FORMOSA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000100770003-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 22, 1999
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: September 20, 1963
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Tr CPYRGHT SEP 2 0 1963
FO Q ee0 3Ib
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When the United Airlines Jet ian0vu
at Washington Airport last week, Gen-
eral ChiangCh :n kt~4. al;ked unno-
ticed past" Tff' waiting reception com-
mittee of U.S. officials and Chinese dip-
lomats. It was not until moments later
that they spotted him, a chunky man
in a nondescript business suit, patiently
examining the modernistic interior of
the Dulles Terminal Building.
The committee's mistake, and the
general's demeanor, were both signifi-
cant. Though the eldest son of Chiang
Kai-shek, Nationalist China's venerable
president, Chiang Ching-kuo, 53, is the
mystery man of Formosa who avoids
the limelight. Partly, the mystery has
professional reasons: as chief of For-
mosa's secret police and head of the
guerrilla activities directed against Red
China, he naturally seeks the shadows.
Formosan Bestseller. The visit to the
U.S., his first in ten years, is said to be
without special significance. > Lg_&,W-
ferred with intelligence officials at both
the CIA wand the Penta discussed
tfieaes estimates o con rtions on the
Red Chinese mainland. Between con-
ferences, he squeezed in a one-day jet
flight to Cape Canaveral. He also had a
75-minute conference with the Presi-
dent and presented him with a copy of
Profiles in Courage in a Chinese trans-
lation, adding that it was a bestseller
on Formosa.
Kennedy and top U.S. officials were
seeing face to face the man who may
well succeed his father as President of
Nationalist China. On Formosa, Ching-
kuo is known as "Little Chiang," and his
only major rival for the top job is Vice
President Chen Cheng, who suffers from
a liver ailment and has been in semire-
tirement since June. Born in Chekiang
province to the Gimo's first wife, a peas-
ant girl who was later killed in a Japa-
nese bombing raid, Ching-kuo was 16
when the Gimo sent him to Moscow in
1925 "to learn more about revolution-
ary ideas." He joined the Komsomol
and studied guerrilla tactics at a Red
army academy. When Chiang Kai-shek
broke with the Communists in 1927,
a letter over Ching-kuo's name ap-
peared in Pravda denouncing his fa-
ther as a "traitor." He says the letter
was a forgery.
Ching-kuo himself broke with Stalin
on the issue of Trotskyism and put in
some years of hard work in gold mines
and factories. When the Japanese threat
forged a new bond between. Stalin and
the Gimo in 1937, Ching-kuo was per-
mitted to leave for China with his shy,
appealing Russian wife Fanina and their
son Alan.
Spot & Mop. Overjoyed at his son's
return, the Gimo nevertheless thought
him too Russian in his outlook and had
him tutored for two years to "make him
Chinese again." Ever since, Ching-kuo
has loyally and efficiently handled a suc-
cession of jobs for his father, ranging
CPYRGHT
CHIANG CHING-KUO & FRIEND
The mystery was partly professional.
from operating a concentration camp
for Communist suspects on Green Is-
land to creating a system of political
commissars to check on loyalty in the
army. Under Ching-kuo, Nationalist
guerrillas probe the mainland for soft
spots in the defenses and public dis-
affection with the Red regime. Over
the past two years, some 1,500 men
have been put ashore in Chekiang and
Kwangtung provinces. In U.S. opinion,
individual saboteurs often complete
their missions, but most large raiding
parties have been quickly spotted and
mopped up by the Red Chinese.
Ching-kuo has repeatedly been ac-
cused of engaging in secret talks with
Peking, presumably with the object of
making a deal after the Gimo's death.
Those who know him best scoff at the
idea that he would ever hand Formosa
over to Peking.
Sino-Marxist Amalgam. With no for-
mal university education, Ching-kuo
commands little loyalty among Nation-
alist China's intellectuals, and his non-
conformist methods irritate the top
politicians of the Kuomintang. He is
backed by his dashing half brother, Ma-
jor General Chiang Wei-kuo, 47. As
minister without portfolio in the Cabinet
and special adviser to the President,
Ching-kuo works closely with his father.
Another source of strength is Ching-
kuo's 1.00,000-man Youth Corps, and
his veto power over promotions in the
army gives him enormous influence with
junior officers.
With his two older children married,
Ching-kuo lives in a modest home in
Taipei with his wife and two younger
sons. His day begins at 6:00 a.m. with
an hour's practice in Chinese calligraphy
and painting, and continues in his office
until midnight. He likes hiking in the
mountains, but since suffering from mild
diabetes has had to forgo convivial
drinking-mostly vodka. One old friend
sees Ching-kuo as "an amalgam of the
Chinese tradition and Marxist ideas."
What strikes most observers is his
strange combination of shyness and
power. A Chinese friend perhaps put it
best when he said, "Look at his hands-
there's the man: coarse, tough, patient."
As his trip to Washington neared its
end last week, the mystery man met
newsmen, who found him seated on a
gold-embroidered sofa in the Chinese
embassy. Red China, said Ching-kuo
through his interpreter, is at its weakest
point in history and Formosa corre-
spondingly at its strongest. His visit was
intended to bring about "common un-
derstanding" between his country and
the U.S. Did that mean there were
misunderstandings? Ching-kuo replied
with a loud "No!" even before the ques-
tion was translated. With a brisk, "That's
all," the interview was concluded, and
Ching-kuo drove off to Princeton, N.J.,
to enjoy the one U.S. experience he had
insisted upon-staying at a motel.
GH1'q:rED CHINA
ackward Country
ram economis ac -
ong look Red China (TIME cover,
ept. 13) an emerged last week with
ormer Economic ffairs Minister and
urrently a membe f the Belgian Par-
iament. Scheyven vis d Canton, Peking
nd Shanghai, and a tuber of indus-
rial centers in northeas nand central
hina. He was told that Nth rationing
ould continue for at lea five years.
cheyven added that optimist ave Chi-
a 20 years to catch up with indus-
rial nations of the West, and p imists
0 to 50 years. Said Scheyven, give
t approximately 60 years."
TIME, SEPTEMBER ani ized - Approved PF& 9169se : CIA-RDP75-00149R000100770003-7 35