A Chinese James Bond - Ops Analysis Finds A Mole?

   In Taiwan in 1960 I was assigned to manage an operation that 
had considerable potential. One of the Chinese Nationalist 
intelligence services offered to share its best agent with us. 
They said they would give him all of their training and requirements,
after which we (CIA) could do the same. The agent would then go to 
mainland China and try to satisfy all of the requirements of both
services. The Chinese said that this agent had gone on trips before 
to China and had produced good intelligence. Since we had yet to 
place one solid reporting agent on the mainland, we eagerly agreed 
to their proposal.

   The agent -- I will call him L/1 -- was a Chinese James Bond. There
seemed nothing he could not do. Our training officers taught him our
system of secret writing, radio communication, photography, observation 
and reporting, and numerous other subjects. Our intelligence staff briefed
him on major intelligence requirements. I gave him his travel documents
and briefed him on the cover story. No matter what the topic or instructions,
all agreed L/1 was the best agent they had ever trained. He grasped broad 
concepts as easily as he mastered demanding technical points. We were all 
a little awed by L/1, but were put off by his condescending manner.

   Our plan was to send L/1 to the mainland, where he would contact and 
recruit a friend to serve as our resident spy. He was also to set up a 
clandestine radio in the friend's house. We gave him a detailed daily 
time schedule for radio contact, at which time our people would monitor 
his radio's frequency. After he recruited his friend (L/2), he was to 
travel around China for several months while occasionally sending out 
radio reports and encoded letters.

   After two months of training and briefing, we launched him into China.

   L/1 lived up to all his potential, except for radio contact. He began 
sending back a series of encoded letters, which decoded perfectly, and 
described his travails along the way. After nearly four months he re-appeared 
on Taiwan. This was the first successful operation of this type that the 
station ever had, and we all were elated. I planned to get the best mileage 
out of the operation and set forth a debriefing schedule for every day, 
both morning and afternoon. As it turned out, the debriefing went on for 
a full month. I had to reply on an interpreter, but that seemed only a 
minor problem since L/1's answers were crisp, short, and straight to the 
point.

   During the debriefing L/1 gave us details of L/2's house and life in a 
commune in China. Food and clothing were rationed, apportioned according 
to one's status and function. Everyone was required to participate in 
political meetings that continued sometimes until late in the evening. 
In the morning everyone was required to get up early for group exercises
when the government's radio station broadcast exercise music.

   There was one thing about L/1 that disturbed me -- the lack of radio 
contact while he was in China. L/1 claimed that he could not make 
contact because our schedule called for early-morning communication when,
the electricity was turned off. Yet the government's exercise program 
came on early in the morning and was received by L/2's commercial radio. 
How was one radio able to operate but not the other? I began to wonder if 
L/1's claim about no electricity might be contrived. I did not want to 
confront him with the discrepancy until I had closed all avenues of possible 
retreat. I wanted desperately for him to allay my suspicions, but I just 
as strongly wanted to know the truth.

   One aspect complicated the problem. The intelligence service of the
Chinese Nationalists might have substituted their crystals in our radio,
thereby allowing L/1 to report only to them. I had to be careful not to
expose any possible duplicity on the part of the liaison service, since
the ongoing relationship was probably more important than determining 
the truth. Scattered throughout the last two weeks, I casually asked about
L/2's radio -- where he had purchased it, what brand name was it, what 
stations could it receive, and what kind of batteries he had to buy for it. 
L/1 responded that it did not have batteries and that it operated off the 
house current -- the wrong answer!

   On the last day I asked why, if L/2's radio operated off the house 
current in the early morning, was it impossible for him to make use of 
the same electricity for our radio?  L/1's look archly acknowledged that 
I had got the best of him. He jumped up and left and the debriefing was 
over.

   I could never prove that L/1 lied to conceal duplicity on the part
of the liaison service or that he was working for the Chinese Communists.
In any case we terminated the operation.

Ralph McGehee
http://come.to/CIABASE