Taiwan Censors Henry Liu

Henry began writing articles about the Chiang family in the early 1970's as part of his graduate study work, and he arranged for publication of some of this work in several Hongkong magazines. Around that time he received a letter from General Сесній Валент Wang Sheng, the powerful head of Taiwanese

who told Henry to"take heed" of three things before he pub-
lished his biography of Chiang Ching-kuo. He was told to
consult with as many people as possible before publishing,
to think of what was good for Taiwan, and should "move
cautiously, and think twice," before publishing such a book.
As reported in a recently published letter Henry wrote to
a friend in Hongkong, which we have
ad

et, Henry wrote General Wang back bluntly
telling him: "I'm living in America and I am independent,
No one could tell me what I should write about!" This
correspondence with General Wang Sheng was in 1973.
Two years later, General Chiang Kai-shek died, and his
KMTQarman
son Chiang Ching-kuo became
Henry published three
articles on Chiang Ching-kuo in Hongkong that year. These
were collected and published in book form in Hongkong. In
1980, the book was translated without Henry's permission
into Japanese and published there.

The 1975 book covered the life of Chiang Ching-kuo only through about 1949, and Henry was determined to bring it up to date. He would also publish chapters or installments in various magazines as they were completed, and hoped to base his PhD. thesis at American University in Political Science on this work.

Of course, the Taiwan Government was aware of Henry's plans, since he did not keep any of it secret. In 1977 when we still lived in Washington, D.C., Henry was approached by Admiral Wang Shih-ling, who was then the military atache at the Taiwanese Government Offices in Washington. Admiral

Was

has since been dismissed, and arrested in Taipei because of his involvement with Henry's death. In 1977, Admiral Wang told my husband that he could write about whatever he wanted to write about, but "not about the

Chiang family." Henry rebuffed him, and told him that this was in fact "the only thing" he wanted to write about. Henry also wrote to his friend in Hongkong about this conversation, and I ate nelation of that lets

statement.

These warnings were not the only attempts to interfere with Henry's work during the next few years. Henry told of rumours that he would be paid $1 million if he would not write his book on C.K. Chiang. Our friend, Van Lung said recently that the Taiwanese had actually offered Henry $40,000 to drop his plans to publish the book. A number of money offers and approaches were made to Henry's publisher, the American Tribune (Los Angeles) to get them to back off plans to print the book.

Henry and his publisher bravely rejected all of these censorship attempts, and continued with their plans. However, I believe that Henry was concerned about the reaction of the Chiang family to his book and made several efforts to show that he did not carry any personal antagonism towards them. For example, when Henry went to China in 1981 for reasearch on his book, he took photos of Hsi-k'ou where C.K. Chiang has lived as a boy, and Henry sent these to General Chiang Wei-kuo. Not long after, Henry received a letter from a friend of the General asking for the negatives & larger photos. So on his next trip to China, in

1982, Henry arranged with a Chinese film crew to take some films of the Chiang family's house there. These he also sent to the Chiang family, and received a letter of appreciation in return.

As arrangements for the publication of Henry's book neared

completion, Henry was approached once again by the Taiwan Government regarding the book. This time, the approach was made by Henry's old friend and mentor, Hsia Hsiao-hua, the publisher of Taiwan Daily News. Mr. Hsia was himself a former military intelligence officer who still had close ties to that agency. He came to California in December, 1983, and told Henry he was there on behalf of

Admiral Ching Tzu-li, the Associate Director of Military Intelligence, under Admiral Wang Shih-ling. He made a personal appeal to Henry, based on their years of friendship and their mentor/protege relationship, asking Henry to drop a chapter from his book dealing with the family history of the Chiangs, and to tone down the book's criticism of Chiang rule on Taiwan. No money was offered at this time. In the face of this personal appeal, Henry was unable to refuse Mr. Hsia's request, because to do so would have been an insult and disrespectful under Chinese culture and tradition. So, Henry reluctantly agreed to Mr. Hsia's requests and modified the book in this way, because he felt that

if he did this he could finally go ahead and safely publish the book, which really was his lifework.

Henry believed that this was the case because Mr. Hsia telephoned Henry from Taiwan in 1984 and told him Intelligence that military were happy about the changes and would give Henry $20,000, to be paid in installments, to show their gratitude. Of this money, Henry received $17,000 before he died. Somehow, the F.B.I. found out about this and talked to Henry about it only a week before he was killed. Another strange fact is that just after Henry was killed, Mr. Hsia's friend in Military Intelligence, Adm. Ching Tzu-li was transfered out of that job, to a job Mr. Hsia formerly held as head of the Taiwanese propaganda radio station, Cheng Sheng (Rightous Sound) Broadcasting.

Who Killed My Husband and Why?

In late November of last year, the F.B.I. identified four members of the United Bamboo Group, a large Mafia type organization, as the hit squad that murdered my husband. Last month, the Taiwan Government identified four high level officers of their own military intelligence agency as being involved in Henry's death. Since then, a number of Chinese language newspapers here, in Hongkong and in Taiwan have published reports identifying other high military and Kounintang officials as being involved in ordering Henry's murder.

I believe that my husband was killed by the Taiwan Government because he was not just another journalist or writer. Many people have compared Henry's work to that of William Shirer, Theodore White and Louis Fischer. Henry's work was widely published and read all throughout Asia, in China, Japan, Hongkong, and in Taiwan, despite repeated Government efforts to suppress it.

Just a few months before Henry was killed, the Taiwanese Government impounded and suppressed the entire printing of a Taiwanese monthly publication, China Tide Review, which reprinted Henry's interview with Governor K.C.Wu. After Henry was killed, the Government suspended this magazine for one year because it reported on Henry's death, and because it included exerpts from his book on Chiang Ching-kuo. The Government has also closed a weekly named Marching forward which reported on the killing. Many Chinese Americans also believe that Taiwan officially interfered in the U.S. publication of China Times and closed that newspaper because it fairly reported on Henry's ached death. (See the of Henry's last letter, to Jack Anderson, which he wrote regarding Taiwan's interference with the editorial policy of China Times just before he was killed.)

Henry and I came to the United States because Henry could not live under the policy of fear, censorship, and suppression that prevails in Taiwan. Once he became a citizen, Henry believed

he would be free to write what he wanted, as he wanted, and he told Taiwan's officials this on several ocassions.

Henry had the courage to write about the official family of Taiwan when others did not. People who know China know the passion for secrecy that surrounds the Chiang family. over Chiang Ching-kuo, who has been president of Taiwan for

years, has not even had an official biography published about him, and Henry's book was the only reliable, documented, and accurate book. Certainly it was a controversial and critical book about Chiang Ching-kuo. For example, Henry wrote that Chiang Ching-kuo was a secret instigator of the May, 1957 burning of the U.S. Embassy in Taiwan, when a U.S. Army court-martial released an Army Sargeant charged with the murder of a Taiwanese national named Liu. This little remembered "May 24th incident," and C.K. Chiang's early Russian education, and pro-Soviet activities, do not relect well upon Taiwan's President. Many people feel that Henry's planned full biography of Governor Wu would contain many more shocking and damaging revelations about President Chiang and his family.

In his soon to be released book, The Soong Dynasty published by Harper & Row, Sterling Seagrave has written about the attitude of the Chiang family towards journalists and biographical writing and his comments give some insight into why my husband was killed: "It is characteristic of the Chinese, rich and poor to be reserved and private-even secretive. The Soongs were the most Westernized of all Chinese, but the appearance of openness and accessibility was merely an acquired manner, not a total transformation. Close associates could not penetrate this mask. Their public image was enhanced and propagated by a legion of publicists. The Chiang regime was known to have spent hundreds of millions of dollars each year in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s to guarantee its image in America and thus, the continuance of the regime. At the same time, the regime suppressed negative publicity; for example, a critical biography of Chiang Kai-shek