Maoist Internationalist Movement

Denial ain't a river in Egypt:

Getting Amerikkkans to admit being spies

MIM is struggling with someone to admit he is a spy. We already know what he thinks about many issues and so we know there is a good chance he is still in denial. There are also several looking on who could learn a lesson. Of course, these spies get paid well to create problems that did not exist before and MIM has no Thought Reform camp that it can send these people to.

Soviet spies are one question. Amerikans got quite excited about Soviet spies especially in the McCarthy period of history. The idea that there were Soviet spies is no trouble for people at all. For Amerikans to admit that they themselves are spies and pornography spreaders is another question entirely. For Amerikkkans to admit that they launched various provocations which could have and did in fact result in dangerous situations misunderstood by others is beyond them. As it turns out, even some of the spies in China became red-faced when they finally realized what a dangerous situation MacArthur had created--with them stuck in China no less. Spies also learned that they created more harm than good for their Liberal allies among the Chinese. To a man, the Liberal Chinese prisoners condemned the Ricketts. Because of people like the Ricketts, Mao's dictatorship of the proletariat had to crack down on Chinese that associated with them. Had those stupid Rickett types had the sense not to mix Liberal discussion with spying, the Chinese Liberals would not have gotten in trouble with Mao. Instead, they ended up in prison along with the Rickett types.

There have been a number of studies about why Amerikans go into denial about being spies once caught. There's a difference between being undercover and denying spy status after being caught red-handed. The Chinese under Mao did the most investigation of this denial process, because they came across a number of U.$. spies. Allyn and Adele Rickett wrote the pro-Chinese view in Prisoners of Liberation.

On the Amerikan side, according to studies for military intelligence, with the Korean War and the ongoing John Birch type activity, getting Amerikans to admit that they were spies in China was "brainwashing." One side calls it confrontation and re-education. The other side calls it "brainwashing," but both sides admitted that the Maoists in China succeeded in their confrontations.

Eventually, the Ricketts were able to put into words what they had done:

It had all seemed so inconsequential that day in late August, 1948, when I had been called to the office of the 13th Naval District Headquarters Intelligence Section in Seattle. We had just been awarded our Fulbright grants for study in Peking and were eagerly waiting to board the freighter which was to take us to China. The call had been unexpected but understandable, since during the Second World War I had been a Naval Intelligence Japanese language officer in the Marine Corps and had kept my reserve status after release from active duty.

During the interview the Naval lieutenant in charge had been studiedly casual when he said that they had heard I was on my way to China and would appreciate it if I was on my way to China and would appreciate it if I would keep my eyes open for them and report back when I returned. I had been elated by the flattering idea that Naval Intelligence considered me somewhat of an expert on China and, since their request fitted right in with my plans to study conditions there while preparing my Ph.D. dissertation, I had readily agreed. At the time I had thought little about the possible consequences. Even while I was regularly supplying information to the American Consulate in Peking after the Communists took control of the city I had no really clear realization that my espionage activities would involve me in any serious danger.

While there in China, the Ricketts participated in something that is still going on to this day more than 50 years later.

People going deep, deep into denial should also look at the following:

The State Department, hoping these contradictions would sharpen with the actual assumption of political power, launched its big campaign in the summer of 1949 to separate these liberal intellectuals from the Communists and, by uniting them with so-called reform elements among the Nationalists on Formosa, to patch together a 'third force.'(2)
Sound familiar? Funny how someone had that experience more than thirty years before MIM was born. Today we are seeing the same exact thing with Iran.

The Ricketts explained that despite 89 pages worth of goings on in China that they described as their own spy activity, when it came time, Allyn Rickett denied being a spy.(3) So did Adele Rickett. They ended up in Maoist prison for their lies and the book is about their experience and how they came to stop shifting around their self-images.

Today, there are over 100,000 spies in the united $tates and even more cops. MIM does not have state power. What it is able to do compared with Mao's China is quite limited. With state power, Mao was able to force some Amerikans into self-confrontation. Once re-educated correctly, the Ricketts toured the united $tates telling the truth for decades afterwards, including after the restoration of capitalism in China in 1976.

Notes:
Allyn and Adele Rickett, Prisoners of Liberation: Four Years in a Chinese Communist Prison (Anchor Press, Garden City, NY: 1973).
1. p. 2-3.
2. p. 31.
3. p. 90.