We hailed a cab, changed a couple of times, and then went on to the restaurant, where we met our Taiwanese friend. Peter had introduced us to the assemblyman a couple of years before, but we knew him mostly for his reputation as a thorn in the side of the KMT. He answered all of Harrison’s questions in Mandarin, which we in turn translated into English. On the question of whether Taiwan should be reunited with the Mainland, he repeated the refrain that we heard so often over the years: “We don’t want Mao and we don’t want Chiang! Communism or anti-Communism has nothing to do with it. We are Taiwanese, not Chinese, and should be able to govern ourselves.”
We were impressed with Harrison’s knowledge and sensitivity; so when he asked if he could see us again to get better acquainted, we invited him to dinner at our house on March 2, three days away. He would come to the house on Tuesday, but we would be unable to serve him dinner.
Chapter Nineteen
Arrest and Deportation
Thus hath the candle singed the moth.
— William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice (1600)
We were preparing to sit down to lunch with David Chen, principal of the seminary, when three men in plain clothes and a fourth in a black Foreign Affairs Police uniform came to the door and asked us to accompany them to headquarters to hear some “advice from Colonel Wang, head of that office.” We asked them to wait until we finished our lunch, and they agreed, seating themselves in the living room not six feet from the dining room table. We just looked at the food in front of us, engaging in a nervous banter, words to fill the pall that had fallen over the room with the arrival of these uninvited guests. David was Peter’s cousin, but as far as we knew, he was never involved in any sort of political activity. He didn’t seem rattled by the presence of these officials. We wondered if he had been invited or ordered to be present to witness the arrest.
Elizabeth was at nursery school and our amah had Richard in the kitchen. David said he would see that both would be cared for until we returned. We were taken in an unmarked police car to the main foreign affairs police station, next to City Hall. Upon arrival, we were ushered up two flights of stairs to the third floor, where Colonel Wang and two other men awaited us.
The five of us then went into a large, green-carpeted room. Overstuffed chairs lined three of the walls; coffee tables were placed at intervals in front of the chairs. We sat down in one corner, and Colonel Wang proceeded to read a brief statement in English. In essence it said that we had violated the regulations controlling aliens in the Republic of China and had committed “unfriendly actions against the government of the ROC.” Because of this, we were being expelled from the country and must leave within forty-eight hours. During that period our “movements and living” would be severely restricted. Wang then presented me with a single typed copy of the statement and asked me to sign at the bottom, where there was a sentence indicating that I had read the statement and understood it. I said that I would be glad to sign it if I could have a copy. Wang said there was only one copy and if I didn’t wish to sign it I didn’t have to. I didn’t.
The colonel went on to explain that a representative from the Yangmingshan bureau (controlling the district where we lived) would answer any further questions we might have and would be waiting at the house when we returned. I pressed him for an explanation of the term “unfriendly actions,” and he replied that he didn’t have time to explain it to me. We asked if the American Embassy had been notified of our deportation order. Wang said that it had and that a representative would come to see us that day.
We were driven directly back to our house, accompanied by a man and a woman in plain clothes. Awaiting us at home were another man and woman, also without uniforms. From then on we had the two men and two women in our living room at all times. Several men in gray suits milled around outside the door while jeeps, motorcycles, and men encircled the house. The representative from the Yangminshan bureau never showed up, and any further explanation of the charges or our exact limitations was never given. We soon learned, though, what was meant by “severe restrictions on our movements and living.”
As we entered the house, the phone rang. Selig Harrison was on the line. He was calling to ask what time he should arrive for dinner. Judith managed to blurt out to him that we were being deported just before one of the two men in the room—a man as tall as I was and much larger—snatched the phone from her hand and pulled the line out of the wall. We were completely cut off from the outside.
We made several requests to our guards to allow us to ask Bishop Nall in Hong Kong where we should go and to make flight arrangements. The requests were all refused. They anxiously worked to keep word of our deportation from spreading. One of the guards later told us that they feared that our friends might rally and stage a riot on our behalf.
We asked again to see a representative from the embassy. We were assured that they knew about our situation. One of the guards said that had the embassy not consented to our deportation, it wouldn’t have been ordered. We wondered about the right of a foreign embassy to approve the deportation of one of its nationals. The guard maintained that he was telling the truth. We would later learn that the embassy knew two days before our arrest.
In the hours that followed, we tried to get organized and pack, but it was hard to concentrate. We wondered if anyone knew what was happening and what the people on campus were thinking about the massive police presence there. Five-year-old Elizabeth seemed unaware that anything special was going on. Since she was allowed to go and come freely from the house, we wrote a brief message to Bob Montgomery, a Presbyterian missionary on campus whose daughter played with Elizabeth. We wrapped the message around a piece of gum, replaced the tinfoil wrapper, and put it back into the paper sleeve and into an opened pack. We told Elizabeth to go directly to the Montgomery’s house and give it to one of her friend’s parents and to please not offer a stick to one of the guards on her way out. She did what we asked of her. While the campus was abuzz with speculation about what was happening at our house, Elizabeth delivered the first message to the missionary community.
The living/dining room was not large, perhaps only twelve by sixteen feet. When four guards, one of which was quite large, were seated on the sofa and chairs, the only other places to sit were at the table. When the Taiwanese woman who worked for us put dinner on the table, Elizabeth asked why the guards did not eat with us. I suggested that she ask them. I don’t know if she did or not, but she certainly provided entertainment for them. They were amazed at her fluency in both Mandarin and Taiwanese and spent a lot of time chatting with her, and she liked the attention.
After supper, sometime after seven or eight o’clock, we heard loud voices outside the house. We recognized Selig Harrison’s voice and tried to open the front door and go out, but a policeman blocked us. Judith then ran to the dining room window, opened it, and shouted, “Sig, they won’t let us talk to anyone. Please get the word out.” He tried to answer, but at that point was shoved down by one of the policemen. One of the guards inside shouted for me to get Judith away from the window. The guards were pretty angry, especially since they had just told Harrison that we weren’t at home. After the incident, we received a lecture on cooperation with the police during “difficult times.” Shoving Harrison around probably got our story onto the front page of the next day’s Washington Post.
After the lecture, we went to the bedroom where, thankfully, they didn’t follow us. At nearly ten o’clock, we heard another commotion outside. Thinking that Harrison had returned, Judith ran into the study and out into the front yard through the entrance that had escaped the notice of the police. The visitor wasn’t Harrison but Dick Bush, a United Methodist missionary colleague. He was arguing loudly with the policeman surrounding him. Judith shouted that we were being deported and asked him to contact the embassy. He shouted back that he would.
Back in the house, I received a more severe lecture about Judith’s behavior.
“Your wife is a lao y
ou-tyao [old grease stick]! If you can’t control her, we will take you to jail and you will be separated from your children.”
“Both of us wish to cooperate,” I responded, “but cooperation is a two-way street, and we haven’t seen any cooperation with our request to talk with someone from the U.S. Embassy.”
The large man spun on his heels and walked out the door. Our little heart–to-heart chat may have made a difference because at almost midnight the consul, Fred Beattie, showed up. I told him that I didn’t want U.S. intervention in the case of our deportation—I didn’t want to be associated with the country’s long history of such intervention in Chinese affairs—but that I did want information about why we were being treated as criminals and held incommunicado. He admitted that the embassy had some “unofficial” information but that he was not at liberty to share it with us. I would learn later that the embassy felt no hesitation in sharing the “unofficial” charges with Bishop Nall and others about our arrest. The consul said we should cooperate in every possible way and leave the country as quietly as possible. What I felt as I talked to him was that he cared not one whit about us. He was representing a State Department closely allied with the Nationalist government, and we were an embarrassment to both of them.
He helped us in two ways. The next day Clyde and Betty Dunn, United Methodist missionaries, were allowed into the house to discuss property and moving matters with us. The guards sat with us to see that we didn’t talk about anything except packing and shipping arrangements. He had also arranged for permission for Judith to be taken to see the obstetrician. She was five months pregnant; considering her history and all of this stress, we were concerned that she might lose the baby. She was taken to MacKay Hospital with two guards—a man and a woman—from the four who had been staying in the house. Although he probably wondered about having guards stationed outside the examining room, the doctor’s report on Judith and the baby was good.
When Judith the two guards left for her appointment, the other female guard went outside to join those surrounding the house. I made coffee for myself and offered a cup to the remaining guard. He sat down across the table from me.
“I know that you are not criminals,” he said. “This is really a political matter. You must realize that we are in difficult times here. The enemy is just across the straits, and our international position is deteriorating at a rapid rate. In another time, I do not think you would be expelled for what you have done, and I think you will probably be able to return to Taiwan before very long.”
“Do you really think so?” I asked, recalling what one of the other guards had said about concerns that our arrest might cause riots.
“Oh, yes!”
“You know what really worries me is whether or not your government will give us any problems taking Richard outside the country,” I said. “He is now a U.S. citizen, but I know that people of the Han born in Taiwan are considered Chinese citizens no matter what passport they carry.”
“What kind of monsters do you think we are?” he asked. “We would never do something like that.”
I think he probably believed it. I would not be sure until we had Richard out of the country. It would be this same guard who, against his orders, would allow some of our friends to come to the door on Thursday morning and say good-bye. We made a point of thanking him for this courtesy.
We spent Wednesday evening packing and writing simple instructions for the disposition of our things. The consul visited us once more mainly to tell us that the embassy was unwilling to disclose any of the particulars about why we had been arrested. He told us that we would be leaving on a China Airlines flight to Hong Kong at 1:15 P.M. Thursday. This was the first word about when we would be deported. With things apparently settled, I had no trouble sleeping Wednesday night. Since I did not know that the story was already big news outside Taiwan, I had no idea of the “new world” I would enter on Thursday.
Last-minute packing and getting Richard and Liz ready to go was the agenda for Thursday morning. The Dunns showed up about an hour before we were to leave. Mary Ella Brentlinger, another Methodist missionary, managed to get into the house with the Dunns and actually got away with it for a while before the guards realized she didn’t belong and ordered her out.
We left the house by car at noon, greatly encouraged by the presence of several friends keeping a vigil of sorts outside the circle of police around the house. When we passed the administration building, many students and faculty members were gathered on both sides of the road to say good-bye. Of course, they made no gestures to wave; they just watched. Their presence there put each of them at considerable risk. I knew I could not wave to them. In an already emotionally charged atmosphere, I began to cry. There were cars of secret police both in front of and behind us.
Overcome with emotion at the bravery of so many students and faculty daring to stand and watch as we left, I was slow to sense the magnitude of the police operation to get us to the airport. Holding Richard on my lap, I looked across at Elizabeth, her face glued to the other window of the black limousine taking us down the mountain. What I saw out her window as we descended the mountain, passed the Generalissimo’s home in Shih-lin, and moved into Taipei were gray suits stationed on both sides of the road at regular intervals. Rowland Van Es, who had gotten word in Tainan and come by train to witness our departure, followed our motorcade down the mountain. Soldiers, he said, were posted every ten or twenty yards along the five miles to Songshan Airport.[25]
“What the hell are they afraid of—us?” I asked.
“If so, they are crazier than we thought,” Judith replied as she watched the unnumbered sentries flash past.
As we traveled down Minchuan Road to the entrance, the distance between the sentries diminished, and as we entered the circle in front of the airport the gray suits were shoulder to shoulder around the entire perimeter.
Our car drove directly to the entrance to the VIP lounge. Inside were more men and women, some soldiers and some gray suits. The large room was so full of them that it was almost like a Lantern Festival crowd, except they were all security personnel.
I recognized one of them as the man we had confronted when he was following us with Selig Harrison a week earlier. I addressed him in Chinese. “So we meet again,” I said. He responded with a smile, “Now we are old friends.” It took half an hour for four people to go through our few bags. They went through everything—jars of cold cream, tubes of toothpaste, and every piece of paper in my briefcase.
A difficulty arose when they found some sermons I had in my briefcase. Since they were written in Romanized Chinese, no one there could read them. They assumed they were some kind of secret code. So I spent several minutes with one of the men, reading the sermons to him and a couple of others who were looking on. I pointed to the words as I read. Finally, they decided that they were what I said they were and allowed me to put them back into my briefcase. I felt a certain irony as I preached to one of my guards in my last moments in Taiwan.
Another difficulty arose when they tried to listen to some of our tape recordings and stumbled onto some Atayal hymns we had recorded. No one there understood the words of that aboriginal language (not a Chinese dialect but a part of the Malay-Polynesian language family).
They might have taken more time on the tapes and sermons, but they had already held up this flight well beyond its scheduled departure. Everyone was on the plane but us. The American consul, Mr. Beattie, showed up at the last minute. We couldn’t help informing him that he always managed to show up when he was no longer useful.
We were driven from the terminal to the boarding ramp of the airplane. Only then did we get the first hint of the publicity our departure was receiving. The ramp was surrounded by reporters filming and taking pictures of us. While the mood in the VIP lounge had been quiet and subdued, here we were confronted by a crowd of reporters on both sides of the runway shouting out questions and a sea of flashbulbs going off in our faces.
I
had Richard on my back and Judith had Elizabeth by the hand. Unnerved by the noise and lights, Elizabeth froze in front of the steps. In a genuine gesture to help, one of the policemen accompanying us onto the plane scooped her up and carried her up the steps. Already frightened and now being seemingly separated from us, Elizabeth began to kick and scream. A film crew from NBC brought in to cover our departure caught it all. The first our parents in Texas and Massachusetts knew of our arrest was when they saw that film clip on television.
Having already seen all of the reporters at the airport in Taipei, we weren’t very surprised by the mob of reporters that met our plane in Hong Kong. Bishop Nall, accompanied by missionaries from Hong Kong and Chinese pastors, pushed through the crowd promising that we would speak to the press the next day.
We were put up in a family suite at the YMCA on Waterloo Road. Selig Harrison followed us to Hong Kong and found us there. Since we had never held a press conference before, once Richard and Elizabeth were down for the night, Harrison spent several hours in our room advising us about how to conduct ourselves at the next day’s event. We let him know that we would not say anything to further jeopardize the Taiwanese or our colleagues.
Harrison’s most important admonition was not to end any sentence without including whatever qualifications we needed to make. So when they asked us about our relationships with dissident Taiwanese, we were to be careful to say that we were friends with both dissidents and persons who were supporters of the government, which was certainly true. When asked if we were linked to the Taiwanese Movement for Independence, we would say that while we knew many who were unhappy with the government and wanted to see an independent Taiwan, were unaware of any organized effort in Taiwan, which was also true. When reporters asked why we were arrested, we could quite honestly say that we didn’t know beyond “actions unfriendly to the government of the Republic of China.” We could also say that in Taiwan, having contact with people who disagreed with government policy was construed as “unfriendly actions,” which was true.
Fireproof Moth: A Missionary in Taiwan's White Terror Page 17