Zhou Enlai Assassination Attempt - 1955

Drilling Deep Into the Past

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7 June 2023 (Wednesday)

Zhou En-lai Assassination Attempt - 1955

Drilling Deep Into the Past

By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德

TAIPEI - During the 1990s, I wrote for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER, pronounced fear). It was a big deal to get your byline in FEER even if you were a freelancer.

Far more enticing than writing as a “contributor” for Time or Newsweek that bundled your name with five others at the end of the article, while the editor took credit for the story.

At the time FEER was hardly economic, but a tip of the spear publication with correspondents who were outrageous. They were men on fire. The stories they wrote were beyond obsession, and I felt lucky just to get a byline. I was no match at the time to their balls-to-the-walls skills of drilling deep and literally begging for a bullet in the back of the head on a street corner.

Bertil Lintner had escaped Myanmar after the entire army was hunting him and his pregnant wife. Lintner specialized in Myanmar, but also delved into North Korean front companies in Asia and U.S. intelligence operations during the Cold War. He partnered with the legendary Desmond Ball and explored unmistakable signals intelligence (SIGINT) bases around Asia. I owe Lintner a great deal via Jane’s Defence Weekly. In 2000, Lintner made one phone call to the Jane’s Bureau Chief in Bangkok and told him to hire me as their Taiwan correspondent. I worked for Jane’s from 2000-2006.

Nate Thayer had wandered around Cambodia searching for Pol Pot, eventually covering his trial at a small village. Thayer’s legendary stunts were epic, but his personality was mercurial and no doubt enhanced by alcoholism and an obsession on finding Pol Pot. Thayer died in January in the U.S. after surviving two heart attacks and a stroke, not to mention the various jungle rot he had picked up in Cambodia.

If either man had been run over by a bus in Bangkok, no one would believe it was an accident.

They were shunned by mainstream corporate media despite breaking story after story…

Below is my humble drill down on a covert attempt by the Taiwan KMT to assassinate China’s Premier Zhou Enlai in 1955. Many theorized it was the CIA, and even though a CIA-owned airline, Civil Air Transport, assisted in the operation, it appears unlikely the Agency was aware of the KMT operation.

I later took my research and published the documents in a 2015 book: I Was A CIA Agent In India.

Below is the most interesting article I wrote for FEER - “Target: Zhou Enlai - Was America’s CIA Working With Taiwan Agents To Kill Chinese Premier?”, 13 July 1995.

Click to Enlarge: