彼得·汉纳姆（Peter Hannam）解开林彪死亡之谜（SOLVING A CHINESE PUZZLE ）

Gowest · 发表于 2020-6-20 15:46:49

〔按〕：彼得·汉纳姆（Peter Hannam）关于林彪事件的文章，我们以

前比较注意的是其发表在《美国新闻与世界报导》上的文章，而忽略了他发表的原文。而后者对事件的揭示更详细、更全面。前者只是这
篇文章的缩写。以下便是全文：

解开林彪死亡之谜（Solved: The Mystery of Lin Biao’s Death）

二十多年前中国宣布毛泽东亲自选定的接班人在逃往苏联途中机毁人

亡。为此它引出了众多的疑问。本文首次提供了一些确切的答案。

一九七一年九月十三日凌晨，蒙古东部的天空十分平静，半个月亮把

白光洒在起伏的大草原上，一缕缕的云在黑夜的天空中飘过。如往常

一样，杜卡嘉汶.丹基德玛（Dugarjavyn Dunjidmaa）守卫着一处炸药

库，她凝视着一公里外产荧石矿的小城市贝尔赫（Bekh）的方向。突

然，发动机的嗡嗡声使她昂首向天空中望去。在城的另一边，同样的

声音也引起了女哨兵纳瓦卢桑吉索若尔（Navaanluvsangivn Soror）

的注意。她回忆说：「我听到有像汽车发动机般的很大的噪音，奇怪

到底发生了什么事。于是我提起枪跑了出去。」

很快飞机就进入了人们视野。回忆起二十二年前的事，丹基德玛说：

「我看到它坠落时尾部着火。」她现在仍住在贝尔赫她的毛毡帐篷里。

索若尔也说她看到飞机上有三处着火，她冲回办公室，打电话报告了

上级。丹基德玛还说：「从我的位置可以追踪到那架飞机，直到它坠

毁。」

这两个女人当时并不知道，她们正好见证了一段历史。那架失事的飞

机来自中国，由于迄今为止还不清楚的原因，它坠毁于蒙古境内一百

多公里处，机上人员全部罹难。自此以后，全世界的外交官与中国问

题专家们一直在探讨机上的乘客到底是何方神圣。

数月后，中国政府宣布了一个令人奇怪的解释。北京方面说：死者中

有林彪元帅，他是毛泽东主席亲自选定的接班人，且被公认为是中国

最杰出的军事指挥家。同机的还有叶群，她是林彪的妻子、政治局委

员；还有他们的儿子林立果。这三人据说是带着他们的所有机密叛逃

苏联──中国当时最大的敌人也是蒙古的保护国。

但这一解释是真实的吗？去年五月，我乘军用吉普车从蒙古首都乌兰

巴托出发，去探寻究竟。六个多月之后，我对林彪事件的调查范围远

远超出了飞机的失事地点。调查结束于台湾。但这之前我还绕道去了

莫斯科、纽约、洛杉矶，然后回国。我尽力解决这个悬而未决的问题

──林和他的妻子是否真是这次飞机失事中的罹难者。更吸引人的

是，我发现收集到的证据说明冷漠而且谜一般的人物－－林彪是个复

杂的人物，远不只是简单的毛泽东的激进的代表。他看上去有些像特

洛伊木马，假如他继承了毛泽东的地位，他将准备转而效忠共产党最

凶恶的敌人──台湾的国民党。如果这样，无疑会改变中国的历史。

要考察林同国民党人的关系，我们有必要追溯到一九二五年。那年他

进入了广州附近著名的黄埔军校。这里的许多毕业生在以后的几十年

中主导了中国的军事阶层。其中许多人追随了黄埔校长——蒋介石，

后来的国民党领袖及中华民国总统。另一些人则听命于军校的政治部

主任、后来的中共总理周恩来。即使许多人自始至终都处于对立的阵

营中，作为这一精英团体的黄埔毕业生们总有一种特殊的校友关系。

台湾一位学者说：「那个时代，黄埔学生以救国为己任，不考虑个人

得失，他们是很忠诚的。」

虽然林彪一直跟随着共产党，但他仍对蒋校长保有一种作为学生的尊

敬。大陆一位历史学家回忆说：二战结束时，林彪陪同周恩来前往陪

都重庆，与国民党进行和平谈判。他们二人被请进一个房间，蒋介石

坐在那里等他们。出于对前校长的尊重，那时已是一赫赫战将的林彪

在会见中一直站着。

林彪与毛泽东矛盾的种子在较早的时候就种下了。林的第一次名声雀

起是带领他的队伍于一九三七年在平型关成功地打击了日本侵略者。

虽然他的胜利只在很小的程度上阻止了日军的前进，但却鼓舞了全国

人民抵抗日寇的士气。毛泽东事后称赞了林彪的这次行动。但苏联一

位很权威的中国问题专家德鲁森（L. P. Delusin）博士却认为：

林彪这次行动事先没有得到毛的同意。当林彪一九三八年去莫斯科治

疗战伤与肺结核时，毛把这次远行实际变成了一次政治流放。据说作

为中国共产党的共产国际代表，林彪到达苏联时贫病交加，且没有官

方证明。德鲁森说：「当他会见共产国际官员时，他甚至没有靴子，

一个中国人把自己的靴子借给他。这看上去像是毛泽东在故意贬低林

彪。」

在莫斯科时，林彪为苏联领导人写了一份报告，说明中共在抗日战争

中的态度。「他对毛泽东的政策颇有微辞。」

德鲁森说，他看过这份报告。这有助于解释一九四○年以林彪之名出

版的一篇自相矛盾的文章，它发表在共产国际宣传刊物《共产国际》

上。美国的林彪问题专家托马斯罗宾逊（Tomas W. Robinson）判断说，

这篇文章的风格与内容脱胎于另一作者，而只是借用了林的名字。有

趣的是，这一文章称赞蒋介石建立了抗日的全国统一阵线（国民党人

和共产党人）。奇怪的是该文全未提及毛泽东。事实上，一九三六年

的西安事变两位将领因蒋不愿与共产党联合抗日而绑架了蒋介石之

后，蒋才极其勉强地与毛泽东联合。日渐增长的对毛的觉醒导致了他

的第一次与国民党人的秘密接触。在一九四五年末，林彪秘密要求与

国民党情报机关接头。国民党人安排他们的情报局副局长郑介民与林

会见。根据郑关于他们重庆会谈的报告，林彪表示愿意留在共产党内，

并为国民党「在将来起一些作用」。

这一资料来自台北淡江大学政治与军事事务专家李子弋（Li Zi-yi）

教授。他说郑林会见数年以后，蒋介石的最亲近的顾问之一陶希圣（陶

死于一九八九年）告诉了他这件事。李说：「我相信陶，因为他看到

了第一手资料，而且既然林彪已死，也没有必要编造此事。」

根据李的说法，林彪又一次批评了毛的领导风格，把他描述为几乎是

个偏执狂。毛的「左手不相信右手」。林告诉郑：「当毛派某人去前线，

他一定要派另一个人在后面监视他。」蒋对林提供的消息未采取任何

行动。不久以后，内战开始，林被派往东北。他可能认为他的前校长

不信任他──这一观点是高魁元（Kao Kwei-yuan），林的黄埔上下铺

室友，后来的台湾国防部长告诉李的。李也从其它黄埔校友处得到这

一消息。李子弋接着说：「因此，林要到他可以有所表示时──比如

主掌权力时，他才会回来的。」

如果林对共产党领袖的指挥产生疑虑，他不会允许他们在战场上干涉

他的军事行动。罗宾逊指出林是如何指挥他的军队在东北数个重大战

役中打垮了国民党军队，从而得到了几近「战无不胜」的名声。但是

一九四九年人民共和国建立以后，林的事业道路却因政治状况与身体

多病而受阻。他从政治舞台上消失了近十年。但当一九五九年国防部

长彭德怀因反对为工业化而搞的大跃进运动遭毛泽东清洗之后，林接

替了彭的工作。

作为国防部长，林对在军队中树立对毛主义的偶像崇拜做了很大贡

献。一九六一年，他教导人民解放军学习毛泽东思想。著名的毛语录

「红宝书」事实上就是林的发明，并且还有林写的前言。因为这些行

动与以后的讲话，林在国内外赢得了激进左派份子的名声。一九六六

年毛放手发动文化大革命之后，林的地位由于他的权力对手被一个一

个地排除而日益强固。到一九六九年时，这位帅不仅是党的唯一副

主席，而且是宪法规定的毛的接班人。他的支持者掌握几乎全部军方

要职，占据政治局席位的一半。他所需要的只是等毛死后统治中国。

美国和欧洲的历史学者一般认为，林更愿意与莫斯科保有亲密的联

系，而非是与华盛顿，如果中国不得不选择其一的话。然而，林的迅

速崛起带给台湾国民党政府最高层的不是焦虑，而是兴奋。理由是：

在文革爆发后不久，林在给国民党领导人的一封密信（一九六六年十

一月，林彪、陶铸密派黄埔四期同学萧正仪赴香港同国民党挂钩，萧

正仪秘密会晤了旅港黄埔四期同学、曾任国军华南补给区中将司令的

周游(按：此人在大陆易手时卷逃一笔军方鉅款潜往香港坐享清福，

以余不足观阁主笔名，在《春秋》等刊撰稿，俨然一方富豪)。密函

内容如下：

铁兄：久未通信至念，回忆当年共砚黄埔，恍如隔世。兄天姿明敏，

正应为国家效力，乃退闲塾处，殊为可惜，兹因文灼兄南行之便，特

修寸楮致候，祈加指示。吾人处危疑之局，遇多疑猜忌之主，朝荣夕，

诡变莫测，因思校长爱护学生无微不至，苟有自拔之机，或不责已往

之错，肺腑之言准乞代陈为感，此颂道安。

学弟

尤铸同启

十一月一日

林彪字尤肋，故信尾署名尤；铸是当时中共中央政治局常委、副总理、

中央文革小组顾问陶铸。林陶二人早年均为黄埔军校第四期学生；一

九四九年冬率十八军缔造金门古宁头大捷，后升任参谋总长与国防部

长的高魁元是林彪同队同学。同年高魁元身材魁梧站在排头，林彪身

材瘦小站在排尾。周游字铁梅，故林彪在这封密函中称他为铁兄。双

方的表字只有彼此知道，虽然此信不是林彪亲笔，但周游认为不可能

是虚构的。信中「文灼兄」乃是萧正仪的别号。

周游穿针引线同国军参谋本部特种军事情报室驻香港特派员取得了

联系，将此密函上呈特情室主任张式琦，张即向国防部长蒋经国请示。

蒋表示要研究后再说，张式琦就决定同萧正仪这条线保持联系。为了

取信于对方，张式琦将原函奉还，另由周游署名覆函，交由萧正仪带

回大陆面交林彪。

萧正仪返大陆前曾与周游约定此后彼此联络的方式。萧取道广州，乘

粤汉铁路先到武汉，再到上海。他在上海曾函告周游，称尤、铸二人

未改初衷。不幸，此后萧正仪成了断线风筝，同周游失去了联系。

张式琦退休后定居美国洛杉矶。他历任参谋本部特情室主任、国防部

情报局局长达十二年，考绩为特优。台湾军情机关运用渔民搜集大陆

情报始自张将军，在滇、缅、港澳以至美国各地建立情报基地都是他

的显赫业绩。他对记者回忆道：国民党回复的核心内容有三点：「第

一，我们向他表示他是受欢迎的。第二，我们愿意帮助他保住他的特

殊地位。且（最后），我们想逐渐发展这一关系。我们想尽最快的速

度给林回信，因那时陶铸已经被打倒了。」事实上，陶一九六七年一

月倒台，据报两年后在医院死于未经治疗的癌症。

就张式琦所知，从大陆来的消息停止了。但国民党仍然相信他们在中

共政权最高层里潜伏着一个盟友。

「在一九六六年到一九七一年间我们确信林已决定反对毛」张说，「那

封信后，所有涉及到林彪的活动都被密切的关注。所有他的（激进）

讲话，所有他干的事情都为了一个目的──赢得毛的信任。」

萧正义从上海寄信之后就消失了，周由也于一九六八年死于香港。另

一位确认此资讯交往这件秘闻的人是高龙（Kao Long）上校，他是

国防部情报局驻英国属地香港的主要负责人，现居住在台北。高说他

帮助证实了原信并传送了回信。「我们把此事看得十分重要」高龙说，

这一秘密过程非常复杂，因为「每一部分都紧紧相连。因为保安措施

严密，此事不可能轻易传出去。」高说对于台北回复内容，他只知有

限的一部分。但他认为信中一定告诉林彪，国民党会原谅他卷入共产

党的活动。高回忆那封信时说：「最重要的事是反对毛，并非反共。」

但是在一九六六年，林似乎与毛正在度着蜜月一般。为什么他还要冒

种种危险写一封可能身败名裂的信？一个可能的答案是因为权倾一

时的陶铸被打倒，陶是中共在南方的负责人，也是林的盟友。这表明

了在动荡的文化大革命中，没有谁的地位是稳固的。早在一九六六年

初毛写信给他的妻子江青，表达了他对林一篇关于政变的讲话的不

满，毛怀疑林的忠诚。虽然那封信直到很久以后才发表，中国官方已

经承认此信曾由周恩来转交给陶铸去复印。如果是这样，陶一定会提

醒林。

红卫兵制造的无情破坏以及遍及全国的混乱也许已震惊了林。作为一

个强烈的爱国者，他带着使中国统一与强大的梦想参加革命，毛的倒

行逆施使他感到愤怒。林此时也许已决定取毛而代之的时机已经到了。

李子弋教授说蒋介石毕生最大的遗憾是未能利用林彪──蒋总统对

此曾向陶希圣多次提及。一九九三年十月在美国发行的中文报纸《世

界日报》（the World Journal）出现一篇有趣的文章，做蒋介石的私人

医生达四十年之久的熊丸（Hsiung Wan）在文章中说：「我唯一一次见

到蒋总统流泪是在他听到林彪的死讯时。」

在台湾，我找到熊要求他确认其真实性。他立刻回答说：「我否认。

我从未说过此话。我不认为总统会为任何共产党人流泪。」但熊告诉

我《世界日报》记者张嘉驰（Chang Jia-chi）采访过他，此人是他儿

子的朋友。我给他们打电话，打到美国亚拉巴马州伯明翰张的家中，

张对此进行了激烈辩护，说她绝非编造：「这仍然是一个敏感的题目。」

她还说自己曾给熊寄去了文章复印件，并收到了熊的致谢信，熊承认

他确实收到了文章，但说他「并未非常仔细地阅读」。

未提及我在美国方面的调查，我问李子弋有关蒋流泪这件事，他立刻

回答说：「他绝对流泪了。陶希圣告诉我(蒋)哭了，因为他深感遗憾。

那就是在一九七一年。这给陶留下了深刻的印象」。国民党的老将无

疑会对他们身经百战的最高领袖为一个人而哭泣感到不满，更不要说

是为一个共产党的元帅了。但是蒋可能是意识到他返回大陆的最后一

点希望随着之死而消失了。

对于历史学家来说，北京官方解释林彪在试图叛逃苏联途中死亡从来

就是站不住脚的。他们的怀疑因有关的事实而得到加强：直到最近，

蒙古一直是一个封闭的国家，且从未提及林是否在这架坠毁于其领土

内的飞机上。中国人自己只是提供零星的尸体照片以此证明林在死者

之中。

多年以来，对此事件的悬疑导致了各种各样关于制造阴谋的传闻。在

飞机坠毁后的几个月内，美国与欧洲情报机关陆续收到报告，言及机

上人员中无人超过五十岁──这远低于林当时六十四岁的年龄。这一

判断似乎被我所接触到的不少蒙古人所证实。调查人员还在九个死者

中唯一一个女性的手提包里发现了一包避孕药。林的妻子叶群那时已

五十岁，应该已经过了生育孩子的年龄。更奇怪的是，表明莫斯科官

方对世界看法的《大苏维埃百科全书》（the Great Soviet Encyclopedia）

的一九七三年版对林彪只列了出生日期，并且注明了他于一九七三年

被中国共产党驱逐。然而，试图填补这一事实空缺的最吸引人的尝试

是在一九八三年。《阴谋与毛的继承人的谋杀》(The Conspiracy and

Murder of Mao's Heir)一书作者是姚明理(Yao Ming-le)，这是作者

的假名，且出版者也只说他是个「中国公民」。书中说毛通过林的盟

友发现林的企图，于是他设了一个圈套，在一九七二年九月十二日他

的北京郊外别墅邀请林彪及夫人赴宴。有周恩来陪同的盛宴上，有用

四百八十二年前的明朝酒泡过的美味的东北虎虎腱。但当这对夫妇驱

车离开时，毛的警卫部队用导弹炸毁了汽车，当时就杀死了林彪和叶

群。是他们的儿子乘机逃离并摔死在蒙古。事实上，林立果的空军身

份证是大火中仅剩下的证明文件，他在死者之中从未遭到怀疑。

——读者推荐，原载《新世纪》

http://www.duping.net/XHC/show.php?bbs=10&post=597442

SOLVING A CHINESE PUZZLE

Section:
World report
Lin Biao's final days and death, after two decades of intrigue

Dateline: Mongolia; New York; Moscow; Beijing

In September 1971, a mysterious series of events rocked China's enigmatic leadership. The outside world knew only that Chairman Mao Zedong's ``closest comrade in arms'' and anointed successor, Lin Biao, leader of the 2.9 million-strong Chinese military, had suddenly disappeared from public view. After months of international speculation about his fate, China announced that Lin had hatched an abortive plot to kill Mao, tried to flee to the Soviet Union and died when his plane crashed in Mongolia.

The Chinese have never offered any hard evidence that Lin was on the plane that crashed, and China watchers have never been sure what really happened to him. One Chinese account, published under a pseudonym in the West in 1983, claimed Mao had had Lin and his wife, Ye Qun, killed in Beijing and that their son, Lin Liguo, had tried to escape by air. Others think Mao ordered the Lins' plane shot down over Mongolia.

Revelations. Now, a U.S. News investigation in China, Mongolia, Russia, the United States and Taiwan has solved one of Communist China's greatest mysteries. The six-month probe's key findings:

Lin's dissatisfaction with Mao prompted him to make at least two attempts to reach out to the Chinese Communist Party's archenemies, Taiwan's Kuomintang (box, Page 53).
Lin, his wife and son were all killed when their plane crashed in Mongolia.
The Lin family was not en route to asylum in the Soviet Union at the time of the crash. Their plane was flying back toward China.
Lin's wife and son may have forced Lin to flee against his will.
Communist Party leaders in Beijing knew at least two hours in advance that the Lin family planned to flee but chose not to act.
A member of the Communists' Red Army since its creation in 1927, a veteran of Mao's Long March and a corps commander at age 23, Lin began his climb to power in the late 1950s, after a falling-out between Mao and then Defense Minister Peng Dehuai. In the following decade, Mao's disastrous Cultural Revolution shattered the Chinese Communist Party's leadership and catapulted the People's Liberation Army and its leader, Lin, to the pinnacle of political power.

But Lin and his second wife, Ye Qun, a former assistant in the Central Research academy whose political ambition rivaled that of Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, soon found that although China's Constitution named Lin as Mao's successor, it did not give him immunity from Mao's jealousy and suspicion. On July 1, 1971, two years after the Ninth Party Congress anointed Lin, the People's Daily warned that, ``the gun must never be allowed to command the party.'' Lin's mysterious death two months later eliminated Mao's last serious rival.

The story of Lin Biao's final days begins in the remote stretches of Mongolia. At about 2:30 on the morning of Sept. 13, 1971, Dugarjavyn Dunjidmaa was guarding the explosives dump at a fluorite mine near the east Mongolian town of Bekh when the whine of turbines made her look into the night sky. Moments later, recalls Dunjidmaa, who now lives in a felt-covered yurt in Bekh, ``I saw the plane with flames coming from its tail as it dropped. From my post, it was possible to follow the plane all the way down to its crash site [9 miles away].'' So ended the flight of the British-built Trident 1E, with the Chinese Aviation number 256 painted on its wings.

Nine corpses. Police officer Tuvany Jurmed was among the first to arrive at the crash site and survey the debris, strewn over the steppe. ``I saw three big fires, so the question was which to fight first,'' recalls Jurmed, whom U.S. News traced to his yurt in western Mongolia. ``I got out of my car and took two or three steps and almost fell over something. When I looked down, I saw it was a man on his back.''

Dawn revealed a gruesome sight. The charred bodies of eight men and one woman lay strung out in a line. Fire had left most of them naked save for pistol holsters and belts. ``It was just impossible to recognize anyone who had been on the flight,'' remembers Dugerserengiyn Erdembileg, then Mongolia's deputy foreign minister, who arrived later that day from the capital, Ulan Bator, about 200 miles away, to inspect the corpses.

One personal document survived the flames -- an identity card belonging to Lin's son, Lin Liguo, which was later used to confirm his presence on the flight. There were no clues to the identities of the remaining eight bodies, though the plane's markings, Mao buttons, a log book and other documents indicated the plane and its passengers were Chinese.

Gendensambuugiyn Zuunai, now a member of Mongolia's democratic parliament, helped write the first medical report on the crash. ``As a medical expert on the site, I confirmed that there was no one over 50,'' he says. Zuunai was equally certain that the sole female corpse was too young to be that of Lin's 50-year-old wife, Ye Qun.

But Zhang Ning, who in 1971 was engaged to marry Lin Biao's son Lin Liguo, insists that the Lin family was indeed on the doomed plane. Zhang, who now lives in New Jersey, and a second witness, who requested anonymity, were with the Lin family in their compound in the seaside resort of Beidaihe in the days and hours before the flight. These eyewitnesses told U.S. News that the family had known for more than a year that Lin might be purged. By early September, they believed the purge was imminent.

But to the frustration of his wife and son, the elder Lin seemed prepared to accept his fate passively. ``Lin Biao didn't read books, didn't read newspapers,'' Zhang recalls. ``Usually, he just sat there, blankly.'' When he did stir, Lin, who suffered from medical complaints ranging from wartime wounds to chronic headaches and diarrhea, spent his time consulting medical texts and preparing Chinese medicinal remedies for himself, Zhang says.

Life in the compound remained calm until hours before the flight. Ye spent a quiet evening on September 11 receiving her regular tutorial in European and Chinese history from an Air Force instructor and reading a biography of then President Richard Nixon. The return from Beijing of her son Lin Liguo at 9 p.m. on September 12 set events in motion. The younger Lin apparently brought news that Mao was planning to strip Ye of her Politburo seat.

While other residents of the compound watched a movie, Ye and her son conferred. Then, shortly before 10 p.m., Ye announced that the family would leave by plane for the southern city of Guangzhou at 7 the next morning. Lin Biao was already resting in his private quarters in a separate building. He had taken sleeping pills, as was his habit.

Lin Biao's daughter, Lin Doudou, had heard from her brother days earlier that he was considering escape plans. Lin Liguo worried that his father's health was too poor to withstand the interrogations and physical hardships inflicted on purge victims. But Lin Doudou opposed the escape plan. When she heard Ye's announcement, Lin Doudou ran to the guard unit in the compound and asked that soldiers be sent to protect her father.

At 11, Ye spoke to Premier Zhou Enlai by telephone for 20 to 30 minutes. What they said remains a mystery. By midnight, two hours after Lin Doudou had sought help, the soldiers still had not responded. Ye told her family to pack quickly; they would leave immediately. Ye's driver, Mu Zhongwen, later told Zhang Ning that he saw Ye and Lin Liguo bundle the groggy leader into an armor-plated Red Flag limousine for the journey to the Shanhaiguan airport some 25 miles away.

Lin Doudou returned to the guard quarters, pleading with the unit to seal the road outside the compound and close the airport. Still the guards did not act; they said they were receiving their instructions from the top party leadership in Beijing and that the party had ordered Lin Doudou and her fiance, Zhang Qinglin, to board the plane with the others. The couple refused.

A bodyguard fired at the car as it left the compound but missed. Soldiers on the road outside let the car pass. When Lin Biao, his wife and son reached the runway at Shanhaiguan Airport, according to the driver's account, there was no time to drag in mobile stairs, so the Trident crew dropped a rope ladder. ``Lin Biao was still weak, so Big Yang [Yang Zhengang, who had driven the Lins to the airport] put Lin over his shoulder and Ye Qun pulled [him] on,'' Zhang Ning says.

Witnesses in the compound, including Zhang Ning, saw the Trident in the sky. It flew southeast, then returned 20 minutes later, circling the airport several times before flying north. It may have been trying to land again at Shanhaiguan, but the runway lights had been turned off on the orders of the party leadership. Soviet officials and Mongolian witnesses say the plane then flew north over Mongolia, almost to the Soviet-Mongolian border, but abruptly turned around. It was flying south when it crashed.

Moscow rules. The definitive answers to the riddle of Lin Biao's fate, however, lie in Russia. A Soviet KGB team traveled twice to the crash site in 1971. U.S. News located the investigation team's leaders in Moscow.

Gen. Vitali V. Tomilin, 65, then a Soviet military pathologist, and former KGB investigator Gen. Alexander V. Zagvozdin, now 70, say they took a year to complete their work. The results were kept secret. ``We told nothing either to the Chinese or to the Mongolians,'' Tomilin said in his office in a Moscow morgue. ``Only four people in the Soviet Union knew: me, Alexander [Zagvozdin], [KGB director Yuri] Andropov and [Communist Party Chief Leonid] Brezhnev.''

The two Soviet specialists journeyed to Mongolia in October 1971; when they reached Savargan, they found that the victims had been buried for more than a month. ``The bodies were difficult [to test], all burnt and rotten,'' recalls Tomilin. But the possibility that any of the passengers were dead before the crash was, Tomilin says, ``excluded at the very beginning. All the injuries on the bodies were from the crash.''

Two corpses caught the investigators' eyes, in part because their gold teeth implied high rank. Mongolian criminologist Turiyn Moyu watched as aides severed the heads of the two bodies. Two guards then boiled the skulls in a big caldron to remove rotting flesh and hair. ``I used to tease [the guards]. `Is the meal ready?' '' Moyu chuckles. The other remains were reburied.

The Soviets took the skulls back to Moscow, where forensic tests proved they were Lin's and Ye's. Says Tomilin, ``I could have concluded [Lin's identity] just from the form of his ear lobe. Or just by comparing the dental work. Or just by photo-fitting the skull with his photograph. But all three tests were conclusive, plus his height, age and his wartime wounds. It couldn't have been better.'' Similar tests, Tomilin says, proved the other skull was Ye's.

Because Lin had spent 1938-41 in Moscow for treatment of wounds he had received fighting the Japanese, the Soviets had a voluminous medical record on him. But even superficially, the evidence was clear. A rare photo of a hatless Lin shows a glancing bullet wound to his head. The skull recovered from the grave provided a perfect match. (The skulls, Tomilin says, are still stored in the KGB archives.)

To confirm the identification, however, the Soviet team braved the Mongolian winter by returning in early November to exhume the corpses again. An old wartime X-ray found in Lin's Moscow medical records showed that Lin had suffered from tuberculosis, and Tomilin rummaged through the remains he believed to be Lin's to find a section of lung hardened to a bonelike material. ``And we found it there, on the same spot,'' he says proudly, ``on the right lung.''

The cause of the crash remains elusive. The Chinese claim the plane ran out of fuel. Zagvozdin emphatically disagrees. He says the Soviets concluded that the plane had enough fuel to fly to the Soviet cities of Irkutsk or Chita. Others argue that the fire on the ground would not have raged so fiercely if the aircraft had been out of fuel. Zagvozdin and the then Mongolian deputy foreign minister, Erdembileg, also insist, however, that the plane was not shot down. Zagvozdin hypothesizes that the pilot may have been flying low to evade radar and crashed when he misjudged his altitude. The witnesses at the fluorite mine in Bekh insist, however, that the plane was on fire before the crash.

China is not eager to revisit the Lin Biao affair. The Foreign Ministry, asked to comment on this story, responded, ``China already has a clear, authoritative conclusion about the Lin Biao incident. Other foreign reports of a conjectural nature are groundless.'' Re-examining Lin's ignominious end would distract China from its top priority, economic growth, and might reveal uncomfortable truths about Mao Zedong. While he is no longer considered infallible, China's Great Helmsman is still largely immune from official criticism.

PHOTO: Lin Biao (Photos from Sovfoto)

PHOTO: Mystery on the steppe. The first policeman to reach the wreckage of the Trident 1E marked 256 found three big fires and a body. (Photos from Sovfoto)

PHOTOS: A match. Soviet investigator Vitali Tomilin displays evidence from Lin's KGB file. Left, a rare photo of a hatless Lin reveals the scar that helped investigators identify his body after they exhumed it and brought the skull to Moscow. (Photos from Sovfoto)

PHOTO: Better days. Mao and Lin Biao, his closest comrade in arms. Left, Lin's wife, Ye Qun, meets with female war veterans from North Vietnam. This photo helped investigators identify Ye's body. (Photos from Sovfoto)

~~~~~~~~

By Peter Hannam and Susan V. Lawrence

CONSORTING WITH THE ARCHENEMY?
When Lin Biao vanished, American officials were relieved. They believed Lin to be pro-Soviet and anti-American, a strongman who had fostered a cult of personality around himself in the Chinese military. But new evidence suggests that America may have misread Lin.

Sources have told U.S. News that Lin twice put out feelers to the Communists' archenemies, the Kuomintang, who in defeat had fled the mainland for Taiwan in 1949. Once in 1945 and once in 1966, Lin reportedly told the KMT that he distrusted Mao and implied he was prepared to ally himself with Mao's nemesis, KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek.

Prof. Li Zi-yi, a former journalist who specializes in military affairs at Taipei's Tamkang University, says Lin met secretly with the KMT's deputy intelligence chief, Cheng Jieh-min, in China's wartime capital, Chongqing, in late 1945. Relying on the word of a close friend, Tao Shi-shen, a confidant of Chiang who read Cheng's report on the meeting, Li says Lin complained that Mao's ``left hand doesn't trust his right hand.'' Tao died in 1989, but according to his friend Li, Lin further pledged, ``I'm willing to stay with the Communist Party and carry out some function [for you] in the future.''

Old classmates. Lin's second contact with the KMT was a letter he allegedly wrote in November 1966. It bore nicknames that Lin and a close ally and fellow top Politburo member, Tao Zhu, had used when they attended China's elite Whampoa Military Academy in 1925-26, and it was addressed to one of their classmates, Chou You, a former KMT commander who was then living in Hong Kong. Lt. Gen. Chang Shih-chi, then chief of the Special Intelligence Bureau of Taiwan's Defense Ministry, told U.S. News that Chou forwarded the letter to him and that he delivered it to Chiang Kai-shek's son Chiang Ching-kuo, who was then Taiwan's defense minister.

In the letter, which has been published but little noticed in Taiwan, Lin and Tao describe themselves as being in ``a perilous and uncertain position.'' They say they have encountered a ``suspicious and jealous master'' (presumably Mao), who is ``tricky'' and ``unpredictable.'' Lin and Tao recall that the ``headmaster'' (presumably Chiang Kai-shek, who ran the Whampoa Military Academy when Lin, Tao and Chou were students there) always took good care of his students. ``If there is an opportunity to free ourselves, or if we will not be held accountable for our past mistakes,'' the letter says, then ``from the bottom of our hearts we beg that our gratitude be conveyed [to him].''

Lin and Tao ``felt their position in the Communist government was not very hopeful,'' claims Chang, 74, interviewed in his Los Angeles home. ``They tried to take sides with Taiwan.''

Although they do not doubt that Lin may have been dissatisfied with Mao, China scholars are skeptical that Lin and Tao would have risked a written communication -- especially one that bluntly criticized Mao and begged Chiang for amnesty -- and then entrusted its delivery to as many as four middlemen.

Col. Kao Long, then the Hong Kong station chief for Taiwan's Special Intelligence Bureau, says he was assigned to check the letter's authenticity. ``By that stage, we had already judged the letter was [Lin's] through our own well-connected channels,'' Kao says. He declines to say what those channels were.

Chang says he ordered a reply drafted, and Kao helped arrange its delivery to Lin. Chang believes his message reached Lin. But the contacts then broke down. After writing to Chou in Hong Kong confirming that Lin's and Tao's stance had not changed, Xiao Zhengyi, the courier who had delivered Lin's letter to Hong Kong, was never heard from again.

PHOTO: ``Headmaster.'' Chiang Kai-shek (Hamilton Wright)

~~~~~~~~

By Peter Hannam

Copyright 1994 the U.S. News & World Report, L.P. All rights reserved.

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