a Rolls Royce, but it would be down a level to a Mercedes Benz. Now he might own one for himself, but he would have access to several others and they would be owned by the company. Now these were really powerful people. That is why arms trafficking in China is really so hard to control. We had special ;business rooms, negotiations ;rooms and business rooms for associations at the various good hotels in Beijing. And the advance reservations were guaranteed at the Beijing Hotel, the Jianguo, the Great Wall, the Sheraton. Poly used to have a permanent suite in the Beijing Hotel, but then it moved to the CITIC building.
How did you get the job. You didn't have to be a party member, that was absolutely not required. Sometimes we had rooms for business negotiations, and we had the advanced reservations for the big hotels, and so on. All the hotels. Our company has...once we had a permanent office we no longer had permanent suites. Then we moved to the CITIC building.
Getting the job. Once you had the party membership, of course, so much the better. But this, in nature, was a business company. This is a company that never worries about money. That is the significant distinction between our company and all the other business companies in China. Government owned companies. We never worried about making a profit. That was unnecessary. That is one of the reasons why I chose to come to the US to study. I really came to hate the company. This is, for example, they spent money almost randomly, just to spend it. For example, if we wished to purchase a wine glass, our job was never to determine which manufacturer made it cheaper or of top quality, all our concern is that we have to spend this amount of money before the end of the year. And the decision that we made, which company we had to purchase it from, was based purely upon which kind of company is offering us personally more profit, or to put it another way, which company is offering us a personal bribe. Do you see that. So to speak.
For example, we are going to purchase a set of glasses and we want to spend $500 but this kind of money must be spent before the end of the year.So we are in a hurry to sign the contract. And on the other hand, we are not looking for quality, really. We are just trying to base our decisions on which company better serves us, personally. If we want to purchase something from west Germany, we send a delegation to that company, and in return this company offers us luxurious hotels, luxurious cars, nice food, women, everything you can imagine. Not drugs, however, Never drugs.
So, you are offered this, and despite the fact that we know that this company is not good at producing quality, but who cares about that, as long as have this glass, it is all right. Nobody is going to question how good it is. If my superior one day comes in and says how good is this glass, I just say, Well, this is good.
What about public officials executed for corruption in China. Why did they do that? Because that individual is a convenient scapegoat. For scapegoat catching you have to look toward one particular type of individual. This individual might just be symbolic. On the surface, he holds a high position, very persuasive to ordinary people. But on the other hand, he holds no real power. Just superficially is he somebody. Once that individual is involved in bribery, this individual is the kind who can very easily be caught and then made a scapegoat, cut his throat, and that will serve to show the public that the government is concerned with bribery. This will show everyone, publicly, that the government is clean and clear, but actually, he is just a scapegoat.
As far as drugs go, there are two lines of business in our company. One is official. That's business. The other is personal. Some of the arms exports, such as the DF5, the missile that we sold to Saudi Arabia, the long range surface to surface missile, we just handled them through underground channels. And underground channel, is this, we received some information from the Saudi Arabian government. They told us that they were shopping for surface to surface missiles at the cheapest price. And the signal was sent, or conveyed to the company through a middle man either in Hong Kong or in Pakistan. Some times from our friends in Iran. We have lots of them. Iranians and sometimes foreign businessmen stationed in Iran in Peshawar or in Rawalpindi in Pakistan. These individuals actually gave us a lot of help. We got this information, through a back channel connection, and through the personal connection that our guys maintained with the CMC top officials, the Central Military Commission, the number one organization in China that controls the military. Like Deng Xiaoping used to be the chairman of the commission. Their sons and grandsons part of them actually work for our company. We don't know what happened. We know only that one day someone comes to us, and the word seemed to come through family connections, they had heard at home, that Saudi Arabia had missiles to sell. Now the money that we could make through something like this would serve China. For full modernization drive. And then the fathers would say, All right, that sounds good. Go ahead. Actually, they didn't have to talk to their fathers directly. All they need to talk is to ask his father's secretary, because the father's secretary could be in a very powerful position. So the son could just pick up the telephone and give the equipment department of the army a call, and tell them, all right, now I need three missiles. And I need them at a certain place. And they say, All right, since you are the son of this or that individual, of course, you have permission. Now this happens without written permission, of course. A lot of fields of the arms trade in China, without written permission, without records. Everything was done on the telephone, and the liens could not be tapped. No they, used, when they talk with each other they use secure lines. Secure machines, a big black machine, and once they become clear, secure, two buzzes, and I used these a lot. But the people you are talking to have to have the same machine, otherwise they cannot hear you. First of all, they send a clear, and you say, first I would like to talk to you, so please press. And so the guys press secure at the same time, and if you do not have a secure machine, then all you can hear is something scrambled. Maybe the CIA could tap these lines, but presumably this was clean.
Security clearance for employees? I came from a good family. And that is what they look for. My father joined the army in 1938, and my mother in 1945. And later on my father was promoted to the major general.
There were so many deals that I was involved in. I worked really hard, at first. At first, I began as a translator, doing simultaneous translation. English is the language that I specialize in. The Iranians of course, didn't speak English. So long as business and technology is involved, then English is the language that is used. Even the individuals who are from Italy and from Germany all of them use English. That is, in fact, that international language of the arms trade.
Obviously, before I worked for the company, I was interviewed. By a section chief. They spoke with me in English at first. I know that my English is not perfect at that time. They thought that it was excellent and so they brought me into the company.
What was surprising to you on the inside of the company. When I was trying to get a job with the company, I did know something about it but not in much detail. But during the first couple of days, when I worked for the company, everything seemed to me so normal. It seemed just like other business companies. It was as though we were sometimes signing contacts, making documents, everything was typewriters and papers and computers and contracts. But then day after day as things started to become more familiar to me, I started to discover that it was not like other companies. There was something very unusual in this company. Because all of a sudden some sort of document would show up and it would be signed by the very top individuals in the country. And it was just sitting setting there on the table and would be passed around for everybody to see. These were contracts, in the final stages. But there would be letters of intention, memorandum of understanding. There would be a letter from our own government.
Somehow this would be so stunning. And I went, Oh, gee. And I didn't show my surprise of course. Because if you show your surprise, you would never work for the company. If you get really excited, you shout or you become demonstrative and you stand up, people would say you are stupid. And you would not last long. To stay there, working, you really have to be cynical.
Files. The files were destroyed on a regular basis. They were supposed to be kept for a certain short period of time. But after that, you just threw them away. There was no permanent record of what was going on. The memorandum, the original would be kept. Somewhere in China there is an archive, with these individuals names on things, on documents. With all the deals you've made with foreign firms, there are records of these. A lot of people have had their hands in these things.
The business of the company, very simply, is the import and export of weapons for the army.
The first deal that I was associated with, was the discussion of the Lynx Helicopter, anti-submarine helicopters, ASW, Anti Submarine Warfare. That was the first negotiation I was directly involved in. That was in 1986. This was a legitimate business deal. In the end we didn't purchase the helicopter, although it was a much better system than the one that we were to purchase later on. This was really a stupid deal. Let me describe it to you.
We were shopping around at the time, for this specific sort of ship born ASW helicopter. And at that time, we had no ship born capabilities at all. So we actually, this was at the end of 1985. So the British came to Beijing, two groups, the British came and we arranged for them to stay in a hotel, and then the French approached us and we made arrangements for them to stay in another hotel, but the negotiations were carried on at the same time with the two groups. The French were in the Great Wall Hotel. Normally, they paid for their own accommodations. They were in Beijing to introduce their own items.
They were in Beijing purely for business purposes. I dealt with the French at that time. They were private corporations. The British Naval Attache in Beijing was involved at that time, too. His name was commander Farr. There were about a dozen people in each delegation, and this to us was a big delegation. Anything more than ten to us was a big delegation. The group included one for sonar, one for underwater torpedo and so on, one for avionics for helicopters. They would each then make a presentation, they would run through a technical seminar for about one week. Seven business days was taken up by each group to present what they wanted to sell us. Each morning we traveled to the hotel and stayed usually until the evening, and there were banquets involved also. On our side were individuals from the army, the navy and the air force. These were very official and very technical. These were big occasions. There was a lot of talk about us being old friends, and the friendship between the two countries and so on. Nobody ever mentioned price, of course. That comes only at the end of the seminar. But at first you have to tell the Chinese side how advanced your system is. Now the British at this time knew that the French were conducting the same negotiations with us at the same time. They did not like it, but they knew it. And they confided to us privately that they knew this. Sometimes they would run into each other drinking late at night in one of the hotels.
Personally, that was the first time I was involved in a project. And I was familiar with the technological terminology and I understood the system, too. The British company was for assembly, the Lynx helicopter was built by British Aerospace. But the avionics aspects, which is what we were really looking for, we were not looking for the helicopter frame, but we were looking for an airborne torpedo system, the night imaging system, we were looking for sonar buoys, and for sonar, and this sort of thing, and the MAD system, Magnetic Abnormality Detection. Anything that is not normal. These were not associated with satellites in any way. They were purely ship born ASW helicopters.
This was just business. China is still socialist, you must remember, so officially no women were provided to the individuals as part of the negotiations. If there were women in the hotels, this is not run by the government or the company, of course. Sometimes it is impossible to control.
They gave us a quotation at the end of the seminar. This was a deal worth over more than $100 million for one. That was a non recurring price. But if we purchased two then the price went down. This was a lot of money to us. Actually, all we ever wanted to do was to just buy one and then duplicate it, reverse manufacture. We sometimes try just to import the technology. The foreign businessmen of course are not that stupid. And so the technology always cost more than the hardware. Sometimes, they wanted us to buy more than one and this would be a requirement. I do know that at diplomatic occasions everything would be tape recorded, openly. Then, after the two offers were made. The top experts and technicians from China were utterly convinced that the Lynx system was the best one for us, and it was the one that we were looking for. So we were all mentally prepared, actually, we hinted to the British, all right, this time you guys have a deal. But, it turned out not that way at all. Because of bribery.
Ag that time, remember the French were attempting to sell us their type of ASW helicopters. But they were, they were called Dolphins, naval version helicopters. These were also called ASW.
The French were more clever than the British in this. The British were businessmen and the French were businessmen in this. But the British were also business gentlemen and the French were not, of course.
The British were just not clever enough. They spoke whatever was appropriate for the occasion. We liked working with them very much, really. But they just didn't know how to make a deal with China. They were, unfortunately, just too honest. Very honest. This is my own personal observation.
The french were more clever. They knew, of course, that their system was not as advanced as the British. But they knew how the Chinese business system works. And they approached our fleet admirals. They approached our three star generals in the army, during the negotiations and after that, they brought from France many very valuable gifts, (I want to be sure that my security is guaranteed when I tell you this story. Don't play this tape for broadcasting or anything.)
At that time the admiral in charge of the Chinese Navy, in charge of this operation, his name was, now he is Lt. Admiral, but before that, he was chief of the Naval Fleet Air Arm, Li Jing. These helicopters, later on, would be used by the Navy, so the Navy had a final say in the negotiations and the purchasing. So they brought precious gifts for us. They would give us a small helicopter, made of copper, but it is not a piece of copper on the table, but the way they made it, it was high tech technology, it was so beautiful. And the other gifts, I don't know, I didn't open them. This was just a model. The admiral himself also received a letter from the French. Only the admiral. All he saw was a letter that said we are looking forward to a successful deal that we have with the Chinese Navy and we hope that this deal will work out between us. Nothing more than that, of course. And attached to that letter, the second page The second page, was a bank draft, a bank certificate. For a lot of money. It was for $300,000 US, but that was not much, really. But that was not the biggest that I'd ever heard of. And the draft was on a bank in Zurich, in a numbered bank account there. This was a certificate stating that the money had been deposited. And it meant that only he could go to the bank and get the money. Only you and nobody else. And nobody is going to question you concerning this. This is safe for a deposit for its security. And the third page If the letter was a letter of admission for his son from a French language school. The letter was a scholarship. The letter said that based on our academic evaluations of your son, we are happy to inform you that our school has admitted your son for the fall semester. And of course, he is an undergraduate(if he was a graduate, nobody would be surprised) and this meant he had a full scholarship for the next for years. Now the interesting thing was that they said that based upon the son's performance in the French language, he had been granted the scholarship. But the interesting thing here is that I knew his son, and his son did not speak a single word of French. He had served in the army at the time, and I knew this guy very well. But they granted this Mr. Li a full scholarship covering all of his living expenses. The British of course offered nothing more than dinner. So the British were stupid. The French knew how the system worked. For the French, Aerospeciale, they had actually hired a couple from China, as middle men for them. This couple was from Beijing, from the general staff's communication corps. They had served previously as colonels in the communication corps and later on they retired. But because of their guanxi, because of their personal connections and their influence, their knowledge of the military vips, they were now hired by the French Aerospeciale, and they of course successfully got their sons and daughter into universities in Paris,m and they had a very nice life in Paris. I knew this couple personally. Their job, they spent most of the year stationed in Beijing. They lived in a big hotel, part of the year. They had a permanent office, in the Beijing hotel. And they stayed there permanently. their job consisted of nothing more than try to bet more personal information about the generals, the admirals and the high ranking officials in the military. These could, in a sense, grease the wheels of the deals. They would then supply to the French, sometimes to Thomson SCN(Special Commercial Organization.)They would just find out about the personal backgrounds of the individuals who were influential, who was promoted, who wanted to be promoted, who was the boss in a particular deal. They maintained a list of the people who were constantly on the top, and they were to know the personal habits of individuals. When we were sent off to France, that is another story. Because of their function the French company knew that the Admiral had a son, and on one occasion, he even went so far as to express interests in getting foreign schooling for his son. And the French were so smart as to record this in their memory and to underline that in their conversations. And so God knows how much money the company was going to spend on this kid, actually, to send this kid to school and how much they paid this school. Actually I could recall the name of the school. Now what is so funny is that this letter was translated. Everything was translated.
The decision was made promptly, one month later. In a country like China, one month is prompt. We were involved in the negotiations, and our advice was completely forgotten and the French got the deal.
The British of course questioned us later about this, about not getting the deal. Of course they were concerned. And they cautioned us and said that the French. didn't even use their dolphin helicopters on board their own ships. The French Navy never used these. And China ended up as one of the very few countries in the world that actually used Dolphin helicopters for ship born helicopter defenses. It is first of all a pretty big helicopter. And for ship borne purposes,, there are space limitations, and you have got to have a hangar, and you have got to have a landing pad, on the ship, on the aft of the ship. And once the helicopter is big enough you have not much space left for anything else. Because a ship is only a ship, especially when it is a war ship. And limits are very severe. But the French were smart at the time, they made all quotations in Swiss francs, of the price. And of course not in US dollars and the British quote was in pounds sterling. And later on they said, don't worry, these are only Swiss Francs, and it ends up that their quotation is less than the British, because they give a special conversion rate and they give us a good deal.
The vice admiral was concerned after that as to what had happened. He sent a letter to the Admiral and he approached the generals on the general staff, and the training and the arms purchases, and it is under.
Definitely in China there are laws. But laws are made to be broken, especially in China. Not everyone, law is not applicable to everyone in China, of course. Personal will is still the biggest laws, the supreme law. Once you are within a certain circle, then your will is the law. Then people will make law for your will, once you are within a certain circle. Don't forget also that China is controlled by the military. Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, for example, although they have a title on the surface, and although they are the chairman of the central military commission, and because they have no military background, they were not respected by the military, and that is why Fang Guogang, who actually succeeded Mao, he was supposed to be the chairman of the central military commission and one day he made a visit to the naval in Liushun, closed to the soviet Union, and the Russians had fought with the Japanese over this port in the first world war, and he went there and he said that he wanted the fleet to form a review for him, and the local naval commander questioned him and said, "Do you have a permit from the Central Military Commission, and he said, "MY God, I am chairman of the CMC!" Do I need ot have permission from my own organization, and the commander said, yes you do, and I need that. And so that review never took place.
The admiral would be able to use this, his son and daughter in France can enjoy that. They can go to the Swiss bank and withdraw the cash and the son may buy a home for him there, a resort hideaway for him. The father himself, who is a true revolutionary, he personally really could not care less for that sum of money; Like Deng Xiaoping, of course, he personally did not want money. He cannot be bought. But this is for the children and the relatives. Now this is one of the reasons why the old hared liners are reluctant to get away from power, the China they realize , once the power is gone, your whole life is gone. In your system here in America, the president of the Us retires, and he may serve as the head of a private organization or a research institute. But in China this sort of thing doesn't happen because once you are on top, it is impossible for you to receded from the top and to settle down to as secondary position happily. It is absolutely impossible and psychologically it is impossible for the people to accept that fact. Once you are a military commander and now you are in a position of running a factory, people would consider your credibility. People would ask what happened to this individual. They would say that you could not make it, you could not handle responsibly or power and they would then lose respect for you and you would lose face in the country. As long as I have power, I can have anything. Or rather, if I have power I can have access to everything. And sometimes access to things is much more import ant than actually having things.
There was a big celebration after the signing of the contract. The parties waited around Beijing waiting for a decision to be made. Both parties waited, and immediately after the trip, China made a reciprocal trip, with a lot of dignitaries and military personnel from the general staff, including the equipment department, to Aerospeciale in France. I did not accompany them on that trip.
They were there to make a survey of the manufacturing facilities and firms of the helicopter. And the systems attached. But this was just a symbolic trip, since they knew already that the deal was made. The officers from the department were convinced by individuals from the top, or bribed in one way or another, and once the top was in the bag, so to speak, then everyone went to France to pretend like they were interested in making the deal. They stayed for three days, and then they said as a matter of course that based upon their survey of the manufacturing firms.They were even more convinced than ever that the French had an advanced ASW system and this was exactly the thing that they were looking for. This was only one of the deals that we made with a foreign firm. How was I treated when I went to France, might serve as a good example. We flew to France on Air France, but not first class. The head of the delegation flies first class. These were the section chiefs of the equipment department of the general staff, and they were colonels, only, and they went in plain clothes. Nobody would ever see them in uniforms. No one was to know that they were in the military, but the French knew. Now then they resided in luxurious hotels in Paris, and sometimes they were just shown around the city to the night spots, and they were escorted to the southern cities at that time. They were taken to Toulon to see the French Navy and they stayed there for a time. But they were looking then for small helicopters, these were the helicopters that were actually flown around Tiananmen Square. They had private helicopters fly them around then when they were there.

Tape 22.

Talking Notes from Tapes

3

French Scholarship

"I first came across the unusual influence of the French arms industry behind the scenes in China, ironically, during negotiations with a British Aerospace for the purchase of the Lynx ASW (Anti Submarine Warfare) Helicopter. That was in 1986. Now this should have been a standard business deal with the British. Yet, in the end we didn't purchase the Lynx, even though it was a much better system than the one that we purchased from the French. This was really a stupid mistake on the part of the Chinese military.
"We were shopping around at the time -- the end of 1985 -- for a specific sort of ship borne ASW helicopter. At that time, we had no ship borne helicopter capabilities at all. So the British representatives came to Beijing and we arranged for them to stay in a hotel near the Citic building. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, the French approached us with their ASW system, and so arrangements were made for them to stay in another hotel in Beijing. We then began negotiations in earnest with both groups, examining what they had in the way of ASW helicopters.
"The British Naval Attache in Beijing, Commander Farr, was involved directly in these negotiations with us, indicating how important this was to the British. Each side, moreover, was represented by a large delegation --there were about a dozen people in each of the two delegations. Anything more than ten to us was a big delegation. Each group included expert for sonar, one for ASW torpedoes, one for avionics and so on. And each would make a presentation and run through the technical aspects of their particular system. Sometimes slides and videotapes were presented showing actually tests of a system. EAch of the delegations had seven business days to present their ASW systems to us. Each morning we went to the meeting room of the hotel and stayed usually until the evening. Each night there was a banquet, of course.
"On our side were representatives of the Army, Navy and the Air Force, all, naturally, in civilian dress. I recall that during the presentations, which were necessarily very technical, there was never any mention of price or of money, but there was a lot of talk about us being 'old friends' and 'the friendship between the two countries' and so on. The actual price surfaced only at the end of the final seminar. Before you quote a price you have to show us how far advanced your system is and why it would be worth the price you quote in the end.
"Now the British at this time knew that the French were conducting simultaneous negotiations with us. They did not like it, but there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.
And they confided to us privately that they were not happy with the situation. Sometimes the members of the delegations would run into each other while drinking late at night in one of the hotels. Mr. Adam Williams, British GEC-Marconi Group's representative to China once boasted how small the world could be for him to know more people from across the English Channel in China than he did in Britain.
"I had familiarized myself with the specific technological terminology of the ASW system before negotiations began, and I believe I understood the specific merits and quality of the British and the French systems. Westland was the builder of the Lynx helicopter frame, but the avionics system, which is what we were really looking for, the airborne torpedo system, the night imaging system, sonar and sonar buoys, and this sort of thing, along with the MAD system(Magnetic Abnormality Detection), was subcontracted.
In the closing session of the seminar with the British they gave us their price -- they asked for a little more than $100 million for one completely ASW equipped Lynx. That was is called a non-recurring price. If we purchased two then the price went down. This was a lot of money to us.
What we wanted to do was to buy the ASW technology and then duplicate and reverse manufacture it. The foreign businessmen of course are not that stupid and so they understand this. And so the technology always costs a lot more than the hardware. Sometimes, they required, as part of a deal, to buy more than one unit of a product in order to maximize further their profit.
The French price was comparable to the British but with one important difference. The French quoted their price in Swiss francs and the British gave their price quotation in pounds Sterling. This was to be a clever move by the French, in the end.
After the two offers were made, the our top experts and technicians from the negotiating sessions met to discuss the two systems several times and they came away absolutely convinced that the Lynx system was by far the best one for us and that it was exactly what we were looking for.
So at Poly we were all mentally prepared to buy the Lynx system from British Aerospace. In fact, we indicated to the British specifically that "this time you guys have a deal" and they were quite pleased with the news. It was, to us, simply unthinkable at that time that we would buy the French system rather than the British. But, it turned out, as it so often does in China, that the unthinkable suddenly became the reality. The reason for this was simple -- bribery.
Now the reason why the French were able to make a deal with us on the ASW system and the British were not is because the French were more clever and more venal than the British. The French were also very good businessmen. The British were good businessmen, too. But the difference is that the British were business gentlemen and the French were not.
The British had a great system, but they were neither clever enough nor dishonest enough to sell us that system. They were always forthright, honest and well informed and totally above the table in their dealings. Because of that, at Poly, we liked working with them. Basically, their attitude was, what you see is what you get. But they just didn't know how to make a deal with China. Their honesty was both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness in China. This is too often true with the Americans also.
The French, in their dealings with China, are seldom troubled by honesty. They knew full well, of course, that their system was not as advanced as the British. But they understood not only the ASW system, they understood the Chinese governmental and business system, too. And at the same time they approached us they privately approached our fleet admirals and they approached our top-ranking officers of the General Staff as well as of the Navy.
They brought with them from France many very expensive gifts for influential military leaders in China. These were delivered as negotiations began. At that time the admiral in charge of this specific operation in the Chinese Navy was the Chief of the Naval Fleet Air Arm, Li Jing, who is today a Lt. Admiral. Since the helicopters purchased by Poly were to be used by the Navy, so the Navy had a final say in the negotiations and the purchase. In a sense, we at Poly were their agent in this deal.
Admiral Li initially received from the French a small copper model of the Dolphin helicopter for his desk. It was a beautiful piece of precision work. There were many other gifts delivered to him also by the French, but I did not see them unwrapped nor did I ever see them in the office. I only saw them delivered and signed for.
What was most important in this deal was that the Admiral received a very special three-page letter from the French. The first page of the letter stated quite officially that "we are looking forward to successful dealings with the Chinese Navy and we hope that all will work out well between us." Nothing more than that, of course. And attached to that page was a second page. The second page, was a bank draft -- a certificate of deposit, actually -- for $US300,000 in a numbered Swiss bank account in Zurich. This was only one of many such drafts I was to see while working for Poly. I remember the amount of this draft because it was the largest personal draft I'd ever seen.
The third page of this letter was an official notification of admission to a French university for the Admiral's son. The notification also included a full four-year scholarship and asserted that following an evaluation of his academic record and of his tests, the scholarship was awarded because of the admiral's son's expertise in the French language. Now I knew the admiral's son and had met him several times. He was in his final year of undergraduate college study in Beijing and he spoke not a single word of French nor had he ever taken a French language course.
You see, the French knew exactly how the Chinese system worked. The admiral had power to influence the decision on the ASW helicopters and so Aerospatiale went after him. And what did the British offer him -- perhaps two or three dinners.
How did Aerospatiale know about Admiral Li's role in the decision making process and about his son in his final year of middle school? They had employed at a very good salary two consultants -- go-betweens or facilitators -- in China, whose business in was to find out just such things -- who should be treated with special care and special favor. This couple was constantly researching military needs and family connections in China so that Aerospatiale could more easily facilitate out its desired transactions.
I knew this couple only as Mr. and Mrs. Wang. They wield considerable invisible power in arms dealing transactions in China. They had been first employed by Aerospatiale in 1982. They had both worked prior to that time in the same unit - the Signal Corps of the PLA. This had been an independent organization that had been incorporated recently into the General Staff. Today it is a department of the General Staff.
Before he retired from the Signal Corps, Mr. Wang had been promoted to the rank of regimental commander. He was, however, not happy with this rank and he wanted to be promoted further. But the chance of that was not good. So, he considered retiring from the Signal Corps, but was not permitted to do so.
The Signal Corps had in the past made some of our first deals with the French and so Mr. Li had experience in dealing with Aerospatiale from the Chinese side. He negotiated not only with the French but with the British also, especially when it came to the purchase of communications equipment, his specialty. He was, in fact, almost continuously involved in technical discussions and evaluations. His understanding of communications and technology, it was said, was one of the best in the PLA.
In his negotiations, Aerospatiale was a regular party on the other side of the table. They came to see Mr. Wang as the central figure in the decision making process on the Chinese side. They found that not only was he well situated in the military, but also that he was also from a well connected family. Such a man, they guessed quite correclty, might be very valuable to them.
And so, over the course of many months, the French recruited Mr. Wang to work for them. We were not at all aware of this until all of a sudden Mr. Li became very interested in learning more about the French. He and his wife learned to speak French. Again they asked to be retired from the military, and this time their request was granted. In 1983 they decided to work for the French in Beijing. They were in an advantageous position. They knew exactly what kinds of equipment the military was looking for and because of their family connections, they had inside information concerning the military budget. This was very valuable and critical information. Mr. Wang was willing to provide all of this inside information to the French, for a price.
The French offered them consulting positions. Mr. Wang and his wife were invited to travel to France in order to examine the business and manufacturing facilities of Aerospatiale and to gain first-hand experience with the company. They obtained their passports and visas and flew to Paris. They remained in France for more than a year. During their stay, their son and daughter joined them and were quickly admitted to French universities. The children still today are there.
Then, in 1985, just before China held a defense exhibition show, what we call the Asiandex -- Mr. Wang and his wife moved back to Beijing. They moved into an apartment, rather than a hotel, which they could easily afford, in order to emphasize that they were still Chinese citizens. They maintained a permanent office, however, at the Beijing Hotel. But everyone knew that they were now very heavily committed now to the French and promoting deals for the French.
I'd heard about their new role in 1985, just before I met them for the first time in 1986. By that time, everyone at Poly Technologies knew Mr. and Mrs. Wang. And whenever a new employee came into the company, he or she was immediately introduced to the Wangs. Everyone had to know him.
During the 1987 Defense Exposition held in the China International Exhibition Center, Mr. and Mrs. Wang were always busy touring the French exhibition stands. He also introduced the Chinese and the French vips to each other and discussed the merits of some of the systems on display. And whenever the generals from the air force or the admirals from the Navy came, the Wangs were by their side constantly.
On a couple of occasions when I accompanied Admiral Li and other high-ranking military officers, he enthusiastically escorted us around the exhibition center. He was always eager to entertain us and was always asking, "Oh, and where is the admiral going later?"
The first evening we met him at the exhibition, he kept glancing anxiously at his watch and asking about our plans. And the personal assistant to the admiral finally confessed, "Well, we have no where to go and we don't know where they will eat." So Mr. Wang invited us out for dinner and took us to the Great Wall Hotel, which is near the Exhibition Center. There we had a very nice -- and expensive -- dinners. And it seemed in the days following this first meeting, Mr. Wang was regularly inviting us out for lunch and dinner -- and it was always very expensive and it was always his treat.
After dinner, Mr. Wang smoked some very nice Chinese cigarettes, his favorite brand was Red Pagoda Mountain, Hong Tashan. I think he did it just for show purposes. He just sat side by side with the admirals and with the generals when they were present, and by his smoking he seemed to advertise, "You see, I'm still patriotic. I refuse to smoke foreign imported cigarettes, even though I can afford them. These are the ones I prefer, despite the fact that I stay in France and I work for the French." If he had a lot of money, and I believe that he did, then he made a point of never showing it off. The cigarettes were a case in point. Whenever he smoked, he smoked maybe half an inch from the cigarette, just the end, and then put it out. He was a chain smoker, but only smoked half of the of the cigarettes. And he always picked up the tab.
Whenever we dined with Mr. Wang, he spent most of the time we were together discussing family matters -- children, wives, relatives and so on. His wife listened intently and usually added little to the conversation. She was a much better listener than talker, and I am sure she tried always to pick up on private family matters and later made a note of them for future reference. Mr. Wang, also, learned a great deal, always, about family members of the military officers and their private wishes and desires. At the end of a meal there there was always a series of toasts to the family.
And finally, just before dinner ended, or at least near the end, then Mr. Wang would suddenly bring up business. And he would say, in a smooth tone of voice, something like, "All right, this time the French have this or that for you," and then his semi-formal presentations were quite detailed and very convincing. Sometimes it was strange to listen to. He would talk about his children and then in the same breath bring up the fact that the French had superb, the thermal imaging system, and so on. And he said, "I just spoke with them and they will reduce the price for you, they are making a point of it. This is an excellent deal. You should not pass it up." The admirals and the generals of course were not well educated and not really well informed in these matters -- they depended for their information on others, and in some cases, they depended on Mr. Wang. Once they heard his pitch, they were inevitably interested.
They usually responded enthusiastically, asking many questions about the details of the proposed deal and the details of the system itself. They also confided in Mr. Wang and treated him as though he were acting as an agent of the Chinese military -- which he was not.
"Make sure," they would tell him. "Don't let them charge us an unfavorable price. You are the guy who knows the bottom line. So don't deceive us. Get us a good deal." And Mr. Wang then did.
Mr. Wang or his wife would always respond, "Oh, you can count on us. We are all from one big family. Of course we trust each other." And then, smiling and walking away from the dining room while poking a toothpick around in his mouth, the Admiral signaled to his personal secretary to make a report about the deal and to bring it to his office in the morning."
But of course I knew exactly what they were doing. Every time Mr. Wang opened his mouth he was drumming up business for the French, reciting the French line. My God, if he wasn't unusually valuable to the French, they would never pay him the way they did.
Mr. Wang was well positioned to do business. He knew where the weak points of the French were and where the weak points of the Chinese were. That was the key to his success. He knew what the military had to spend, what the French could or could not charge, and who had children that might like to attend a French university.
When he spoke with me he was outgoing and flattering. I talked to him often about business. I was quite surprised. He seemed to know Poly Technologies inside out and he knew personal things about all of the top guys in the company.
I once asked one of Admiral Li's staff officers about Mr. Wang and he said, "Mr. Wang is very helpful. He travels back and forth to France all the time. Then whenever there is business to be done, he is here. He has French citizenship and he is a permanent resident of France and his children are there."
Now, in the competition between the Lynx and the Dolphin, the French positioned themselves perfectly when they quoted their price in Swiss francs. They were told that the price quotations were similar. But they let it be known, through Mr. Wang, that they would give a "very favorable" exchange rate on the Swiss francs so that in fact their price would be much lower than that quoted by the British. Mr. Wang conveyed that news to us. Still, however, the British system, we felt, was far superior to the French and was well worth the price differential.
After making their presentations and giving their prices, the French and the British --waited around Beijing waiting for a decision to be made. A group of Chinese dignitaries and military personnel from the general staff, including the equipment department, made a special trip to visit the facilities of Aerospatiale in France. I did not accompany them on that trip.
The head of the delegation flew, as usual, first class on a Air France jet. Although most of those who went were high-ranking military officers, none of them wore uniforms. No one was to know that they were in the military, but the French knew. They resided in luxurious hotels in Paris, and each night they were escorted around the city to the cabarets and the night spots. Some of them flew down to the southern cities at that time -- to Toulon and Marseilles to see the French defense research facilities. They were supposed to make a survey of the manufacturing facilitates that would produce the Dolphin system. But this was just a symbolic trip, since everybody knew already that the deal was made. The officers from the department were convinced by individuals from the top, or bribed in one way or another, and once the top was in the bag, so to speak, then the deal was done. The trip to France was merely a junket on Aerospatiale. A nice bonus for the Chinese. These people came back and said later that they favored the Dolphin system and that they based their decision on their survey of the manufacturing firms. This is simply not true. They merely pretended that they were even more convinced than ever that the French had an advanced ASW system and this was exactly the thing that they were looking for.
And so one month after the three-page letter was delivered to Admiral Li the decision was made concerning our next major purchase. Remember, in a country like China, one month is prompt. Those of us from Poly involved in the negotiations recommended purchase of the British Lynx system, but we were overruled. The French got the deal. We got the Dolphins.
The British of questioned us later about this, about not getting the deal. Of course they were very deeply concerned. And they cautioned us and said that the French didn't even use their Dolphin helicopters on board their own ships. China ended up as one of the very few countries in the world that actually used Dolphin helicopters for shipborne helicopter defenses.
The Rear Admiral in charge of the project was concerned and upset after this as to what had happened. He sent a letter to the Admiral and he approached the officers on the General Staff. But it was to no avail, of course.
As to the $300,000, Admiral Li would be unable to use this himself, but it was arranged so that his son and daughter in France might enjoy it.
The British expressed their dismay and disillusionment with us on several different occasions. I think they knew where Poly stood on these decisions. And they told me once, at a diplomatic gathering, "OK, what kind of a corrupt system do you guys have here? You just keep purchasing this god-damned garbage from the French. Don't you know that these systems will never work in a real war situation?"
In fact, the answer to the question was a simple, yes, we did know that these systems would probably never work in "a real war situation." But the point is, that the system we purchased was probably never meant for a real war situation. Rather, it was intended as a business transaction with specific beneficiaries. And in that respect, it was very successful.
The National Security Ministry, in time, caught on to the bribery system that was practiced in military procurement, and sought to stop it. The individual they selected to interrupt the the corrupt system was, unfortunately, a woman named Wang Jian Jiang. A top agent for the National Security Ministry, she was sent to the Navy at the end of 1987 to supervise the political and disciplinary matters concerning foreign affairs and procurement. Because of her special status with the she had to spend a lot of time in the central command compound of the Navy. She, allegedly, should have cured the problems of foreign arms corporations, including the French, from taking advantage of the familial concerns of the officers that made them so susceptible to bribery. But things went awry soon after she arrived and rather than cleaning up the system, she became an intimate part of it.
Within a very short time, Wang Jiang Jian had not only made contact with several of the top admirals in the PLA navy, she had in fact forged intimate contacts with them. Secret liaisons with the officers were made easy for her because she lived in a private suite in the Purple Jade (Ziyu)Hotel in the western suburbs of Beijing not far from the headquarters of the Navy. This provided her with privacy, convenience and freedom to do what she wished in the hotel.
Miss Wang, an unuusally and naturally well-endowed woman who was described by young naval officers as "attractive in two ways," had recently divorced her husband, who was a section chief a in the National Security Ministry. She maintained custody of the couple's only child, a daughter. Miss Wang and her husband had divorced, it was said, because of her many extra-marital affairs. She continued her romantic aggressivness when she began supervising Naval affairs. To officers both old and young at the Naval compound, she was always warm, friendly and radiating. And soon after she arrived at the Naval compound she fell in love with many of the officers. Among her many lovers in the Navy was the Captain Xie Tie Niu(Iron Ox). In time, her affairs with Naval officers caused difficulty. She began to pressure Captain Xie to divorce his wife in order to marry her. This was a problem since Captain Xie he was not that serious about Miss Wang. But she could cause him trouble by widely publicizing his extra-marital dalliances. So he made a deal, authorized by the admirals at the compound.
Directly under Captain Xie was a naval commander named Zhang Lu-ting. He was a prominent individual in the Navy and an heir apparent to the section chief's position. The commander was handsome, had a good Naval background, and most important, was single. So Captain Xie made a deal with him, telling him "If you want to succeed me as section chief, you must marry this woman!" Of course, he did not like Miss Wang, but, he had few choices at the time and there was a lot of pressure on him. If he wanted a promotion he would have to marry her. Miss Wang, on the other hand, was very happy with the prospect of this handsome and relatively naive young officer as her husband. This was the sort of prey she was looking for, and she approved of the arrangement.
The problem was now with the young officers. When he told his mother about the arrangement, (his father, a prominent figure in the Navy, had passed away earlier), she was outraged. She personally knew of Miss Wang's practices and reputation. So Commander Zhang's mother personally came to the naval compound to question the admirals. "What in the hell are you trying to do to my son?" she shouted at one of them in the hallway. Her protests were overheard by many officers working nearby. She returned to the compound many times and always stayed for several hours and demanded to see the Admirals. She would not leave when asked to. She pressured whomever she could find. But Captain Xie would not bend in his decision and he said to his fellow officers, "The deal has been made." But he told others, including Commander Zhang's mother that this was not a deal and that Zhang and Wang were really in love.
So the young officer was the only one to suffer from all of this. He was disowned by his family. But he did marry Miss Wang and all of the important admirals who had been lover of Miss Wang attended the ceremony.
Of course, later on, Commander Zhang got his promoted to captain and succeeded Captain Xie. And Miss Wang, now Mrs. Zhang, of course, maintained her hotel room and continued her former ways. She and her husband lived in a suite in the Purple Jade hotel. But for National Security Ministry purposes she also maintained four other specially designated rooms. Now, however, in addition to romantic affairs with high-ranking naval officers, she also began having affairs with foreign clients in Beijing to do business with Poly Technologies and the Navy. French and English businessmen in Beijing sometimes stayed at the Purple Jade Hotel for a few nights in order to be near the Naval compound. And in the course of their business, if they were at all attractive, they were sure to be introduced to Mrs. Zhang. It became known that any foreigner hoping to make a deal with the PLA Navy through Poly Technologies, had better satisfy Mrs. Zhang If she was not satisfied, there might be difficulties in negotiations later.
This created some anxiety, however, because Mrs. Zhang was rumored to be nearly sexually insatiable. She was never really happy with her young husband. She purchased strong potency medicines for her him and delivered them to the office. When he came to work each morning, he looked weary and haggard. The other young officers chided him half seriously. "No sleep last night, Captain Zhang?" they asked. "What's the problem? Anything I can do to help?"
Captain Zhang is today is head of the Office is the International Procurement of the PLA Navy. And Mrs. Zhang, as the wife of the officer in charge of procurement, has even more legitimate reasons than before for getting involved intimately in naval foreign affairs. Whenever there is a seminar or a banquet at which foreigners are involved, she is always around, looking over the participants. But she not only supervises the political and diplomatic line of the business process, but is also committed to logistical matters of foreign-related activity.
Now whenever there is a banquet or reception, when the festivities are finished, Captain Zhang and his wife invariably stay behind to help settle out the bills. And because of their responsibility to take charge of financial matters, they have been able to include into the reception bills items such as American cigarettes, expensive French wine and champagne, and western cosmetics. As an example, there is a medicine for cosmetic purposes that is made from pearls. It is extremely expensive in China. Yet, on a couple of occasions, the purchase of these pearl cosmetics was simply included as a functional expense of the reception activities and Captain Zhang and his wife were compensated for these items by the Navy.
On several occasions, other young naval officers watched, when a banquet was finished, as Captain and Mrs. Zhang left the restaurant through the back door, and headed to their own car with several large bags. Once at a reception at the Renewed Restaurant, which once served the Imperial family at Summer Palace, this occurred and a young officer curiously followed the Zhangs from the restaurant. He made a point of stopping them but as he was about to inquire as to what they were carrying in their bags, the Mrs. Zhang seemed to woman read his mind and in order to shut him up, opened a bag, and offered him two bottles of expensive Maotai Liquor -- the very best in China-- and five cartons of Kent cigarettes. She said impatiently, "Here, take it! This is something our friends brought us from Hong Kong!" She forgot that any Maotai liquor on sale in Hong Kong had a different trade mark from that sold in China.
As time passed, Mrs. Zhang's reputation among officers in the naval compound grew worse and worse. Finally, the disciplinary committee of the Navy intervened. Although it was a very difficult process because of her connections with some of the top admirals of the Navy, as well as the foreign affairs group, still the Navy managed to contact the National Security Ministry and very gracefully had Mrs. Zhang assigned back at that ministry.
Within the Navy there is a department called the Equipment Department. And under this department is a very powerful Political Division. In 1987, 1988 and 1989 the director of that division was Captain Wang Dan-ya, who came from a very influential communist party family. He was promoted to the position at the age of 47, which was relatively young, for someone having a similar post in the Navy at that time. He and Captain Xie Tie-niu, as well as the Rear Admiral Zheng Min, who was in charge of the entire department, were all interlocked in their personal relationships and their family background connections from outside the Navy. These three men were among the very few officers in the Navy who shared a common and influential civilian background. Because these three people held very important jobs concerning Naval foreign affairs. So, whenever there was an important decision to be made concerning Naval procurement policy, these three and Miss Zhang met together before any decision was made, officially. That is why they were referred to within the Navy ranks as "The Gang of Four"(Si Ren Bang). But unfortunately their honeymoon did not last very long.
Mr. Wang had a relative in Taiwan. And as China opened its doors to outsiders more and more Taiwanese poured into the mainland, Mr. Wang's nephew, who was in his early thirties, came to Beijing for a visit in the spring of 1989. Against all the rules and regulations of the military, he stayed in his uncle's family home. Then, almost as if it was a prearranged to look like an accident, the captain made a point of leaving some important Party and Navy documents on his desk at home when his nephew was there. The whole point of this seemed to be that he knew that the young man worked for Taiwanese military intelligence. But he didn't tell anyone else. And the purpose of making classified documents available to the young man was to try to generate some personal profits for himself. Therefore, these important documents were duly photographed and were taken by the young man, who almost made it out of the country with them before he was detained by agents from the National Security Ministry agents. The Ministry immediately recognized the nature of the documents, which concerned the Navy Strategy and Procurement and arms sales policies towards neighboring countries, the Soviet Union and the United States. These were long term strategy plans. So the National Security Ministry informed the Navy and asked the Navy to check the serial numbers of the documents, which were printed at the top of each document, to see who had handled them. And of course the first name that came up was Admiral Zhang himself. He was so angered by this, that he immediately summoned his two friends to his office and closed the door. He showed both Captain Wang and Captain Xie the information passed down to him by Naval superiors and a disciplinary committee of the Navy. And he shouted, "This time you guys made a terrible mistake." Hearing this, Captain Wang became frightened and explained "Oh, I didn't know he didn't know my nephew had Taiwan military connections! The only thing I knew was that he was my nephew. That was all." Knowing it was a lie, the Admiral just quieted him down. He responded, "OK, that's enough. What has happened has happened. And this time because of the nature of this incident, you guys are in big trouble. And no one else can help you."
All three of these officers, at the time, were involved with Miss Wang from the National Security Ministry. And she had unlimited access to their offices. When she wished to see the Admiral, she need make no prearrangement and was always waved on in by his secretary. At this moment, she burst into their meeting. She confronted her three lovers and learned how much trouble they were in. "You guys are in trouble, I cannot help you this time," she told them. Together, the four concluded that "in order to keep the boat continuously sailing, which can be profitable to all of us, Captain Wang and Captain Xie would serve as scapegoats, and resign from the service." They would exonorate in their resignations, Admiral Zhang. So, the next day, Captain Wang handed in his letter of resignation together with a self criticism letter, admitting that the crimes he was charged with had taken place. On the same day, in the afternoon, Captain Xie also handed in his resignation letter only a month after he celebrated with Poly Technologies officials the signing of the French Dolphin contract. Normally, for any naval officer above the rank of Captain, if he wanted to resign from the Naval service, it would take at least two months to get the approval of the superior officers, if it was approved at all. But this time because of their contributions to the Naval Modernization Drive, in which they themselves profited very heavily, their permission was granted in only two days. But because of their important civilian background connections in the business field of China, these two individuals left the Navy and one week later headed for Shenzhen for the Special Economic Zone there. The second day after their arrival in Shenzhen, Mr. Wang and Mr. Xie were all given new jobs. While Mr. Xie served as the vice president of a very influential and important import-export trading corporation in Shenzhen, Mr. Wang served as senior consultant in the same company. And within a short time they were also given luxurious apartments in Zhuhai, which was another special economic zone facing Macau across the sea.
This was the first time in the history of the PLA that senior officers, especially the officer heavily indoctrinated in the political warfare system, charged with serious transgressions, resigned and then so smoothly and quickly moved into profitable and influential positions at the forefront of trade in China.
Their resignations from the Navy created both a deep shock and a profound impression upon the rank and file of fellow officers in the service. The signal seemed to be clear. "To serve the people is always your business," one officer explained his conclusions from the incident. "While to serve self interests and promote them under the disguise of serving public functions was the real alternate goal."
The decisions that these four individuals made no doubt very often favored the French! After that it would be more difficult for the French to get their weapons systems selected by the PLA and Poly Technologies. Within a few weeks, Mrs. Zhang was "handed back" to the National Security Ministry, no worse for the wear.
And a short time after that, young Captain Zhang and his wife were given a very nice apartment on the seventh floor of a Naval apartment building located west of the Naval Compound Headquarters. And he spent 20,000 renminbi only for interior decorations of the apartment. They brought out of storage some of the loot they had acquired from foreign transactions. They had several large screen colored television sets and vcrs, a hand-carved snack bar, imported negative-ion generators, French made hunting-rifles and British pistols, and a silver-plated German machine gun. The guns were displayed in a glass-doored cabinet. Imported French wine and champagne was displayed on a on a large wine rack. When asked where they acquired these items, they say that they brought them back from France, never mentioning that some of these items were also bought in China with public funds.

The US, China and the Sino-Vietnam Conflict

In the summer of 1977, Leonard Woodcock had become the chief of the U.S. liaison office in Peking, Sec of State Cyrus Vance visited Beijing in August, a month later. Vance said US would recognize PRC as sole legal government and let defense treaty with Taiwan lapse, but some US personnel would have to remain in Taiwan under an informal arrangement. Not rejected out of hand by the Chinese. News story that followed claimed China showed unexpected flexibility in talks. Deng outraged. This stalled normalization effort. Was opening shot in fight over China policy between head of the NSC Brzezinski and the State Department. Brzezinski may have been the source of the leak to the press.
End of year Brzezinski increasingly proponent of normalization with China. As a counter to Moscow. China invited him in early November of 1977, invitation. February 1978, B meet with Han Xu several times, acting chief of Chinese liaison office in Washington. May, 1978, B to Beijing with entourage. Desired security cooperation with China to counter Russia. Brought with him "gifts" that were certain to impress.

Vietnam attacked Kampuchea [Cambodia] and in two weeks, at Christmas, drove from power China's only ally in Southesast Asia, the Khmer Rouge, genocidal policies. Summer 1978 expelled from Vietnam the overseas Chinese. June, 1978, began unpublicized bombing of Cambodia. As many as thirty sorties a day. November 1, Le Duan landed in Moscow with five members of the Soviet Politburo to greet him. November 3, signed 25 year treaty of friendship & cooperation. Article Six, insurance for Vietnam against Chinese attack. "If either side is attacked or exposed to the threat of attack, the two signatory powers will immediately confer with each other in order to remove this threat and take appropriate and effective steps to safeguard the peace and security of both countries." Soviet navy and air forces in Vietnam soon after.


Beijing conference on November 11 to December 15, watershed in Chinese politics. Zhao Ziyang brought in now as secretary-general of the party Central Committee.
As prepared for war, Deng cited US military intelligence estimates of Soviet troops strength along Chinese border. Said attack would not interrupt China's Four Modernizations, and said that even if 70 percent of war objectives achieve, the 30 percent failure would serve as stimulus for military improvement.
Vietnam attacks on December 24, 1978. January 6 crossed Mekong at Neak Luong January 7, Phnom Penh liberated.

End of January, 225,000 troops along border of Vietnam. December 15, normalize relations with China. Saturday, February 17, attack at 26 points along the border. March 5, had occupied Lang San and gateway to Red River delta. Same day announced would withdraw. A sixteen day "pedagogical war"



Out of the unfortunate costly experience of that brief conflict, the Chinese were able to form a cooperative and partly clandestine military relationship with the United States. The relationship was forged, at first, during the visit of National. Security Adviser Brzezinski and his entourage to Beijing in May, 1978. Then it was confirmed upon Deng Xiaoping's visit to the United States in January, 1979, when indicated to President Jimmy Carter and his National Security Adviser that China planned to move militarily against the Vietnamese. Publicly, the Carter administration sought to distance itself from supporting the military actions of the Chinese. Carter was concerned about upsetting the progress toward a Salt II agreement with the Soviet Union, and so acted with extreme caution publicly so as not to upset the delicate negotiations with the Soviet Union. But Brzezinski was pleased by the prospect of the Chinese punishing the Vietnamese, and had difficulty concealing his delight.
First, not only was Deng not advised not to make the undertaking, but he was secretly offered American help in the enterprise.
During Brzezinski's visit, secret American information was shown to the Chinese. Satellite photographs, classified estimates of Soviet strength and so on. The Chinese were amazed by the openness of the Americans in this regard, who gave them absolutely everything they wanted. Brzezinski promised more, always more. And he asked almost nothing in return. The Chinese became at that time the beneficiaries of American largess thanks to American attitudes toward the Soviet Union, strangely enough, and Soviet hegeminism in Africa and in Southeast Asia.
Within the Carter Administration, Brzezinski had become the most outspoken proponent of normalization of relations with The People's Republic of China as a counterbalance to Moscow. In the fall of 1977, the Chinese government extended an invitation to Brzezinski to visit Beijing. He met several times for private discussions with Han Xu, the acting chief of the Chinese liaison office in Washington in February 1978, and in May flew to China with his carefully selected entourage.
Brzezinski came bearing gifts and the Chinese were delighted, on the one hand, and almost disbelieving on the other. "Eventually, we would cultivate American friends. Some of them were overseas Chinese. And none of these were party members. I recall asking about this. 'How can we trust them if they are not party members?' I asked my immediate superior. He laughed. 'There is no need for that, he said.' They serve the party and its objectives better than most members.' The reason I recall that statement at this point is that Mr. Brzezinski certainly fell into that category. By his policies, his enthusiastic cooperation and his help, he served the party better than most of those who were members. It was almost too good to be true."

Brzezinski, self-righteous individual who was marked deeply by the Soviet Union's policy toward his native Poland, wanted cooperation with China to counter the Soviet Union. Brought with him "gifts" that were certain to impress the Chinese. Samuel Huntington, an NSC staff member, shared with the Chinese hosts a top secret NSA assessment -- Presidential Review Memorandum 10 --of the current world situation, especially with regard to the Soviet power. This was impressive, the Chinese felt.
Brzezinski then confided that the American regulations concerning sale of "dual use" technology to China would be relaxed soon and that the US would no longer oppose arms sales by its alliance partners to China. Accompanying Brzenzski on the trip was Benjamin Huberman, assistant to the President's science and technology adviser, and Morton Abramowitz, deputy assistant sec of defense for international security. A senior Chinese defense official met separately with Abramowitz. The American, who spoke Mandarin, gave a dazzling presentation for more than one hour, of highly classified material dealing with the deployment of Soviet forces along the Chinese border. This sharing of intelligence at the defense ministry level impressed the Chinese. Abramovitz also provided Chinese information about Soviet strategic weapons. But as his final surprise, he pulled from his briefcase a sheaf of top secret reconnaissance photographs of Soviet military installations and armor facing China. Huberman also spoke separately with Chinese defense officials concerning Sino-American cooperation in science and technology and brought up the possibility of a secret joint venture to monitor Soviet nuclear and missile testing sites. Brzezinski also offered the Chinese "eyes and ears of the West." US also agreed that the US would set up, install, man, equip and service series of SIGINT(signal intelligence) stations along Sino-Soviet border.
"Zbig was trying to tantalize the Chinese" by "giving them hints that they could expect a lot more from us," one member of the delegation remarked later. Another. William Gleysteen, wrote a memo attacking Brzezinski's tactics. The NSA adviser, he said, had raised Chinese expectations of obtaining American support that hadn't been approved or discussed at the highest levels of the US government. Brzezinski, in his traditional manner, ignored the memo. And he did deliver on his promises to the Chinese, as we shall see.
Two days later Deng Xiaoping arrived in Bangkok. Denounced Soviet "hegemonists" Deng suggested in private that "Phnom Penh will fall." Suggested didn't like policies of Pol Pot, but would not allow strategic area to fall to Vietnam. Several days later in Singapore, spoke to leaders there. "These ungrateful people must be punished. We gave them $20 billion of aid, Chinese sweat, and blood and look what happened." When Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew asked him how he would punish them, he said, "We have ways and means."

At that time the Paracel Islands,( Xi Sia) the Chinese had captured them in 1974 and we were building on those islands now, a short airstrip. And the islands were still at that time in the hands of the navy and the responsibility of the navy. And so at that time a Soviet Task force, a very formidable one, all of a sudden headed into the South China Sea towards the Paracel Islands, like a show of force against us. And the navy had to prepare itself for this because all of the major warships, like the destroyers, they were all concentrated in the North, near Liushan and Tsingtao and all we had in the area were lighter ships like frigates, and these were the only things that we had at that time.
So at that time, the South China Sea navy was put on alert, and the Soviets responded on the Sea to show us that they were loyal to their friends. So the Navy was extremely concerned. So there were immediate reinforcements of the fighter forces from the Naval air arm. Emergency measures were taken in the South near Hainan Island, and all of the forces in the light forces were concentrated and put on red alert. The torpedo boats, what was so funny is that they were missile boats, not torpedoes, they were missile boats, each capable of firing four, China had only one kind, but hundreds of them, they were for this missile boat, because of the limited range, they were forced, to maintain a force at sea close to the Paracels, these boats, they made a sortee out to a certain range then stayed there for about half an hour and returned. The range was short. So they were then rotated in that area. But they could not stay there in the battle zone for long, and once they the missile boats patrolled another group left port to replace them and so when they were low on fuel they were replaced by boats both from the Paracels and Hainan. And at that time the General Commander and the political commissar of the navy were called to the South from Beijing. This was it. They were ready for a fight with the Soviets. The destroyers, meanwhile, were called from the North, but it took them a time to get there, after the Russians had converge don the islands. And so it was the missile boats and the submarines that had to defend the islands, along with fighter cover and frigates. The navy thought this was enough to protect the islands, but there was still a concentration of Soviet forces with not only destroyers but also cruisers heavily armed with missiles, and they were very apprehensive of this. This task force was without an aircraft carrier. Only surface vessels approaching the Paracels. And the frigates were there, too. Because the range was limited, and so they stayed for half an hour and then returned to port. They were there day and night to defend the islands. We were also receiving intelligence from the US on the movements of the Soviet fleet.
But at that time, there was a fortuitous coincidence, in that behind the Soviet surface group, an American task force followed the Soviets at a great distance, followed by an aircraft carrier, the Coral Sea. [CVA 43], I remember the number was. The Soviets were aware of that, of course.
What happened is that the Americans were following them, and they knew that the Chinese navy was vulnerable at that time. The Russians knew they could knock out the Chinese navy but at a cost, a big cost. The Soviets were superior in fire power, but they had fewer ships, but higher in tonnage. So once they lost one ship that would be a big loss for them. We didn't know, whatever the reason, as they approached the Paracels, they suddenly changed course, they made a sharp turn to the East and left the zone. What a surprise, and then the Americans quietly departed too behind them.
So our navy was extremely relieved at that time, seeing the Soviets gone. My God, we thought. This was to be the only Soviet response against the Chinese for the Vietnam invasion and now it had been terminated. The fleet came, probably from the Indian Ocean. They were there. The planned this sailing for some time and had planned well for it. They showed their force perhaps to impress the Vietnamese and to scare the Chinese. The Chinese navy figured out that what the Russians probably wanted to do was to shell the island and scare us and make us think that there would be more to come if they didn't withdraw from Vietnam. But they were surprised, suddenly, to find that the Chinese was working, it almost seemed, in coordination with the American navy. We saw all of this on radar and they saw the Americans behind them on radar.
There was no concern at that time, keep in mind, with what the Khmer Rouge were doing to their own people in Cambodia. None at all. No matter how brutal. They were friends to China. That is the only thing we cared about. They wanted to see their friends in power. As to what they do in power, with power, well that is the internal affair of a foreign country. That should by no means be interfered with by an outside power. China included. What you do is your own business. So long as you are my friend, that is important. And by that time, too, China felt somewhat ashamed, as far as I saw it, because they knew that the Navy was not strong enough, and they were unable to support the Khmer Rouge when they were under fire. So they just hate the Vietnamese for that. We were proven to be helpless. We saw the Vietnamese occupy everything. So we had to do something.

This included detachments of the Seventh Fleet being sent into the South China Sea as a counterbalance to the Soviet fleet that came there And during the war, they sent an American naval battle group to the Gulf of Tonkin in order to protect Chinese naval forces on the Paracel Islands. They also arranged for secret delivery to the Chinese navy of two much- needed Mark 46 torpedoes, that the we badly needed for their fleet in order to effectively confront the forces of the soviet union." The Chinese hoped to reverse manufacture similar models from the American models. This proved impossible and in the mid-1980s, China began buying Mark-46s from the US.
During the conflict, also, the Iranian revolution and the fall of the Shah(He fled from Tehran on January 16) and the American public and the American media seemed riveted to Iran rather than to Southeast Asia and events occurring there. Of critical importance in the shifting relationship with Iran was the fact that America lost important listening posts to spy on the Soviet Union and watch the deployment of soviet missiles. The secret posts at Bihshahr and Kabkan in northern Iran. Kabkan as the most important listening post the US operated for monitoring Russian missile and space launch activity. The United States CIA carefully monitored Soviet missile and space activities from those posts. The Bihshahr stationed closed in December, 1978, but the Kapkan site operated until Iranian employees mutinied, demanded backpay and held the American technicians stationed there captive. A special ransom was eventually paid to the employees, the American CIA employees were flown out and the post fell into the hands of the local Iranians. As a result, the Carter administration was then shopping around for a new site to monitor Soviet activities. The friendship and secret alliance forged with the Chinese provided the opportunity to establish that new site after the war with Vietnam. The needs of the Chinese and the Americans suddenly against the Soviet Union, a common enemy, helped forge an unlikely and sometimes embarrassing alliance. and secret alliance. The Chinese were able to make another deal with the Carter administration, offering to set up a new listening post in Northwest China at a secret outpost just outside Urumchi. The project, called Project 851 by the Chinese, began in 1980 with construction on the site in Xinjiang province close to Tian Mountain "Sky Mountain". It involves American software and Hardware, about 100 personnel from the NSA and an equal number of Chinese military personnel who occupy the post with the Americans and have been trained to use American spy materials. This post, 851, had been over the years, absolutely uninterrupted by the domestic situation in China. As the Chinese say of the post, "politics is politics and busines is business." They look on the 851 project as a business propostion.

Deng stated that if China achieved 70 percent of its objective, that would be all right, since the 30 percent would be a stimulus to make military improvements.

Deng's visit to Washington. Tip O'Neill compared the Vietnamese in Cambodia as the Japanese in Manchuria.

February 17 attack, artillery opening up. A sixteen day "pedagogical war". Begins with tremendous artillery barrage. From distance, American reporter wrote, sounded like B52 attack. strike. But on once occasion the barrage lasted twenty minutes rather than usual minute for an American bombing run. 85,000 Chinese troops cross the border, supported by armor, at 26 points.


Delivery of photographs. The NSA satellite photographs were delivered to the Chinese. While the naval crisis going on in the south, when virtually all general commanders of navy dispatched to Xisa and Paracel islands to supervise naval operations, while at this same time, in Beijing, in western suburb, on road called the Fuxing Road, in western suburb, located at the naval compound, while a high six story building, colored yellow, everything inside marbeled, on the second floor is communications intelligence and naval operations divisions of the naval headquarters. In the charting room of the operations room, the officers roaming about, carrying the latest information about the movements of the US task force and the approaching Soviet task force that was detected by the Chinese navy's own monitoring posts on the southern coast line as well as the pictures forwarded to the naval operations by the third department of the General Staff. because it was the third department that was actually the one that was receiving directly the pictures. From the US defense attache and his staff, situated in Beijing. these were directly received through special deciphering technologies of the demodulation devices for the high resolution photographs taken by the US Black Birds that were actually watching the movements of the soviet fleet and the ground troops in formation along the Sino Soviet border. at that time China was extremely concerned about the possible soviet retaliation against the northern movements of these troops. In the US embassy, the major compound, first floor, to the right.

Mark 46s. after they were picked up, by fishermen, instantly reported to the navy, and they dispatched divers to supervise the salvage operation and they successfully got the two torpedoes out. this operation labeled in significance as the rescue operation that they had in 1969 when China was having war with soviet union in Heilongjiang Province. Because t that time a Soviet T62 tank after it was hit by Chinese military forces, it sank into the iced river of Wusuli River. This tank sank through the ice and sank to the bottom. China had major operation of rescuing this tank, because it sank on the China side of the river. but the Soviet detected the Chinese movements, knowing that they wanted to recover it. so the soviets kept shelling the surface of the water and the area, wanted to sink it further and destroy it, race against time, and China raced to pull it out. the navy dispatched special divers in the freezing water and successfully got it out with a long cable, these people later cited for heroism since it so cold, impossible for them stay in for more than few minutes./ Later studied and placed in the Beijing military museum, nicknamed it "Turtle Shell(Wu Gwei ke). The recovery of the Mark 46 was ranked in significance with the getting of the T 62 from the soviet union.

Studied the Mark 46 torpedoes. Took them apart, disassembled them, and while then sent different parts to different research instituted for study purposes, enabled the Chinese research institutes that belonged to CSSC(China State Shipbulding Corporation) and to successfully make their own copies of the Mark 46. They made these for study and then test fired them in special testing pool in a suburb of Kunming. A very nice pool, specially for acoustic testing purposes, once you throw a stone in it, in the monitoring screen you can see a reflection of the sound and the graphics, perfect acoustical lab. Used it to test these Mark 46 copies, only to find that everything looked exactly the same with what they captured except for the performance. So it took 2 more years to get perfect copy, why all the parts looked the same but could not achieve same level of performance that Mark 46 should have. So the research project continued, until China officially obtained the Mark 46 later 1987. From the US.
Later in those negotiations room of the Systematic Engineering Division of the CSSC, which is not far from pretty close to the naval compound, and the American friends gave the technical introductions of the Mark 46, advanced version. And the Chinese top experts questioned the American specialists about the possible modifications of the Mark 46 used by the US navy compared to the earlier versions. what revolutionary advances had the US made. The Am experts said that not at all. But actually the Chinese top experts on the China side of the table, could hardly hold their laughter, since they knew the truth, they knew that the Americans were lying, they knew what changes had been made. But the Americans there never knew how Chines knew that. These experts were from the sales department of the Mark 46 manufacturer.

After the 1979 war against Vietnam, Deng was absolutetly convinced that the Chinese military needed modernization. Later he specifically pointed out that defense modernization priorities should be given to the Navy, Airforce and Second Artillery corps. And so ever since then this above mentioned services have been actively engaged in foreign advanced technology and weaponry introduction into the PLA. And in order to make sure that nothing goes wrong on the diplomatic front, no spies or secret information, the top national security ministry assigned one agent to each military service, to supervise the operation and security aspect of the operation,dealing with foreigners. To make sure nothing went wrong, they are to be both reliable and trustworthy and competent, have to know the technological aspects of what goes on. Same time have to be trustworthy and loyal. And the one sent to the navy was a female, her name is and she happened to always go the extra mile in her work.(go on from there)(tape at home).



[The Chinese war with Vietnam, in February, 1979, was an unusually bloody confrontation. The Chinese may have lost, in one month of fighting in Vietnam, nearly as many men as the Americans lost in nearly a decade of fighting in Vietnam. Chinese statistics on the war are, however, notoriously unreliable.
Out of the unfortunate costly experience of that brief conflict, the Chinese were able to form a cooperative and partly clandestine military relationship with the United States. The relationship was forged, at first, during Deng Xiaoping's visit to the United States in January, 1979, when indicated to President Jimmy Carter and his National Security Advisor that China planned to move militarily against the Vietnamese. Publicly, the Carter administration sought to distance itself from supporting the military actions of the Chinese. Privately and secretly, they offered critical aid to the Chinese. And during the war, they sent an American naval battle group to the Gulf of Tonkin in order to protect Chinese naval forces on the Paracel Islands. They arranged for secret delivery to the Chinese navy of two much needed Mark 46 torpedoes, that the Chinese badly needed for their submarine fleet in order to effectively confront the forces of the soviet union. The Chinese hoped to reverse manufacture similar models from the American models. This proved impossible and in the mid-1980s, China began buying Mark-46s from the US.
During the conflict, also, the Iranian students seized the American Embassy in Teheran and American press and public was transfixed by actions there. Of critical importance in the shifting relationship with Iran was the fact that America lost important listening posts to spy on the Soviet Union and watch the deployment of soviet missiles. The Chinese were able to make another deal with the Carter administration, offering to set up a new listening post in Northwest China at a secret outpost just outside Urumchi. The project, called Project 851, involves American software and Hardware, about 100 personnel from the NSA and an equal number of Chinese military personnel who occupy the post with the Americans and have been trained to use American spy materials. This post, 851, had been over the years, absolutely uninterrupted by the domestic situation in China. As the Chinese say of the post, "politics is politics and busines is business." They look on the 851 project as a business propostion.

PROJECT 851

uniform with the Chinese military officers working in uniform with Chinese military officials. You have the army intelligence people in uniform, because of the mutual agreement between the two countries. Because of a mutual agreement between the two countries, they were allowed to operate in China, for intelligence purposes. I am talking about a special intelligence gathering complex in North China, in the Northwest with Americans in uniform, and the common enemy at this station is the late Soviet Union. And a lot of the English speaking Chinese officers in that complex, where is this post.(XXXX).The problem in terms of myself, as to who knows where it is? I am crossing the border ]

Nguyen Ngoc Tien: The Fall of Kontum

Nguyen Ngoc Tien.


With the loss of Ban Me Thuot, on the 10th of March, 1975, Kontum was shaken up and a lot of people from Kontum decided to evacuate to Pleiku. Pleiku was the place that people from Kontum moved to. I left Kontum by land and I moved to Pleiku but actually I wanted to go to Nha Trang, but Route 7 was not open at that time so I got stuck at Pleiku. After the majority of Kontum people evacuated and there was only a small number of army officers and the mayor of Kontum who stayed behind, and route 7 was the only route to Saigon from the highlands, and it was blockaded atthat time. My family and I lived in Kontum for 15 years. Since 1960 until the time we evacuated. And around that 1975 I was a governmental worker, I was the finance chief of the town.
I was extremely surprised by what happened, because I thought that they would hit Kontum first and that they would try to overcome Kontum first, and then they went ahead and took over Ban Me Thuot, and by doing that they cut the highlands in half, and it was such a surprise.
On and after the 10th of March, people of Kontum started to evacuate, and my family didn't leave Kontum until the 15th of March, and we drove by car to Pleiku, and at Pleiku, my family tried to find a means to go to Qui Nhon, and so they rented a helicopter to fly to Qui Nhon. But I stayed in Pleiku. Why did I make the decision to leave? Because we could not coexist with the communists. We were free people and they were communists. And I knew that we could not coexist, and besides I was a governmental worker, they would not leave me alone, so I had to go, we had to leave.
Kontum was never overrun by the Communists in 1972, there was some heavy fighting then but they never even got close to the town. The only time it fell into the hands of the communists was in 1975. I was in the convoy of tears at the time but I was to the rear of the convoy, and that is why I got captured, whereas a number of people were lucky enough to get away and to move on.
Let me describe for you a little bit about the convoy of tears. You know there were a lot of people, and people were mixed up in terms of ordinary citizens and military personnel. You would have civilians taking a ride on the tanks driven by the military people, and then you would have military people of different units trying to get a ride with the infantry branch, especially the rangers, they tried to hitch a ride with infantrymen. And along the way, many people die d. Just common people died. And a lot of military people died during that trip also. Especially the rangers. They committed suicide a lot. They did it so easily -- like by hanging themselves. Like the trees, they were not even real tall. With the branches close to the ground, but they just hanged themselves in the trees. And it was such a sorrowful sight when we saw them hanging in the trees. It was such a sorrowful sight.
We were moving along in the convoy of tears and we were being fired at by the communists and because of the intense firing I moved from the convoy and ran into the forest. And they got me there.
I was captured on the 19th of March. I was about 30 or 40 kilometers from Pleiku, on the road to Phu Bon. Cheo Reo is part of Phu Bon. You know what happened? The army that captured me, they were under the direction of Van Tien Dung, because they came from the North, they were not guerrillas or the National Liberation Front people, they were northern soldiers who were sent south. I was lucky that they came from the North, I attribute that to luck. So my life didn't end there. Because if they came from the South Since they were from the North they just kept you as prisoners, but from the South, they would have killed me off right away. I was together with just civilians and it was a large group, and they considered me as just a civilian. I was scared, but I didn't think I would die in their hands then because I was mixed in with the civilians. There were a lot of people that they captured and they made us work for them by carrying things, as they moved southward. I did not see them shoot anybody, but I saw a lot of people dying along the way. A lot.
They said, "Well brothers, where do you want to go, now that we have liberated you all?" They said we should stay and not try to leave. The soldiers of the Northern Army were very young and I thought that only the higher ups knew what was going on. The soldiers didn't They didn't have a lot of education or sophistication.
The people they captured around me were just lowland people like us. The soldiers they didn't know anything, what they tried to tell us ws that they recited what they had been told. They didn't know anything else. They just told us what they had been told.
They tied me up in the beginning, one morning, for half a day or something like that. Then they untied me so I could help carry their stuff. Not everyone had to help them carry their stuff. Why did they have a lot of stuff to be carried, anyway? They used us on an as needed basis, whoever was around at the time they wanted to have something to carry, they asked. But they didn't have a lot of stuff for us to carry. They fed us, one handful of rice and some salt, and that was it. How long was I kept prisoner, about two months.
I remember there was one particular person from Kontum who had worked in the post office. And now he was a cadre for the Communists. But only a few of the people of Kontum turned out to be Communists. It wasn't anything important, because before 1975 they were just regular nonsignificant employees in the government.
I didn't think we would be able to regain control because by that time everything was out of order. And the situation was so chaotic and there was no leadership at all. After the departure of General Ngo Quang Truong then General Cam took over and then he also left and they designated a Col. to take over and then this person took off, and another person was designated to lead the military, it was just a succession of people leaving their posts. There was mass chaos and nothing could be done. I didn't think we would regain the region or that we could fight back effectively. General Pham Van Phu was in command in the area at the time, not General Truong.
When Saigon fell I was in jail. I was a prisoner. Before the fall of Saigon I and other prisoners had high hopes that Saigon would not fall so that there would be an exchange of prisoners, and when we heard that Saigon fell, it just killed our hopes and despair set in.
I was first a prisoner in Phu Bon and then they returned me to Kontum. It wasn't a real prison, it was just a makeshift prison camp, with a wire fence to close us in in a particular area. During the time that I was a prisoner, my family was in Qui Nhon and when they released me they said to me that since I had no criminal records, and no anti-people activities, they temporarily released me. But they said that because at that time I did not tell them that I worked for the former goernment.
I knew before we got separated, when they left Pleiku, I thought then that they were in Qui Nhon. I was held in Phu Bon and that is where they released me. I was ordered to return to Kontum, but I escaped, and instead of going to Kontum I dressed as a civilian and took and made a detour and went to Saigon instead.
How did I do it? By car. So, in Saigon, I had no idea what to do. I was unfamiliar with Saigon and didn't know anything about it. I wanted to add one point. I was captured on the 19th of March, 1975, and then on the 20th of March they also captured a number of generals and colonels and high important people from the police department from the Kontum area. I recognized one colonel from my area and another colonel from the Ban Me Thuot area. That night, the same day, the 20th of March, they put these people together with us. But that same night they then took these people away. They only released me, but they didn't release these officers. The assistant commander of MR II, General Dam, and the Cols who were also acting mayors of Kontum and Ban Me Thuot, Col. Mayor of Ban Me Thuot was Col. Luat and a number of Cols and other high ranking officers. They were taken away at night and I didn't see them again.
I stayed in Saigon from 1975 until 1983. I worked at different jobs in Saigon trying to hide my identity so I would not be returned to Kontum. I always had an idea of leaving and was looking for a way out of the country. So in 1980 I left my children leave Vietnam, my wife and I did not leave until 1983. They left by boat and ten days later we got news of their whereabouts. Their boat was rescued by a Norwegian ship, and it took them to Japan where they stayed for seven months and then they were resettled in the US. Of course I was afraid of being sent to a reeducation camp or to the New Economic Zones. So every morning I left the house, as though I were going to work or to run a business. So that the special police force of the neighborhood would not become suspicious of my status. I didn't see any Americans after 1975.
There was corruption in the South. The North had lived a harsh, spartan life style, and now they came into contact with material things, and so they wanted things. Another thing was that they started to bicker among themselves because of jealousy, and some had good jobs and some didn't and so on. There were conflicts among the Northerners and there was pressure from family members from the Communist officers who returned South because now their families wanted special favors and special things and they complained to their relatives. People wanted material things from relatives in the Northern Army. And so the officials became corrupted very easily, and now it became a natural thing for them to take bribes, it was just an open thing and everybody knows about it. I feared being captured or dying and so I waited to leave the country. But then there came a time in 1980 when I had to make up my mind and sacrifice for my three children to get the chance to leave. They were lucky they left when they did and they made it. And so then I continued to plan for myself and my spouses escape. So we went back to the same organizer and we left and made it to and we didn't have to abort the attempts. We only tried once and we made it like our children.
The organizer of the trip was somebody that we knew and he had organized many trips already, the one including that our children took. It was safe and we were not worried that we would not lose money or anything. He organized around 13 trips and only one or two didn't work out, we were told, and it was due mainly to bad weather. He didn't swindle people out of their money. We trusted him.
I attribute my family's luck, getting out safely. There were many people who had to try many times, 10 times or more and they got cheated out of their money. We were really lucky. We landed in Indonesia. There was a 4 day and 3 night trip. We took a long course and avoided Thai pirates. We were then sponsored by Hanh, or relatives, and with the help of the USCC.
America. As I landed in San Francisco, on the 13 of June 1984, I started feeling freedom, this sense of being free and I felt that this was a big country and that my life, my family and I, our lives, would be safe.
Even though American is a big and strong country, I always think of Vietnam. Life in Vietnam was much slower and you don't have that many worries. But then again, one cannot live with the communists because of their political ideas.
We have lots of freedom in this country. It would have been nice to lead the life style of Vietnam but then I cannot live together with the Communists.
What should I tel my children and grandchildren. Right now we speak Vietnamese at home and I try to instill some Vietnamese ideas in my children. We practice the customs of Vietnam. here at home. The older three know, and we don't have to worry about them losing their roots. The young ones we try to to teach the teaching of the traditions and the customs, and we want them, and we try to help them maintain their Asian roots.
We live in America and our children are touched by this culture. When they are out of school they move out on their own, so they will have to tell their own children about Vietnam. But if we lived together I would tell my grandchildren about Vietnam. But I am afraid they will not live here. I would tell them if I could that even if Vietnam was a small country, life there was nice and things were nice and you didn't have a lot of worries. I would also tell them about the changes after 1975 and the ruling of the communists and how life became so disruptive and chaotic. But I don't think that they would ever want to return to Vietnam. Only the old people would want to go back when the communists are gone.
What is the cause for the loss of Vietnam. There are three: 1. the Vietnamese system was so corrupt, from top to bottom, and a lot of corruption was going on. 2). the aid of the American government, when they gave us at a distance aid, they did not give things that we could use, raw materials, things we needed. They only gave us tangible things, that could be used then and there. So when there was a cut in assistance, things started to shake. 3. the way the people grouped themselves after the death of president Diem. I see that there started to be different parties and gangs, people drifted into different groups, and they did not do they were not united after that. They were in different competing groups, there was no unity in the country after that time.
The use of illegal drugs. I knew that from time to time there were drug arrests. But when I was in Saigon, I would see a lot of young people shooting up right there in public, but then when they got arrested, that didn't deter them. After 1975 I saw people dying from not having drugs, they just dropped dead on the streets, like that, because they didn't have drugs to satisfy their cravings.
What did I think of General Nguyen Van Toan. On his skills as a leader, there were rumors about him. I didn't think his being relieved from his post was due to his involvement in the use of illegal substances. But it was to my mind with the issue of girls, too many females. I met General Phu only two times, when he came to meetings. He was still young then. At the time he came up for the meetings was when things started to happen. I heard no rumors about him and heard he had a good character.
I grew up in the Central Region, in Quang Nam, and after 1947 I moved to Saigon for schooling. In 1960, when I graduated I was assigned to a post in Kontum, and that's where I lived until things happened in 1975.
Often now I dream about Vietnam. At night I would have dreams that I was back at my work place or on my way home. I dream about Vietnam all the time. There will never be a day when I don't dream about Vietnam. Never ever.
I worry about the third generation here in America, they will be like the American kids. and I don't like that.