"'Lin Liguo was a close buddy of mine, and when he 
got to be a deputy political commissar of the air 
force, I became a member of the air force party 
committee along with him.'

"Lin Liguo. That was Lin Biao's son.

"'We need armed struggle to assure that Commander 
Lin can take up the command over the entire 
country,' the prisoner ranted on. 'B-52 is old and 
sick, and we can't wait forever. And Zhou Enlai is 
a traitor who must be punished.' . . .

"Zhou Enlai gives away everything we need the 
most, giving it all to foreigners,' he raved. 'He 
gives some of our best arms to other countries, 
before our own People's Army can even get to see 
them. He gives to Guinea, to Albania, to Vietnam, 
to Laos, to the PLO. . . Any foreigner can get 
anything he wants from Zhou Enlai, but we can't 
get the arms and equipment we need. If that isn't 
betrayal, what is? Lin Liguo says we should spend 
our money on our own people, and use our best arms 
and equipment to meet our own needs. Otherwise, we 
help the foreigners but we don't help ourselves.'"

Sidney Rittenberg and Amanda Bennett, The Man Who 
Stayed Behind (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1993), pp. 
413-4.

[MC5 comments: The above is a prisoner that 
Rittenberg overheard. If it is true, and the line 
represents Lin Biao and not just his son, then it 
must have been Mao's influence in Lin Biao's 
article "Long Live the Victory of People's War!" 
that prevented it from being stark bourgeois 
nationalism. The above quote if true, presents Lin 
Biao in a bad light, and it comes from someone 
accused of siding with him transmitted by someone 
once accused of siding with him--Rittenberg.

As far as we know, Sidney Rittenberg should be 
able to say even more than he does in his book; 
however, perhaps he lost interest in those 
subjects that he used to know about politically.
We hope he does more to remember the politics he used to be involved in.]