‘Taiwan plotted to kill Chou with loaded dog’

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 8

‘Taiwan plotted to kill Chou with loaded dog’

NZPA-Reuter Washington The American Federal Bureau of Investigation has been ordered to find out who leaked a Congressional report on the activities of five foreign spy agencies, including the strange case of the Taiwanese kamikaze dog rigged to blow up the late Chinese Prime Minister, Chou En-lai. The White House said yesterday it had called for the F. 8.1. probe after the “Washington Post” reported that spies and “hit men” from Iran, the Philippines, Taiwan, Chile, and Yugoslavia engineered harassment of emigres and murder plots in the United States. Among the alleged plots was one in which agents from Taiwan dreamed up a scheme to fit a radar-con-trolled bomb to a specially trained dog which would blow up the Chinese Prime Minister in Paris. The scheme fell apart because Mr Chou called off the trip. The Presidential spokesman (Mr Jody Powell) told reporters the F. 8.1. probe had been ordered after a ! request by Senator George McGovern, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The report was prepared by the staff of the sub-committee on international relations. Alleged activities of Savak, the deposed Shah of Iran’s hated secret service, were given prominence in the “Post” report.

Savak, it said, had agents . who kept watch on some 30,000 Iranian students on ; American university campuses, they also hatched several murder plans, including one against an Iranian-born American citizen, Nasser Afghan, in 1977 for taking out newspaper advertisements denouncing the former Shah. It said that during his last three years in power, the Shah repeatedly told American officials he would expel Central Intelligence Agency men if action was taken against United States-based Savak agents. According to the “Post,” the Shah’s warnings were sent to Washington at the highest level by the Ambassador at the time, Richard Helms, a former C.I.A. director, in 1976, and by his successor, William Sullivan, in 1978. It said Mr Sullivan personally warned the Justice Department of the foreign policy implications of possible legal action against Savak agents involved in organising pro-Shah demonstrations. The State Department spokesman (Mr Tom Reston) yesterday confirmed that Mr Sullivan in August, 1978, discussed investigation of Savak with the Justice Department. Mr Reston reiected allegations that the State Department discouraged investigation of foreign intelligence services.

He said the staff report leaked to the “Post” was a draft and the State Department had fundamental disagreements with some of the facts and findings. Other allegations contained in the report included: — From 1971, the Taiwanese agents in the United States tried to undermine or delay normalisation of United States-Chinese relations, which became a fact; earlier this year. — Yugoslav agents made extensive efforts to destroy United States-based anticommunist emigre groups. The agents were also suspected of playing a role in the still unsolved 1977 Chicago murders of a Serbian emigre, Draista Kashikovich, and a 10-year-old girl witness.

— Chile’s intelligence service, D.1.N.A., was responsible for the most dramatic murder: the 1976 car-bomb killing in Washington of the exiled former Chilean Ambassador in Washington and Foreign Minister, Orlando Letelier. Four people were convicted in a Washington Court this year in connection with the killing and the United States is still trying to persuade Chile to deport the former D.I.N.A. chief to face trial. — From 1973, Filipino agents in the United States had been working against exiled opponents of President Ferdinand Marcos.