This Declassified briefing focuses on a declassified Central Intelligence Agency airgram from March thirteenth, nineteen-sixty-three, titled "Counterattack in 1963?" It details U.S. intelligence assessments of Chinese Nationalist plans for a mainland invasion. This document is available at vault.fbi.gov and documents2.theblackvault.com.
This document was released under the Freedom of Information Act as part of the U.S. Intelligence on China CI01555 collection. It was declassified on November thirtieth, nineteen-ninety-nine, by the National Archives and Records Administration, specifically by the Assassination Records Review Board, or A-A-R-B, under exemption B-one.
The airgram, sent from Taipei, states: "President Chiang Kai-shek is reported by one U.S. official to have told him on February eighth that a revolt against the Chinese Communist regime would occur during nineteen-sixty-three and that this would provide the G-R-C with its long-awaited opportunity to counterattack the mainland. So far as the Embassy is aware, this is the first time Chiang has committed himself publicly to acting within a specified period of time. The report is also interesting for Chiang's statement, expressed more precisely than previous public statements on this subject, that he would send in the G-R-C armed forces only after there had been an internal revolt in Communist China. So Chiang's declaration that invasion should follow a revolt appears contrary to the 'detonator' theory frequently advanced by the Taiwan press that a G-R-C invasion is necessary to make a revolt possible. In private conversations, Chiang himself has also advanced the view that only a fairly sizeable incursion by G-R-C forces, either by air or sea, would create the necessary conditions for a popular revolt against the Peiping regime, including large-scale defections from the Chinese Communist armed forces. There is probably, however, no real contradiction in Chiang's mind between the two concepts. He has already embarked on a program of clandestine and paramilitary operations against the mainland which he hopes will set in motion active resistance to the Communists. Probably only when this resistance reached a certain degree of intensity would he commit regular forces to an invasion. Thus, he would not invade until an actual revolt of some kind had taken place, but he probably believes, at the same time, that a really large-scale resistance movement—particularly substantial defections from the Chinese Communist forces—could not occur until a sizeable landing of G-R-C regular forces had been carried out.
Evidence available to the Embassy of G-R-C plans and preparations clearly points to the continuation this spring of acts of sabotage and dispatching of guerrilla teams such as took place late last year, possibly also including larger scale paramilitary actions, such as commando raids along the Fukien or Kwangtung coasts. There is evidence, too, that the G-R-C is preparing for the amphibious thrusts and airborne assaults which would attempt to link up with the revolting populace, win an initial local victory over Chinese Communist forces, effect a lodgement along the coast and thus, hopefully, set in motion a snowballing of defections from the Chinese Communist armed forces. Preparations for this type of overt military assault, employing one or two divisions, appear to be still some distance from completion. Whatever the precise combination of inside and outside forces Chiang considers necessary to cause the restive mainland masses to go 'critical' and initiate an effective revolt against their masters, he has plainly forecast that such a revolt will occur this year. Does he mean it? How much does he intend to do to ensure that it happens?
G-R-C Capabilities and State of Readiness. The G-R-C is capable, without U.S. assistance, of undertaking a wide variety of actions against the China mainland, ranging from infiltrating singleton intelligence agents to launching a force of several divisions across the Taiwan Strait. However, there is a great difference in the G-R-C's state of readiness to undertake the large as compared to the small operations. Equipment on hand and training already accomplished place the G-R-C in a position to carry out on short notice various operations toward the lower end of the magnitude scale. For example, the G-R-C could send ashore at any time small, twelve-man, guerrilla teams, such as those landed late last year. It could airdrop clandestinely teams of up to twenty men. It could land by sea commando units of up to several hundred men. However, once the scale of action increases much beyond this point the character of the action fundamentally changes. It ceases to be a clandestine effort to link up with dissatisfied peasants and develop an anti-Communist resistance movement, or a hit-and-run raid to harass the Communists and foster uneasiness within the regime. Because of the formidable technical difficulties involved in any effort to land and withdraw more than a few hundred men, any landing much larger than this inevitably becomes an effort to seize and hold a sizeable beachhead. The size of the operation therefore escalates sharply, and there is really no tenable middle ground between a hit-and-run raid involving a few hundred men and an attempt to put ashore and sustain one or more divisions."
This is what the public record looks like at its most ordinary. Find this document and more at storyflo.com, or directly at archive.org/download/us-china-intel-CI01555/CI01555_djvu.txt.
