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h/t exiledonline.com
http://cryptome.org/0005/cia-two/cia-two.htm
Interesting points:
1) CIA made 2 attempts to drop counter-revolutionary agents into post-Communist takeover China, the second of which was caught including 2 CIA agents.
2) CIA then made up a story:
3) Said CIA agents were declared 'dead' for 1 year until China revealed they had them, along with a crew of a B-29 bomber shot down over China
4) Apparently the Chinese didn't even use extraordinary rendition with spies literally caught red handed:
5) When caught, lie again
Note to conspiracy theorists: in this case there is a clear rationale for national security against damned commies, and for a clear beneficial purpose.
6) 20 years go by
7) This doesn't need any comment.
8) Thank you Mr. Nixon
Link above also lets you compare redacted vs. non-redacted versions. Very interesting.
Just so I can post a video from CIA.gov ...
http://cryptome.org/0005/cia-two/cia-two.htm
Interesting points:
1) CIA made 2 attempts to drop counter-revolutionary agents into post-Communist takeover China, the second of which was caught including 2 CIA agents.
2) CIA then made up a story:
Several hours after the scheduled time of pickup, the CIA field unit received a message from the agent team, reporting that the snatch had been successful. However, when the C47 was overdue for its return on the morning of 30 November 1952, CIA worked with Civil Air Transport to concoct a cover story—a CAT aircraft on a commercial flight from Korea to Japan on 3 December was missing and, as of 4 December, was presumed lost in the Sea of Japan.
...
Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Walter Bedell Smith signed letters of condolence to the men’s families, saying “I have learned that [your son/your husband] was a passenger on a commercial plane flight between South Korea and Japan which is now overdue and that there is grave fear that he may have been lost.”
...
Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Walter Bedell Smith signed letters of condolence to the men’s families, saying “I have learned that [your son/your husband] was a passenger on a commercial plane flight between South Korea and Japan which is now overdue and that there is grave fear that he may have been lost.”
With nothing other than the conviction that the Chinese Communists would have made propaganda use of the CIA men had either remained alive, the Agency declared Downey and Fecteau “presumed dead” on 4 December 1953. Letters to that effect were sent to the families under the signature of DCI Allen Dulles.
...
That day, 23 November 1954, almost a year after the CIA had pronounced Downey and Fecteau “presumed dead,” Beijing declared them alive, in custody, and serving their sentences as convicted CIA spies. The first that the Agency learned of it was through a New China News Agency broadcast. At the same time, the Chinese announced the sentencing, also for espionage, of the officers and crew of a US Air Force B29 aircraft, shot down over China some weeks after Downey and Fecteau’s C47 flight.
...
That day, 23 November 1954, almost a year after the CIA had pronounced Downey and Fecteau “presumed dead,” Beijing declared them alive, in custody, and serving their sentences as convicted CIA spies. The first that the Agency learned of it was through a New China News Agency broadcast. At the same time, the Chinese announced the sentencing, also for espionage, of the officers and crew of a US Air Force B29 aircraft, shot down over China some weeks after Downey and Fecteau’s C47 flight.
The interrogations began, with sessions usually lasting for four hours, but some as long as 24 hours straight. Sleep deprivation was part of the game: The men were prohibited from sleeping during the day and the Chinese would invariably haul them off for middleofthenight interrogations after a half hour’s sleep. An important element of the Chinese technique was to tell Downey and Fecteau that no one knew they were alive and that no one would ever know until the Chinese decided to announce the fact—if they ever decided to do so.
...
The men were never tortured physically or, after their initial capture, beaten.[12] Fecteau reported that he wore leg irons constantly for the first 10 months and that he was made to stand during interrogations to the point of falling down from exhaustion, especially after being caught lying or bluffing. Downey remembered the leg irons and the intense psychological pressure of interrogations, plus the added mental stress from concocting new stories after the cover story evaporated—as he later acknowledged, telling lies requires an extraordinarily good memory.
...
The men were never tortured physically or, after their initial capture, beaten.[12] Fecteau reported that he wore leg irons constantly for the first 10 months and that he was made to stand during interrogations to the point of falling down from exhaustion, especially after being caught lying or bluffing. Downey remembered the leg irons and the intense psychological pressure of interrogations, plus the added mental stress from concocting new stories after the cover story evaporated—as he later acknowledged, telling lies requires an extraordinarily good memory.
The Agency quickly assembled an ad hoc committee under Richard M. Bissell Jr., then a special assistant to the DCI. Bissell’s committee accepted the Chinese declaration as true and changed the men’s status from “presumed dead” to “missing in action.” Further, the committee decided to backstop the cover story that Downey and Fecteau were Army civilians traveling as passengers on a contract aircraft between Korea and Japan; this required coordination with the Pentagon and dealing with some two dozen persons outside the government who were aware of the CIA affiliation of either Downey or Fecteau: family members, officials of three insurance companies, two banks, several lawyers, and the executor of an estate. Despite the potential for leaks, the true status of the two men was kept secret by authoritative sources for many years, and there was no deviation from the cover story for two decades.
6) 20 years go by
There may be some among us who can imagine 20 days in captivity; perhaps a fraction of those can imagine a full year deprived of liberty and most human contact. But 20 years? Downey and Fecteau have consistently sought to downplay their period of imprisonment; and neither has done what arguably too many former CIA officers do these days with far less justification: write a book. Downey has said that such a book would contain “500 blank pages,” and Fecteau says the whole experience could be summed up by the word “boring.”[17]
It was the exemplary manner in which CIA headquarters handled Downey’s and Fecteau’s affairs that partially redeems the disaster that led to their predicament. Once the Chinese had broken the news that the two were alive, the Agency quickly restored them to the active payroll
Fecteau’s release in December 1971, and Downey’s 15 months later, came about in the context of the warming of relations between the United States and China.
Just so I can post a video from CIA.gov ...
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