Deadly Deceits by Ralph W. McGehee Page B

ceiling.
    â€œWhat in hell does he mean I won’t know where you’ll be? You could be fooling around or dead for that matter.”
    â€œIt’s the rules, Norma.”
    â€œYes, but you’re the only one who follows them. Everybody learns everything at cocktail parties.”
    I didn’t know what to say.
    â€œThis damn Agency is hell on families,” she sputtered. “First it separates us, then it doesn’t let me know what you’ll do or where you’ll be. We can’t even talk honestly to each other.”
    We had been through it a hundred times. I said nothing and figured she’d calm down once she was adjusted. But I decided right then that we had to find a better place to live.
    Soon we moved to the housing compound on Yan Ming mountain just outside of Taipei. We found a good maid andbaby-sitter, and our lifestyle began to resemble that of America’s sybaritic rich. We fell in with a socially active crowd. The kids entered the Taipei American School, which was well-run by its competent, primarily American, teaching staff. There were many playmates in the compound, and it also had playgrounds, tennis courts, traffic-free roads, and occasional free movies at the club.
    Shortly after we arrived in Taipei, Norma found out that she was pregnant. We had not anticipated this, but she had plenty of company. There was a baby boom in the compound. In September 1959 Norma delivered a cute, healthy, red-haired son, whom we named Dan. Tom’s wife delivered Tom, Jr. in October, and a whole succession of family additions among our circle followed.
    I felt a real thrill beginning my job as a case officer in Taipei. Mostly I worked in liaison with the various Chinese Nationalist intelligence services. My assignment was to send agents to the mainland to gather intelligence about developments in Communist China. Others in our office worked with the Chinese Nationalists to train and drop teams of Chinese on the mainland to develop resistance movements and gather intelligence.
    As the junior man in the office I was given the least exciting, non-demanding assignments. Even so, working with foreign nationals against the Soviet/Chinese monolith in the atmosphere of those days was exciting. On several occasions I went to Chinmen (Quemoy) Island to debrief mainland Chinese fishermen who had strayed too close to the island’s shores and had been captured by the Chinese Nationalist troops there. To get out to the island, we flew on Chinese Nationalist Air Force C-47s. To avoid Communist radar, the pilots would fly out just above the water, rise up quickly as they approached the island to get above its high peaks, and land immediately. At that time the Chinese Communists had announced that they would shell Chinmen on alternate days, which they did, I spent my first night on the island in a tin-roofed shack while the shells fell outside. At first this seemed terribly dangerous. But later I came to realize that theNationalists and the Communists seemed to have a gentlemen’s agreement. Both sides shelled at specific hours and aimed their shells at barren areas. Neither side wished to risk the escalation of shooting at the numerous out-in-the-open targets.
    When I made these trips out to the island, I never got any significant information from the detainees, but they did provide background information on developments on the mainland. And after the debriefings, the Chinese Nationalist generals always took the opportunity to impress their American friends by inviting us to dine with them. The food was great and the atmosphere pleasant. The one thing I couldn’t bear was the toasting between courses. The Chinese toasted with the fierce Gao Liang liquor, which smelled and tasted like turpentine. The various toasts ended with either sui bian (drink as much as you please) or gan bei (bottoms up). My first drink was a gan bei , and I was unprepared for that strong, heavy fluid. It went down the