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).
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