Volume 30, Number 12 · July 21, 1983
Room at the Top
By Liang Heng
The Conspiracy and Death of Lin Biao
by Yao Ming-le, with an introduction by Stanley Karnow
Knopf, 231 pp., $13.95
Since the publication of The Conspiracy and Death of Lin Biao, reviewers and scholars have been quick to cast doubt on its account of the death of Lin Biao in 1971. It is as if they wished to show they are wiser than those taken in by the Hitler diaries. The book is said by the publisher to have been written by a Chinese whose identity must be withheld for his protection (Yao Ming-le is a pseudonym) and to be based on sources that cannot be examined. It is impossible to verify, and parts of it seem implausible or even fabricated. However, to concentrate on the question of authenticity may obscure the book's value. After all, very few Chinese would dare present such a document to the Western world, and the book offers a rare and convincing portrait of how China's top leaders lived and behaved during the Cultural Revolution. The book has the additional virtue of drawing attention to one of the great mysteries of contemporary Chinese history—the sudden death of Chairman Mao's closest comrade in arms and chosen successor—at a time when Mao himself is being reevaluated both in China and in the West with greater objectivity than ever before.
Review, 3367 words
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