Around the National Day in October 1954, Soviet leader Khrushchev led a delegation of 70 people to China, initiating the largest and highest-level visit to China in the history of the Soviet Union.
In the previous two articles, Fei Chun introduced the background of his visit to China, the documents he signed, and the 11 cities he traveled in China over 19 days.
Today, I would like to talk about the last focus of this visit to China: How is the security work done during such a large-scale visit to China?
In fact, during the 19-day trip to China, the Soviet KGB made careful arrangements throughout the whole process, but there were still a few small episodes, saying that the accident was not counted, but it was related to the security work of the leaders.
Picture of Khrushchev's visit to China
First, the first unexpected situation: landing
At 11:00 a.m. on September 29, 1954, the weather was fine at the Capital Airport in the northeastern suburbs of Beijing.
A huge silver-white transport plane with a Soviet logo on its tail landed slowly. It was the Il-14, a special aircraft for Soviet leaders to visit.
The crowd that had been waiting at the airport stepped forward to greet the visiting First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Khrushchev.
Unexpectedly, as the crowd approached them, the Il-14 suddenly moved to the side, away from the crowd.
Everybody stopped.
In the crowd, Eugene, the Soviet ambassador to China, came up breathlessly and asked what was going on.
It turned out that the plane was not carried by Khrushchev, but by Khrushchev's retinue and staff.
They stepped out of the cabin and into the crowd, eagerly awaiting the landing of Khrushchev's plane.
Ill 14
After 15 minutes, a notice came from the radio: "Comrade Khrushchev, the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, has now officially landed." ”
After that, shortly after, another notice was issued: bulganin's plane began to land, Mikoyan's plane began to land...
The plane that landed for the first time was not a Khrushchev plane, which was not only unknown to the crowd greeted by the Chinese side, but also to the captain of the plane.
According to the original plan, the plane of the entourage of the visit was followed by the leader's plane.
But it was not until he landed and saw the excitement of the crowd that the captain realized that the situation was not right, and they used his plane as Khrushchev's special plane.
Therefore, the captain was in a hurry, quickly pulled the plane aside, and waited for the real plane to land.
Picture of the capital airport
This change of crew, which was not informed in advance, was made by Serov, chairman of the State Security Council of the USSR ( i.e. the KGB ) .
From Moscow to Beijing, the plane stopped 3 times at 3 airports in the territory of the Soviet Union. After departing from the last airport, Serov quietly changed the order of the special plane, and Khrushchev and other leaders temporarily lined up behind.
According to later disclosures from the Soviet entourage, such an arrangement, known only to Serov and his lieutenants at the time, was intended to "prevent attacks by air or on the ground."
However, this almost caused a poor pool of diplomatic etiquette.
Serov
Two. The KGB's security forces
The number of people on this trip was more than 70, the highest level, and for this reason, the Soviet Union dispatched 12 aircraft.
Khrushchev, Bulganin, Mikoyan, Serov, Svernik, Foltseva, these six people each took a Il-14 special plane.
The rest of the security, subsistence and staff are flown on other aircraft.
In addition, they airlifted their cars.
At that time, just 5 years after the founding of New China, the national economy had just launched the "First Five-Year Plan", and the country's industrial development was extremely difficult. When the highest-ranking soviet leaders visited, they naturally did not believe in China's security strength.
So, not only did they have a luxurious, reliable big plane, but they also pulled 10 special cars for leaders on the plane.
Of the 10 cars, 3 were Guiss armored bulletproof vehicles for He, Bu and Mi to ride on, and the remaining 7 Werejim vehicles for the use of members of the delegation and security personnel.
In the 19 days in China, these planes and high-class cars flew around Khrushchev in more than a dozen cities in China.
There were 12 aircraft and 10 cars, each of which was equipped with full-time cabin crew and drivers, as well as a Commander of the Soviet Air Force who directed the flight. There are dozens of these people alone.
During his stay in China, only 5 of the 12 aircraft were used, and the remaining 6 were used by the delegation staff to travel between Moscow and Beijing to transmit documents.
Because during this visit to China, China and the Soviet Union signed many documents, including the landing agreements on military, scientific, technological, and economic assistance, so the workload is huge and can be imagined.
There is also 1 aircraft, parked on the Nanyuan military airport, as a temporary maneuver backup.
Third, the KGB's impression of China's transportation
The highest level of access, of course, requires the highest level of security.
The head of security on the Soviet side was the KGB boss, Serov. The person in charge of the Chinese side was Luo Ruiqing, then minister of public security.
There's an episode here that can be said in two more sentences.
On October 5, the two men mentioned road traffic problems when exchanging security work.
According to Zhu Ruizhen, a Chinese officer present at the time, the two talked about the technical adviser sent by the Soviet Union to the Chinese side, a man named Kardeev.
Xie said that this person is more honest and diligent, but more stupid. He's an expert on urban transportation, but "in my opinion, he's not doing a good job in Beijing."
He said that according to the scene he saw, on the streets of Beijing, "bicycles and pedestrians are walking back and forth in the middle of the car, how can there be no car accidents!" ”
"Frankly, the traffic order in Beijing is not as good as moscow, Moscow is not as good as East Berlin, and East Berlin is not as good as West Berlin. In Hitler's time, they relied mainly on fines, and now they rely mainly on strict traffic rules, and this question is worth studying. ”
Selov said that within 5 years of the founding of New China, China has not yet established its own traffic law system, industry has not yet emerged, traffic participants are mostly manpower and animal power, there are very few cars, and traffic problems have not yet constituted social problems.
However, shortly after Serov raised this issue, during the first five-year plan, specifically on August 6, 1955, the first traffic law of New China was promulgated, which was the "Urban Traffic Rules".
It stipulates that the vehicles are driving on the right. This is the first time that China has clarified the right-hand system in the form of a law.
Behind it, it may also be related to the advice of Soviet experts.
Fourth, there is an "accident" in the aircraft toilet
When Khrushchev came to China with a bulletproof armored vehicle, it sounded a little incredible.
In fact, they are not guarding against Chinese comrades, but hostile forces.
This time, Khrushchev wanted to go to Shanghai and other coastal areas where China's economy is most active, so the KGB was particularly worried about the situation in the southeast coastal area.
Before leaving, Serov specifically asked Luo Ruiqing on this issue whether there would be any air force from the Taiwan side to harass him.
In Shanghai, Serov had no intention of following Khrushchev to see the cityscape, nor did he have the heart to go to the night market with Mikoyan to eat wontons, so he hired 2 Soviet advisers working at the Shanghai Air Force Command and opened the military map to see the location of the Kuomintang air base.
When he found that Kinmen and Matsu were close to Hangzhou, he immediately reported to Khrushchev and suggested shortening his stay in Hangzhou.
Propaganda posters from the 1950s
Khrushchev traveled from Beijing to Nanjing, to Shanghai, to Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Wuhan, and then back to Beijing. During these four or five days of travel, most of them took Chinese trains. Several special planes flew synchronously over the air with the special train.
Listening to Serov's advice, he decided to fly to Guangzhou by plane.
This detail may be a bit alarming, but its concerns are not unreasonable. According to the background at that time, cross-strait relations were still unstable, and the old Chiang Kai-shek was still dreaming of "restoration."
In particular, the United States is still making trouble in this regard, and before Khrushchev's visit, it is preparing to sign some "mutual defense treaty" with Taiwan.
All this had to put the intelligence system and its well-developed KGB on guard.
The KGB is only responsible for implementation, not for explaining it to everyone.
The delegation's temporary change of course caused internal confusion.
The Chinese entourage, Zhe Zhe, did not know in advance, but after hearing the decision to fly to Guangzhou immediately, he was displeased and complained that Serov had not informed him in advance.
Because of this, Selov was once again on guard.
When arranging the special plane, he did not let Shi Zhe and Khrushchev fly together, but arranged him on other special planes. On Khrushchev's plane, there was only one Chinese, namely, The Guard Chief Li Shuhuai.
Inside Il-14
Even so, when Lee got up to go to the bathroom, Serov quickly locked the bathroom outside. Lee thought that there was an "accident" in the door lock of the toilet, who knew that it was man-made.
It was not until the end of the day in Guangzhou that the "accident" of the toilet was lifted.
After this change caused the plane to land, Khrushchev and Tao Zhu, the Guangdong leader who greeted him, met but did not translate, and could only gesture to say hello to each other.
After Shi Zhe's plane landed 15 minutes later, Khrushchev pulled him aside and said bitterly, "Come and save us!" ”
KGB logo
The KGB was a soviet intelligence agency set up from 1954 to 1991, the full name is the Soviet National Security Council, and its popularity is similar to that of the CIA, the British MI6 and the Israeli Mossad, and is called the world's four major intelligence agencies.
This can be seen from the many details of Khrushchev's visit to China. (End)
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