So quite a sharp contrast to what the official Chinese and broader communist movement globally say. Things get more confusing when we find out that Zhang Yunsheng, who served as Lin Bao’s receptionist from August 66 to late 1970, testified later that Lin was was not only a man of little ambition, but was a detached, introverted figure who usually showed little interest in national or world affairs and seldom played an active role in policymaking.

Clearly, poor health was a major factor with Lin rarely attending important meetings, only able to work for one or two 30 minute periods per day when he was briefed by his secretaries, requiring injections of sedatives before public appearances because he was such a nervous, neurotic little man. Other veteran revolutionaries testify that Ye Qun, who saw her role as guarding the pass, controlled access to Lin Biao and was easily able to manipulate him. A fact which often makes it almost impossible to know when actions reflected Lin’s will or whether they were a product of Ye’s initiatives.

Well, two final questions about the Lin Biao incident remain unanswered.

Why did the plane eventually turn north towards the Soviet Union? And how did the plane crash? Before Lin’s family left building number 96 for the airport, Ye Qun and Lin Liguo had mentioned going to Dalian, Guangzhou, or even Hong Kong, but no one had ever heard them say a word about going to the Soviet Union. People sympathetic to Lin Biao have indulged in much speculation. Some people believe that the reason Lin’s plane turned northward had much to do with Zhou Enlai’s order to ground all planes, which was an order that would have effectively closed all airports.

It was thus impossible for the plane to land in China, even if the pilot had intended to return to the airport. According to two Air Force officers that Teiwes interviewed, however, Captain Pan (Jingyin) made no attempt to contact an airport. The pilot shut off the communication system after the plane had taken off. In Li’s (Li Zuopeng?) account, he did not realize that the Lins were going to betray the country until he heard himself Lin ask Lin Liguo in the car on the way to the airport, “How far away would Irkutsk be?”

During the next few seconds, Li was torn over what to do. Finally, he realized what was happening. Everything Lin Doudou had told him was suddenly clear, and he realized that the group was heading for the Soviet Union. Torn between loyalty to his master and the well-being of his own family, Li asked himself what would happen to his wife and children if he were to be labeled a traitor to the country. He dared not think along that line.

Li’s later report to the special case group that Lin had asked in the car about the distance to Irkutsk is the sole piece of evidence indicating that Lin knew they were going to the Soviet Union. Teiwes thus postulates that there is no other evidence to corroborate Lee’s testimony on this point. So where was Lin Biao going to? Well, honestly, we may never truly know. Ye was still talking about going to Dalian or Guangzhou the next morning. Other than the off-hand comment about going to Irkutsk, Lin himself never mentioned anything to anyone about going anywhere besides Dalian.

Even Lin Wenpu, Lin’s trusted bodyguard believed Lin was going to Dalian or Guangzhou until the car left for the airport around midnight. What they would do there only they would know and we are left with more questions than answers.

But what about project 571?

Central Investigation Group for special cases organized for the Lin Biao incident also confirmed that when his father presented the newly discovered outline of project 571 to Mao and Zhou Enlai uh Mao did not believe at all that it was Lin Biao’s plan but later changed his mind. Furthermore, the notebook copy of the alleged plan reads more like a political proclamation than a plan for a coup.

Only two of its nine parts discuss the use of force. The parts concerning politics are far more interesting than those concerned with the military aspects of the coup. Many of those documents criticisms of Mao and the cultural revolution appear to anticipate those made after Mao’s death. In fact, the outline contains one of the earliest criticisms of the cultural revolution.

Whoever drafted the plan had limited knowledge of military tactics and organization. For example, the basic strengths of the conspirators were said to be in the fourth and fifth air force armies, the 9th, 18th, and 34th air force divisions, the 21st tank regiment, and strangely the Civil Aeronautics Administration? Thus, the estimate of the author of the plot was that no more than half a dozen military units would support the coup.

It is difficult to imagine that Lin, who had commanded a million troops and had intricate knowledge of the requirements of any military situation, would accept such an estimate of forces as sufficient to carry out a coup. It is equally doubtful that Lin would have relied so heavily on the air force to ensure success. Even the author of the outline notes that at the present, the preparation of our strength is still not adequate.

Given Lin’s military record, one might reasonably have expected him to do a much better job of planning a military action against Mao. Further, the language in the outline is not what Lin would have used. Judging from their dogged loyalty to Mao over three decades of struggle against their common enemies, it is difficult to imagine that Lin or anyone else in the generation of old revolutionaries would have referred to Mao by the code name B-52.

Indeed, the outline is peppered with distinctive unclear codes. The Chinese characters in the title contain 571, a homonym for military uprising. The author repeats 571 in the document numerous times, beating a dead horse. 571 appears at least four times in the opening page, for example. Other codes like B-52, the pen, the fleet, battleship 5, the chief, etc. keep appearing.

Such codes have no military or security use, but do give the outline a certain, well, James Bond quality. The outline is more akin to a spy novel or a screenplay than a real military document. Again, this gives the outline a very sophomorish quality. If the document is indeed real, it almost certainly wasn’t written by Lin Biao directly, but by his son Li Liguo and allies closer to his age or younger.

It uses a lot of colloquialisms and highly emotional language common to Lin Jr.'s personal correspondences, but never found in Lin Senior’s personal correspondence or notes. Many Chinese scholars, including those that I’ve spoken to here in China, feel that the 571 documents writing style doesn’t match that of Lin Bao, but is very close to Lin Liguo’s.

The military planning in the project 571 document is incredibly amateurish and reckless and seems more like something a hot shot rookie officer might come up with rather than a seasoned shrewd field marshal who helped lead a revolutionary people’s war.

Finally, we have to look at the physical copy of the 571 document itself. It was written in the handwriting of Yu Xinye, the deputy director of the Air Force party committee office and a close friend and subordinate of Lin Liguo. Yu, it should be noted, was often at odds with Lin Senior.

According to the confessions of Li Weixin, the only member of the joint fleet who survived long enough to be captured and interrogated, the document was brainstormed and drafted in Shanghai in March 1971 by Lin Liguo, Yu Xinye and himself with Lin not being present. No physical evidence, draft, or audio recording was ever produced linking Lin Biao’s handwriting, or voice to the creation, approval, or even awareness of the document.

Of course, just because Lin didn’t write it doesn’t mean he wasn’t in on it. But at this point, we may never truly know. The Lin Biao incident is a great historical mystery that may never be fully unraveled, mainly because those who were involved took their secrets with them to their graves.

All the documentation they left us doesn’t help clear things up. And other than eyewitness testimony, we don’t have much in the way of documentation of what went on that night or what their plans were. Even after all the research I did for this episode, I still find myself with more questions than I do answers. I don’t know. What do you think, listeners?

Was Lin Biao a part of the coup plot to kill Chairman Mao? Or do you think he was a helpless patsy caught in the crossfire of his overly ambitious son and wife? I’d love to hear what you think. But until then, this is your host Drew signing off from the illustrious capital of Beijing. Tune in to our next episode where we’ll be dealing with another meaty and difficult subject, the Nixon and Mao meeting of 1972. So with that, let’s put a bookmark in our book and let’s give you guys a big zai jian. See you in September.

Zhou and Kissinger had firmly decided on a number of things.

Number one, a One China policy that would take steps to recognize the People’s Republic of China as the sole China and America to promise to never support Taiwanese independence.

Number two, eventual withdrawal of all American troops from Taiwan province.

Number three, no collusion whatsoever with the USSR against China under any circumstances.

Number four, drawdown but not complete withdrawal of US forces from the Korean Peninsula.

Number five, no use of US troops in Vietnam to threaten China and a normalization of US-China relations with the conclusion of the Vietnam War.

Six, allowing American tourists to gradually be allowed to visit China for apolitical reasons.

And finally, most importantly, number seven, President Richard M. Nixon would be allowed to meet with Chairman Mao Zedong for full negotiations in May of 1972.

Kissinger and Zhou agreed fully to all these stipulations and the meeting was considered a success. Thus, both Chinese and American delegations were given the all-clear to make the meeting public.

Remember the deal was that the talk would remain secret unless it was successful. If it failed, no one would ever know about it and it would have been erased from history. But fortunately, both parties came back more than happy.

On the 13th, Zhou flew to Hanoi for a one-day trip to brief leaders on his talks with Kissinger, most of which concerned a possible military withdrawal by the US from Indochina. The next day, Zhou returned from Hanoi and visited with Mao at his swimming pool residence to discuss the Vietnamese reaction to his talks with Kissinger.

On the 15th, Zhou flew to Pyongyang to brief the Workers’ Party of Korea and Korean People’s Army leadership on his talks with Kissinger, who hinted at a drawdown of US troops from the peninsula.

On July 16th, the Xinhua News Agency publicly announced Zhou and Li’s meeting with Kissinger and that Mao had invited Nixon to China and that Nixon had accepted. The next day, President Nixon addressed the nation live on ABC News to reveal the big news. He would be visiting China at Mao’s invitation in May of next year.

On July 19th, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan held a surprise reception for the US Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars in the Great Hall of the People and announced to them Nixon’s announcement to meet Chairman Mao the next year.

On July 21st, a party circular reassured party branches of all levels, from the national to the village and district level, that inviting Nixon was Mao’s idea and, quote, “another tactic in the struggle against imperialism.”

That evening, Zhou held a press conference with American journalists, of whom there were now several in China after finally having been granted visas for the first time in years.

Two days later, Nixon extended an olive branch by publicly declaring that the US spy plane program against China was to be suspended immediately and called for a grounding of all reconnaissance and bomber planes in the Pacific theater as a gesture of goodwill.

Finally, on July 23rd, 1971, China cracked its doors even further. Zhang Chunqiao received Muhammad Kenyatta and Helen Jones from the US League of Black Revolutionary Workers as well as from the Black Workers Congress.

Pretty soon, delegations from the Revolutionary Union, soon to be the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, the October League, soon to be the Communist Party Marxist-Leninist, the Black Panther Party, the Brown Berets, the Young Lords Party, and the Young Patriots were invited to spend summer and autumn touring China along with a myriad of other US, Canadian, British, Irish, Japanese, and other Western Maoist parties and pre-party formations, but particularly American ones.

Even some Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Soviet Red Army delegates, along with East German, Hungarian, and other Warsaw Pact nations’ delegates were able to attend state functions and friendship tours on a limited basis, and the Soviet embassy in Beijing began to operate once more, albeit on a very sporadic and limited scale.

And with that, China began to slowly but surely open its doors to its former arch enemies. At this point, it’s still only foreign dignitaries, specialists, athletes, and cadres from North American and Western European Maoist and Revolutionary Nationalist parties. But it’s a big step from only 2 or 3 years prior when it was only Communist Party delegations and left-wing dignitaries and politicians from neocolonial countries like in Africa or specifically allied countries like Albania and North Vietnam.

So let’s put a bookmark in it for today.

Next chronological episode will be a big one, let me tell you.

Let me tell you, it’s going to be a big one. It It’s possibly going to be one of the longest, most divisive, and most exciting. I’m actually thinking about making into a format similar to a radio drama, actually. Uh, but it’s going to be a big one. Yes, we’ll be covering August and December of 1971.

And for you Chinese history buffs, you know what that means. will be telling the story of and summing up and analyzing the experience of the Lin Biao incident of September 1971 when Lin Biao’s star doesn’t just fall, it comes crashing down as the tension beginning at the Lushan conference in 1970 explodes to the top. But is the story really what the official narrative says it is? Who was Lin Biao really? Well, we’ll talk about these questions and much more in episodes 33 and 34.

Can’t wait for you guys to get turned on and tune into that one. I’m sure it’s going to generate a lot, and I mean a lot of sharp and passionate discussion.

But until then, comrades, from the ancient city of Chang’an, the modern-day city of Xi’an, capital of 13 dynasties, home of the first emperor of China’s terracotta warriors, Biang Biang noodles, ice peak soda, and the giant wild goose pagoda, the terminus of the Silk Road so many centuries ago, the cradle of Daoist philosophy, and the place where the Xi’an incident of 1936 happened. I bid you a hardy and comradely zai jian.

Sources for today’s episode include

Chinese foreign policy during the Maoist era in its lessons for today by the Marxist Leninist Maoist Revolutionary Study Group,

Mao’s Last Revolution by Roderick McFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals

Turbulent decade, a history of the cultural revolution by Yan Jiaqi and Gao Gao.

The world turned upside down. A history of the cultural revolution by Yang Jisheng.

Zhou Enlai. A life by Chen Jian.

The A To Z Encyclopedia of the Cultural Revolution by various authors.

The Marxist Internet Archive Peking Review Archive. Marxist Internet Archive Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism online.

The People’s Daily Archives.

Shaanxi Provincial Archives.

The Wilson Center archives.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong cultural revolution database.

The Kissinger China trip archive from the National Security Archives.

The revisiting Kissinger secret trip to Beijing resource database from the University of Southern California US China Institute and

the CIA reading room. declassified documents on the 1971 Soviet military buildup along the China and Mongolian borders.