Ministry of State Security of the People's Republic of China (MSS) issued an article on Monday (Sept. 4) exposing the spying activities of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Xinjiang, China, decades ago.
According to the article, the CIA headquarters has a marble wall filled with black engraved stars, each representing a CIA employee who died overseas. The first of these black stars was for Douglas Mackiernan, a spy who operated in China in his role as Deputy Consul General of the US in Dihua (now Urumqi). Around 1950, Mackiernan and the spy force he had developed in China were firmly combated by our counter-espionage department and military and civilian forces, and were ultimately destroyed, ending their history of doing harm to the country.
'SPYING TALENT' SPOTTED BY CIA
After graduating from the Physics Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, Mackiernan specialized in radio, meteorology, photography and organic chemistry, and was fluent in Spanish, French, German and Russian. He joined the US Army in 1942 and was engaged in meteorological research. From 1944 to 1946, as a member of the 10th Meteorological Squadron of the US Army, he traveled to Dihua, Xinjiang, China, on a secret mission.
He was soon recognized by the CIA for his espionage talent and was recruited as a spy within the CIA. After receiving training in intelligence techniques, Mackiernan began to carry out espionage missions, operating extensively in Xinjiang, China.
In his external identity, Mackiernan was the Deputy Consul-General of the US Consulate in Dihua. He made use of this position to meddle in China's affairs and cultivate espionage and political banditry in the northwestern region. On the other hand, he took advantage of Xinjiang's geographical proximity to the USSR to secretly install pressure, seismic, radiological, and other intelligence monitoring equipment in Xinjiang, with the aim of detecting Soviet intelligence on atomic bombs.
FLED FROM XINJIANG, DIED IN TIBET
With the liberation of Xinjiang, Mackiernan hastily withdrew. However, he was not willing to leave China and wanted to continue his espionage activities in Tibet.
In March 1950, Mackiernan and his followers crossed the desert from Xinjiang, reached the plateau, and entered the Tibetan region. He could not find a stable place to stay, so he wandered around the region, waiting for a chance to start an operation.
On 29 April, Mackiernan and his entourage broke into a local herdsman's home, where they were immediately discovered by armed local citizens and a confrontation broke out. Mackiernan refused to lay down his weapons and clashed with the armed men. During the firefight, Mackiernan and his personal attendants were killed and the others were captured. Mackiernan's body was then buried on the spot.
Mackiernan thereby became the first "intelligence officer" to die overseas since the establishment of the CIA in 1947, represented by the first black star on the marble wall.
REMNANT FORCES GOT WIPED OUT
During his stay in Xinjiang, Mackiernan had kept a large number of spies and political bandits in our northwestern region, providing them with financial and arms support. Before he escaped from Xinjiang, he met with one of the spy chiefs, Osman Batur, and asked him to continue to fight against the People's Government with his spies and bandits.
Osman gathered more than 5,000 bandits and started a riot in the border areas of Xinjiang, Gansu and Qinghai, looting everywhere. The Northwest Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) led the counter-espionage department and the military and civilian armed forces to deal a firm blow to the Osman spies and bandits.
In February 1951, Osman was captured, and in April 1951, after a trial, Osman and other spies and bandit leaders were executed.
In July 1952, members of the Party Central Committee were dispatched to Xinjiang to deal with the remnants of the Osman spy forces. On the one hand, the Central Committee led the counter-espionage department and the military and civilians in a resolute crackdown on the recalcitrant spy and bandit leaders; on the other, the Central Committee united the masses, resumed production, and eliminated the soil for the spy forces' existence from the political, economic, and social points of view, thus fundamentally resolving the remnants of the spy and bandit forces maintained by the CIA, and forcefully thwarting the subversion plot of the CIA.
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