spymaster dai li.pdf

7/27/2019 Spymaster dai li.pdf

1/4

Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 1 (March 2009)75

Al l statements of fact, opin ion, or an alysis expressed i n th is art icl e ar e those of the aut hor. N othi ng i n

the arti cle should be constr ued as assert i ng or imp lyi ng US govern ment end orsement of an ar ti cles

factual statements and i nterpretat ions. Thi s art i cle is unclassif ied in its ent ir ety.

Intelligence in Public Literature

Spym a ster : D a i L i a n d th e Ch i n ese Sec r et Ser v i ceFrederic Wa keman, J r. B erkeley: Un iversity of Ca lifornia P ress, 2003, 650 pp. P hotos, index.

Reviewed by Bob Bergin

Spymasteris a rich, but very complex book, difficult to rea d in pla ces, but

rewa rding for the reader w illing to struggle through the difficult par ts. It tells

the story of Da i Li, an extra ordinary secret policeman , and of the immense espi-

onage a ppara tus he built . More importa ntly, in deta iling American involvement

wit h D a i Li, the story offers a lesson, releva nt today, in t he na ture of intelligence

relationships betw een a llies, how w rong they can go, and how the OSS deftlyha ndled a relat ionship gone bad.

Da i Li wa s Chia ng Ka i-sheks spyma ster during World Wa r II , the claw s a nd

teeth of the Chinese Nationalist leader a nd the Chinese Himmler to the Brit-

ish. As chief of the B ureau of Investiga tion and St a tistics of the Milita ry Affa irs

Commission or Juntong, he controlled tens of thousands of spies in C hina a nd in

every countr y th a t ha d a Chinese community. Officia l sources claim t ha t D a i Li

ha d 100,000 ag ents in th e field by 1945. There w ere 50,000 regula r a gents run -

ning a ssets, amounting t o about 500,000 spies an d informers, ma king the J un-

tong the worlds lar gest espiona ge orga niza tion at the time. Aimed primarily a t

Chia ngs politica l enemies an d th e communists, the J untong carried out a ll

kinds of espionag e an d int elligence work.

Da i Li wa s a n a tura l for th e job: his wa s the cla ssic rise from obscurity t o great

pow er thr ough cunn ing, intelligence, an d deviousness. He wa s born in 1897 in

the hills of Zhejian g P rovince, wh ere even as a teenager he wa s seen a s a n a tu-

ra l lea der, but a lso a s a t rouble maker addicted to sex and ga mbling. Ca ught

cheat ing a t ca rds, he ra n off to join t he a rmy, and t hen desertedbut n ot before

he connected w ith t he G reen G a ng, the notorious ga ngsters w ho controlled the

Sha ngha i underw orld. It w as a link tha t w ould serve him well in times to come.

In 1921, while living off the land in Sh a ngha i, he met Chia ng Ka i-shek and r an

erran ds for him. In 1926, possibly with G reen Ga ng help, he ma na ged to getad mitt ed to the Wha mpoa Milita ry Acad emy, wh ere Chiang wa s the chan cellor.

To ingrat iate himself with Chiang, w ho want ed to use him as a batma n, he

report ed on th e ideological pur ity of his fellow cadet s. The ones he identified a s

commun ists w ere eliminat ed in a purge at Wha mpoa in 1927.


2/4

Book Review: Spymaster

76Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 1 (March 2009)

Wha mpoa a nd its a lumni were the base on which Chian gs power w a s built . His

loya lists moved in a sw irl of associat ions, secret societies, an d front orga niza-

tions. At the core was the most secret Lix ingshe(th e Society for Vigorous P ra c-

tice) a nd t he front organiza tion it contr olled, th e Fuxingshe, or Renna isance

Society. Permea ting t he mix wa s Chia ngs persona l espiona ge appara tus of secret

intelligence orga nizat ions th a t he let fight a mong themselves for funds a nd

authority.

In 1928, Chia ng esta blished a 10-ma n int elligence unit called the Lia ison G roup

an d put Da i Li in charge. Lat er ca lled the embryo of all subsequent pa rty a nd

sta te milita ry int elligence orga niza tions, the group had t o compete with m a ny

others. To strengt hen his h a nd, D a i Li formed th e Leag ue of Ten, Wa mpoa gr a d-

ua tes he put on his priva te pa yroll who becam e the core of his personal secret

service.

In 1932, w hen C hian g needed intelligence tha t others were un able t o provide, he

directed D a i Li t o turn his Lea gue of Ten into a forma l Specia l Services D epa rt-

ment. The Ten becam e more than a hundred, a nd D a i Lis rise bega n. Da i Li

became Chiangs primary source for political intelligence, and, in 1938, Chiangesta blished t he new independent security a gency tha t wa s th e J untong. Da i Li

wa s ma de its chief.

B efore the outbreak of wa r w ith J a pan, Da is a ctivities centered on S han ghai,

wh ere he suborned t he police an d drew on t he skills of his a ssociates in t he G reen

G a ng. Kidna pping a nd tortur e became tools to gat her intelligence a nd root out

Chia ngs enemies a nd t he commun ists. Tra fficking in na rcotics and other contr a -

ban d wa s the mean s to supplement budgets a s Da i Lis activities an d power grew.

Da i Li wa s the only ma n a llow ed arm ed into Chia ngs presence. He became the

most feared ma n in China ; mothers invoked his na me to ma ke their children

behave.

After the J apa nese a tta ck on Pearl H ar bor, America ns sta rted stream ing into

China , some with big ideas for winning t he wa r a nd a ccess to the funds to do it.

Da i ha d never ta ken well to foreigners and a voided dealing wit h them. Then he

met a U S Na vy officer open t o his ideas. Comma nder Milton E. Miles, known t o

history a s Mary Miles, was the nearest thing the U S Na vy had t o a China expert.

A gra dua te of the Na va l Academy, he had spent five years w ith t he Asiat ic fleet. In

early 1942, Chief of Na va l Opera tions Admira l King sent him t o China t o esta b-

lish w eather st at ions a nd to heckle the J a panese.

Da i Li took Miles on a trip into occupied Ch ina an d impressed him w ith how ea s-

ily the J untong could operat e behind J a panese lines. Before the tr ip wa s over, Da i

proposed the creation of a 50,000 strong Chinese guerrilla army under Sino-

American cont rol. With out consult ing Wa shingt on, Miles a greed, an d th e tw osta rted w orking on t he creat ion of wh a t became t he Sino-America n C oopera tive

Organ izat ion (SACO) to ca rry out espiona ge, special operat ions, a nd signals

intelligence. The Chinese w ould provide the ma npow er; the U nited S ta tes t he

rest. D a i Li w ould be th e SACO director, Miles his deputy.

Wa shingtons a pprova l of the SACO a greement required t ha t Miles be appointed

chief of OSS activities in C hina . OSS chief Wild B ill Donovan r esisted the idea,


3/4


Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 1 (March 2009)77

but because OSS needed a Chinese base for its Asia operat ions, he agr eed to a n

unhappy alliance with Miles and Da i Li. The OSS w as a dmitted to China a s

subordinat e par tners of G eneral D a i Lis int elligence service. P ersonnel from

OSS a nd the U S Na vy sta rted ar riving at D ai Lis base, Happy Valley, outside

Chun king to instruct D a is people in everyt hing from guerrilla w a rfa re to crimi-

na l investigat ion, even a n FB I school to tra in Da i Lis secret police.

There were problems from t he sta rt. Da is secret police were directed a ga inst

Chian gs internal enemies rath er tha n the J a panese. There was t he mat ter of

torture: Ha ppy Va lley, which ha d a sa nitized mess hall a nd w estern toilets for

the Americans, also had a grim prison a bout w hich unpleasa nt st ories were

told. There wa s Miles, w ho insisted tha t n othing be kept secret from t he Chi-

nese; they w ould w ork directly w ith t he America ns a nd everything w ould be

shar ed. There was D ai Li, w hose hand w as seen in thwa rted OSS operat ions.

Free Tha i agent s being infiltra ted into Tha iland w ere delay ed and s evera l killed.

Da i Li ha d his own plan s. He would invade Tha iland w ith a force of 10,000 Chi-

nese guerr illa s disgu ised a s Tha ion 10,000 Tibeta n ponies.

The situa tion wa s further complica ted by Allied suspicions th a t D ai w a s tra d-ing secrets w ith J a panese intelligence. In October 1943, Donova n w a s ordered

to gather intelligence in Chinas communist-controlled areas. Donovan told

Roosevelt, We cann ot do our job a s a n American int elligence service unless we

operat e as a n entirely independent one, independent of th e Chinese an d our

other a llies. The president a greed.

Donovan visited China in la te 1943. Over a dinner in D a i Lis residence, Dono-

van t old the spyma ster that OSS w ould work unilatera lly inside China. D ai

responded tha t he w ould execute any OS S a gent found opera ting outside the

SACO a greement. D onova n slam med his fist on th e table a nd shouted, For

every one of our a gents you kill, we w ill kill one of your genera ls! The next

da y D onova n met wit h C hian g Ka i-shek, who spoke of Ch inese sovereignty,

a nd asked tha t OSS a ct accordingly.

Leaving Miles to work w ith Da i Lis operat ions, Donova n circumvented t hem

both a nd secretly set up a sepa ra te clandestine OS S intelligence collection

mecha nism. The senior U S officer in t he China -B urma -India Theat er, G eneral

J oseph St ilwell, wa s no help, but in th e 14th Air Force command er, G enera l

Cla ire Chennault , Donova n found an a lly. Chennault h ad served as Chia ngs

a viat ion a dviser since 1937. He ha d no use for Da i Li and ha d turn ed down a n

early offer to work together. B ut a s the w ar expa nded, Chenna ult s bombers

needed more int elligence tha n th e Chinese could provide. He crea ted his own

netw ork of America n opera tives wh o worked behind J a panese lines.

Chenna ult a greed to work wit h Donovan. The result wa s the 5329th Air andG round Forces Resources a nd Technica l S ta ff (AG FR TS), or Ag-fa rt s, as it

wa s popularly called. OSS w ould run operat ions inside Ja panese territory

using the 14th Air Force as cover from the Chinese. Donovan later wrote:

AG FRTS succeeded wh ere SACO ha d fa iled, a nd its results w ere almost

immediat ely appar ent. OSS a gents behind the lines ga thered intelligence on

J a panese shipping and ra il tra ffic a nd other ta rgets, interrogat ed prisoners,

tra ined guerrillas, sometimes enga ged in guerrilla w a rfa re, and did a host of

other things importa nt t o the wa r effort .


4/4


78Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 1 (March 2009)

B y cont ra st, n o int elligence or operat ions of a ny consequence have come out of

SACO, Donovan reported t o Roosevelt in November 1944. The judgment is

sha red by Wa keman a nd other historians. It wa s Da i Li and his clan destine

empire tha t benefited. Da i Li emerged from th e wa r a t t he pinnacle of his power.

B ut a s the postw ar repositioning began, he became convinced tha t C hian g

intend ed to abolish the J unt ong. In t he spring of 1946, rumors of Da i Lis retire-

ment w ere rife. On 17 Mar ch 1946, an a ircraft ca rrying D ai L i cra shed into thehills outside Nan jing. Da i Li wa s dead, but ma ny r efused to believe it . Some

blamed t he cra sh on communist sabota ge, others on a bomb plant ed by OSS. The

most common rumor wa s tha t D ai Li ha d faked his own dea th.

But D a i Li wa s dead, a nd it was bad w eather that did i t , not the OSS. He wa s

buried on a hillside outside Nan jing, not fa r from S un Ya t-sens ma usoleum. In

1949, his rema ins w ere destroyed by t he commu nist s. A hero to some, a dem on to

others, Da i Li with h is genius for organiza tion had creat ed the largest spying

ma chine of its t ime, but reviews of its effectiveness ar e mixed. Its success w a s

great est a ga inst C hian gs interna l enemies and dissidents of his regime, less so

aga inst t he J a panese and their collaborat ors, wh ere intelligence collection wa ssubordina ted to the lucra tive tra de betw een the Chinese a nd J a panese under the

guise of infiltra ting ea ch other. With t he J untongs ma in ta rget, th e Chinese

Communist Pa rty, there a ppears to ha ve been only limited success, but here

Wa keman a nd other historian s necessar ily depend on informa tion tha t comes

ma inly from former Da i Li agent s re-educat ed by the communists.

While the current ut ility of th e lessons of int elligence coopera tion a re rela tively

clearintelligence partners almost always give precedence to self-interest; sover-

eignty is likely to trump better sense; and misma tches in cultural norms str a in,

if not m a ke impossible, good rela tionshipsoth er elements of Wa kema ns met icu-

lous scholar ship are worth n oting for w ha t t hey might sa y a bout C hina s present

intelligence a ppara tus a nd about the wa y in which such organiza tions mightform in periods of national stress.

First , Wa kemans research reveals the bewildering arr ay of organiza tions and

personal connections tha t eventua lly grew int o an int ernal security a ppara tus.

Organizational sproutssocieties, unions, clubs, cliques, etc.large and small,

came and went in t he cha otic environment of newly republica n China . Many

thought t hemselves destined for big t hings but were gone or a imless soon a fter

they w ere creat ed. Ama zingly, Wa keman seemed to ha ve found t hem a ll in th e

minutest deta ilit is th e fea ture of this book tha t m a kes it such difficult rea d-

ing a t t imes. His effort , h owever, speaks to the energy, dyna mism, a nd potential

for manipulation of Chinese intellectuals in the 1930s and 1940s who were look-ing in a lmost every conceivable direction for w ay s to comba t t he J a panese (or

other enemies) a nd t o bring t he na tion int o modern t imes. This cha otic scene

eventua lly coa lesced in 1949, but Wa kema ns effort is a pow erful reminder of th e

complexity of the underlying coalition and the challenges that complexity pre-

sents in un dersta nding C hina a nd t he responses of its people in difficult t imes,

an d in knowing w ith w hom to deal in such eras of cha nge in China or anyw here.

spymaster dai li.pdf

Documents