A day in February 1962 was an ordinary day for the vast majority of Americans on the other side of the ocean. But in a heavily guarded building in Langley, Virginia, there is a cheerful atmosphere that does not fit into the entire building.
This building is the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) headquarters that often appears in American dramas and American blockbusters.
Surprisingly, the heads of American agents celebrated this time, not because they did something "great", but because they were "celebrating" the death of a person.
This person who makes the US ace intelligence agencies who are making trouble all over the world so fearful is General Li Kenong, who is respected as the "king of agents".
What exactly did he do to make the Americans, who are not afraid of heaven and earth, retreat?
U.S. intelligence agencies pay so much attention to him, according to the CIA's "fine tradition" of keen assassination, is he already on the assassination list?
Does his death have anything to do with the Yankees who have always been afraid of him? As a child of a close relative, what insider story has been revealed about the sudden death of his father?
One man can defeat 100,000 soldiers
In 1955, at the first PLA medal ceremony held in Beijing, it can be said that the stars gathered.
Among them was a middle-aged general with glasses and a chubby looking very kind. In the "God Killing" pile, it is a little out of place. He is Li Kenong, who has never been to the battlefield and has not led troops to fight. So why was he made a general?
"If it weren't for Li Kenong, I wouldn't be where I am today." - Zhou Enlai
Li Kenong "was appointed when the army was defeated, and he was ordered to be in danger." In the thirties of the twentieth century, half of the Chinese Communist Party was saved.
In 1927, the first Kuomintang-Communist cooperation went bankrupt, and the Wang and Jiang reactionaries vigorously pursued a policy of white terror, massacring the left wing of the Communist Party and the Kuomintang.
The Communists, whose vitality was badly damaged, had to hide underground and secretly carry out their work for the time being, and at the same time they had to beware of the eagle dogs of the Kuomintang reactionaries.
As the so-called "hemp rope is singled out and broken," the revolutionary situation is already stormy. One day in 1931, Li Kenong, who was "undercover" in the Kuomintang propaganda section, received a thunderbolt news on a sunny day -
One of the main persons in charge of the Shanghai headquarters of the CPC Central Committee: Gu Shunzhang, defected!
Gu Shunzhang is a person, in a word: arrogant.
He was popular for his brazenness and daring to fight and kill, and he led several labor movements, hiding the nature of "soft bones" well.
Objectively speaking, Gu Shunzhang is indeed a genius spy: he is good at tricks, and while winning the reputation of "red magician" for himself, he has also created an excellent identity for mixing with the upper class and collecting intelligence.
But Gu Shunzhang's consciousness is not high, he is greedy for enjoyment, and he is proficient in eating, drinking, and gambling.
After being arrested in April 1931, before the enemy could torture him to extract a confession, Gu Shunzhang took the initiative to rebel against the revolution and betrayed the organization!
Fortunately, the news of his defection was learned by Qian Zhuangfei, an agent who was also lurking in the enemy camp. When this information passed to Li Kenong after several twists and turns, the situation was imminent.
Li Kenong was in danger and methodically commanded the evacuation of underground workers, allowing the enemy to pounce and preserving the living force of Shanghai's revolutionary work.
So what happened to Gu Shunzhang, who rebelled against the revolution for the sake of prosperity and wealth?
You know, Chiang Kai-shek has always looked down on traitors, and he once said to his subordinates:
"Anyone who can defect to the Communist Party will also defect to us at any time."
This big traitor, who was "used up and abandoned" by the Kuomintang, was finally shot in 1935. And it was he who shot him as a cadet in the Kuomintang special agent training course.
Panmunjom's "invisible giant"
General Li Kenong was not only powerless to suppress the reactionaries at home, but he was also an "invisible giant" on the diplomatic front.
In October 1950, in order to guard the frontier and not be constrained by the developed Western countries led by the Americans, the Chinese People's Volunteers, led by Marshal Peng Dehuai, marched north to resist US aggression and aid Korea.
The volunteer soldiers suffered heavy losses in the cold and cold, and they also achieved great results -
By June 1951, the volunteer soldiers had beaten the invincible Americans to a halt and reluctantly sat down at the negotiating table.
This is a crucial negotiation, who is the right to send? The leaders of the CPC Central Committee also made a mistake at once.
Although Mr. Peng and Han Xianchu are famous and very capable of fighting, diplomacy is not about ruthlessness and decisiveness, but about long-sleeved dancing and being able to speak well.
In the end, it was Chairman Mao who hit the nail on the blow - sent Li Kenong to the horse. He said bluntly:
"When it comes to quarrels, no one has won him."
In the Korean War, although Li Kenong did not personally go to the battlefield, his shadow was everywhere.
On the intelligence front, Li Kenong won a surprising victory when the number of people, quality, scientific and technological level, and intelligence network were inferior to the enemy's "big headwind", which left a deep impression on "Uncle Sam".
He used the individual combat capability that the volunteer soldiers had trained in the three-year Liberation War, far surpassing those of the United States, and used the most "simple" way to know himself and the other -
The elite scouts risked being shot, shuttled through a hail of bullets, and used all their strength to fight Lao Jiang and obtained a lot of valuable information.
Second, he used the "tongue" and "tongue" (tongue is a prisoner) cultivated by volunteer soldiers during the Liberation War, and obtained a lot of information with his powerful interrogation skills and the highly inspiring policy of "preferential treatment of prisoners".
General Li Kenong's outstanding performance in the intelligence war made outstanding contributions to the fact that in the first phase of the battle, he was able to fight inextricably with the US army, which claimed to be invincible in the world.
In addition to being "everywhere" in intelligence warfare, Li Kenong did not live up to Chairman Mao's trust and expectations on the diplomatic battlefield.
Here's another anecdote – in July 1951, a negotiating delegation assembled in Beijing to prepare for departure.
Comrade Zhao Ying, General Li Kenong's meticulous wife, said with concern: "Kenong, do you want to bring cotton clothes?" You have asthma..."
Before the words fell, the general said confidently: "No, when winter comes, I will go home." ”
However, no one expected that this negotiation would eventually become a two-year tug-of-war.
In the past two years, Li Kenong has been working day and night. As the overall representative of this negotiation, he is cautious and walks on thin ice.
Li Kenong's day's work usually starts in the morning. At ten o'clock, he first listened to a summary of the results of the comrades on the "front" of the negotiations.
The negotiations were divided into three fronts, the first line was composed of General Deng Hua and representatives of the North Korean military, the second line was guarded by Qiao Guanhua, the owner of the famous diplomatic scene "Joe's Laughter", and the third line in the general rear was General Li Kenong.
Every day, he had to summarize and report the "war situation" to the upward, and at the same time, he had to strategize on the third line, trying to entangle with the Americans, and was often busy until the early hours of the morning to rest.
According to statistics, Li Kenong and Chairman Mao exchanged more than a dozen telegrams every day, and over the years, the scale of hundreds of thousands of words must have been achieved, and the heavy responsibility on General Li's shoulders and the hardship of his work can be seen.
This is an internal effort. Externally, Li Kenong is "punching hard." ”
As soon as the negotiations began, General Lee was clear and tough – the first was to clearly pursue peace, the second was to resolutely demarcate the "38th parallel" as the national border, and the third was to urge foreign troops to withdraw.
Outside the negotiating table, the two countries are inseparable from each other, and the two sides of the negotiating table are tense, Li Kenong, as the leader, still remains calm at all times.
Not only that, he also called on everyone to restrain their emotions, guard against arrogance and impetuosity, learn from the US negotiator, General Ezio, and learn from his advantages of calm restraint and eloquence.
General Li Kenong's imminent danger and stable aura are really amazing.
It is not surprising that such a gentle but tough, wise and courageous "diplomatic and secret service boss" aroused the jealousy of Americans, and even celebrated his death.
From another point of view, this is also a kind of "praise" from the Americans.
In fact, before the Korean battlefield shined in 1951, Li Kenong had already attracted the attention of the Americans.
In 1950, at the beginning of the founding of New China, everything was in ruins. Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou and other major central leaders visited the Soviet Union collectively and asked this big brother for help in seeking national development and national prosperity.
Because of leaving the mainland, this visit was regarded by the Kuomintang as the best opportunity for a "counteroffensive." They attempted to assassinate key leaders of the CPC Central Committee.
Such unscrupulous carving insect tricks naturally cannot escape the eyes of the king of agents. He knew his opponent, Mao Renfeng, the head of the Kuomintang secret service, too well.
When Mao Renfeng triumphantly planned the assassination method, Li Kenong had already learned about this, and quickly dug up the Kuomintang's buried pawn on the mainland, Ji Zhaoxiang, and captured their "universal radio".
This thunder operation surprised the Americans, who had always supported the Kuomintang, and immediately noticed General Li Kenong.
The mystery of death
In the early spring of 1962, the Chinese people, who had survived the "three-year natural disaster period", finally ushered in the first bumper year after the disaster. The whole city of Beijing is full of vitality, and everything is racing.
However, General Li Kenong, who had accumulated a lot of work, suddenly passed away on February 9.
Because of Li Kenong's special status as the "king of agents", the common people continued to speculate about the cause of his death after learning that this "behind-the-scenes boss" died suddenly.
Some say that he was assassinated by the Kuomintang, while others say that he was retaliated by his enemies. Among them, the "theory of American murder" is very popular - it is said that there is a nose and eyes. Rumor has it that as early as the first armistice negotiations of the Korean War, the evil US imperialism poisoned the general.
So through the fog, what is the truth about the death of General Li Kenong?
Like many comrades who have struggled all the way from the difficult years, living in harsh environments, suffering from various chronic diseases. The upheaval and precarious revolutionary life also made General Li Kenong sick.
The most serious of these was his asthma.
In 1957, Li Kenong, who was nearly 60 years old, was still fighting on the front line of the construction of the motherland. No one expected that he would die nine times on the enemy special front several times and escape, but he had an asthma attack just because the steps were too high when he went up the stairs, and he fell to the ground and induced a cerebral hemorrhage, and he almost couldn't wake up.
It can be seen that General Li Kenong has always been in poor health, and even reached the point of endangering his life in his later years.
In addition, his wife Zhao Ying, who had been with him for 44 years, dealt a "fatal blow" to the aging hero after his death in 1961.
Since the death of his beloved wife, General Li Kenong has weakened visibly and died in less than a year.
But because the general's death was too sudden, and because the general has always been at odds with the United States. Therefore, many people believe that the death of the general is inseparable from the United States.
Some people also blamed Li Kenong's death on the Kuomintang's assassination because he destroyed the Kuomintang's plan to "counterattack the mainland" several times.
But at all times, we must always look at things realistically.
In the 60s of the 20th century, after more than a decade of "fighting," the nails of the Kuomintang's enemy Tezha on the mainland had long been uprooted by us one by one.
Objectively speaking, they did not even have the ability to organize effective assassinations, and as for "recovering the continent and returning to the old capital", it was only in a dream.
In order to stabilize the political situation and prevent this "conspiracy theory" from having a bad influence, Li Lun, the son of General Li Kenong, personally came out to clarify the "spy poison theory", which was a very popular view at that time.
This also fully shows that our country is realistic and pragmatic, which is completely different from some countries that like to splash dirty water everywhere.
In fact, over time, the unsealing of some top-secret archives has also gradually revealed the truth of the matter.
Li Lun said in a later interview: "When my father died, the obituary said that he died of a cerebral hemorrhage, but it was not, but cerebral malacia, and the brain had become mushy at that time." ”
epilogue
From the beginning of the New Democratic Revolution, to the founding of New China, reform and opening up, and then to the new era and new China of the 21st century. Countless people have worked hard for the development of this country.
General Li Kenong was one of the outstanding representatives, who, like many revolutionary martyrs, died suddenly before he could enjoy a peaceful life.
As a generation born in a new society and growing up under the red flag, we must live well and hard, live out outside ourselves, and live the happiness and wonderfulness that they have never experienced.