The death of Chinese vice president, Lin Biao

Back to the Scene -- Lin Doudou on "September 13"

Author: Yu Ruxin

As far as we know, Lin Liheng (Lin Doudou) wrote two main articles about his personal experience of September 13: The first was "Memories around September 13" written in Yuquan Mountain, Beijing, in September 1971. The second is the "September 13 Incident", which was completed in Zhengzhou with Zhang Qinglin nine years later in March 1980.

Around 2012, we obtained a revised and transcribed version of the second material. Based on this material, we published a book, "Looking Back on September 13" in Hong Kong the following year. After a detailed analysis of Lin and Zhang's profiles, the book concludes that Lin Biao's departure on Sept. 13 was entirely autonomous and that Sept. 13 Event was not a "Trap" designed by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, or an "Invisible Witness" engineered by Kang Sheng and the 'gang of Four' as Lin Liheng and Zhang Qinglin call it. There is no evidence to prove that on the night of September 13, Mao, Zhou or Unit 8341 had any intrigues to get Lin Biao to leave. All speculation about a "conspiracy" is groundless speculation, lacking solid evidence.

Last year, we finally read the full text of "Remembering the Events of September 13." The book is 78 pages and has about 220,000 words. There is an unnumbered page between 61 and 62. On the unnumbered page, Lin wrote: "Chairman and Central Committee: Send me the second half of my recollection of the events around September 13. As my memory is not clear, some chapters may be different, so please check again. --Lin Liheng in Beijing on October 26, 1971.

In my opinion, "Memories of the Events of September 13, before and after" is the closest thing That Lin Liheng has ever written to the truth of that day. Because it was completed less than a month and a half after the event, the person concerned had not had time to react to an extremely massive disaster in his life and create false circumstances. As a result, his clear and credible account of the course of events is completely different from Lin and Zhang's 1980 material. Even when Lin's position later changed, she dared not categorically deny what she had written. It was not until the early 1980s, when Lin Liheng asked the central government to return some of her confessions, that she had to speak out against the CCDI, Chen Yun and Deng Yingchao, saying: "To respect the history, we temporarily do not ask for the return of the transcripts disclosed between October and December 1971."