-Caveat Lector- "Once a Triad, always a Triad." Charlie Trie By late winter of 1996, when the PRC was trying to derail Taiwan's democratic elections by firing missiles into nearby Pacific waters, the PLA also had nuclear missiles targeted on Los Angeles. And it threatened to use them to force the United States to back down from its historic commitment to the independence of anti-Communist Taiwan. The threat worked. It was not delivered through public or diplomatic channels, but by a fry cook from a Chinese restaurant in Little Rock, who had no serious education and no foreign policy experience. This man placed a strategic memo in front of the president at a time of International crisis, resulting in a reply that changed a long established element of foreign policy. Only in Bill Clinton's America. The messenger was Yah Lin "Charlie Trie," Chinese gangster, Little Rock chef,DNC fund raiser, and current criminal defendant. To Trie, the president of the United States is "Lao Ke" or "Old Clinton." According to the Los Angeles Times, "When they meet, the two men embrace like lost brothers." Trie belongs to a secret Chinese criminal society: he is a member of the "Four Seas" Triad gang. William Triplett and Edward Timperlake authors of "Year of the Rat" uncovered this unsavory fact in private conversations with senior Taiwanese officials. They did not take the charge lightly and confirmed Trie's Triad connection after conferring with informed persons in Taiwan and other credible media sources who for understandable reasons [Triad "soldiers" are extremely creative killers] remain unnamed. Trie was born in Taichung, Taiwan, on August 15, 1949; he emigrated to the United States, settling in Little Rock to work with his sister Dailin Outlaw; he worked his way up from busboy to cook to co-owner, with his sister, of the Fu Lin Chinese Restaurant. His Taiwan background tells us more. He grew up in a military housing environment known on Taiwan for producing individuals with a somewhat casual attitude toward the law. He was one of what the Asia Times called "children of mainlanders who had followed the Nationalist Government's retreat to Taiwan in 1949 and had begun [criminal Triad activity] by engaging in street fights and the collection of protection money." Apparently allowed to lie low in Little Rock, Trie became of service when the permanent campaign began to accelerate Clinton's political fortunes in Arkansas. He began to befriend the young and obviously ambitious politician as soon as he arrived in Little Rock. The friendship grew, it seems they traveled together to Taiwan while Clinton was governor. By the time Bill Clinton took the oath of office as president, he was perfectly positioned to help his friend Charlie, and vice versa. As tool for the PRC and the Triads, Trie had the advantage of not having to face the question of "where he came from." He had been in Little Rock since sometime in the late 1970's, and had known the Clintons for almost as long. His relationship with them was not something that, on its face, cried out for explanation. Thus, Trie was the perfect Triad/PRC messenger and "agent in place," ready to be reactivated without suspicion. As the Canadian study of Triad behavior points out, "Once a Triad, always a Triad." At some point around 1992, Trie acquired a business partner-Ng Lapseng, the Triad connected tycoon from Macau. Trie and Ng went into the real estate business. They had no success in the U.S. real estate market, but they didn't really need it; Ng had and has plenty of successful businesses in Macau. This fact becomes important when we turn to Trie's mysterious donation to the Clinton Legal Defense Trust on March 21, 1996. Their U. S. real estate business, it seems, was a cover-a "loss leader" for their political influence. Sources: Los Angeles Times, December 18, 1996. ["Lao Ke" is a Chinese term of familiarity.] IBID. Asia Times, June 15, 1997. United States, Communist China, & Taiwan Ever since Chinese anticommunists fled to Taiwan to escape Mao's advancing armies in 1949, the United States has guaranteed Taiwan's independence against Communist China's threats of forcible "reunification." President Eisenhower's policy was "not to let the ChiComs get away with murder in the China Sea." Nor would he " sit idly by and permit the Reds to build up any large force on the mainland for an invasion." From Ike, skip ahead 3 decades. In March 1996 Taiwan was preparing for a national ritual that the PRC seems to find inherently menacing, elections. For the previous 4 month,s stories had been flying in the Hong Kong press to the effect that the PRC would strike Taiwan militarily if Taiwan went through with its balloting. What the PLA did, when Taiwan elections proceeded on schedule, was to give a precision display of the accuracy of its intermediate range ballistic missiles [IRBM]: it " bracketed" Taiwan with them, firing a few into the Pacific just off the north and south ends of the island. These were "blanks," with "dummy" warheads, but all the same, the demonstration was the first time that IRBM's were ever fired in anger. Thanks to the Wall Street Journal, the PRC's hostile stance toward Taiwan's elections was known in the West in January 1996. Had the U.S. response been left up to the then-Secretary of Defense William Perry, there would have been none. Perry was too busy arranging a smooth visit for his PRC counterpart, General Chi. But political operatives in the White House prevailed on the president with the argument that it would be foolish to abandon Taiwanese democracy in an election year, so Clinton sent battle groups from the 7th Fleet, including the 2 largest aircraft carriers, U.S.S. Independence & U.S.S. Nimitz, into the Taiwan Straits. This time, Clinton did the right thing, even if for political reasons. But the story does not end there, we now know that the PLA was up to far more than just local war games: THE PLA WAS THREATENING LOS ANGELES WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS. According to former Reagan Defense official Frank Gaffney Jr., "a top Chinese official intimated to the longtime #2 man at the U.S. embassy in Beijing that such an attack on Los Angeles would be in prospect if the United States interfered in China's campaign of intimidation against Taiwan." In addition to this direct method of getting its bellicose message through to the United States, the PRC used one more channel-Charlie Trie carrying a letter, and a bag of money. Sources: Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower [Simon & Schuster,1983], 233. Washington Times, April 7, 1998 [the original hard news source was the New York Times. Note: "ChiCom" was the administration's term for Chinese Communists. The term was used extensively by U.S. Marines during the Korean War. It was not intended to be friendly and was usually used in reference to weaponry. The term was used through the Vietnam War, often identifying weapons' manufacture. [ChiCom grenade is one example]. It must be noted that Eisenhower, having commanded the best citizen army ever fielded by America in destroying the Nazis, understood the use of force very well. Charlie Trie: March 21, 1996 On the morning of March 21, 1996, Trie dropped off hundreds of thousands of dollars to the president's and first lady's favorite "charity," the Presidential Legal Defense Trust. The report of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs strongly suggests that then-White House aide Mark Middleton, part of the Arkansas apparat, "directed Trie to the Trust as opposed to Clinton/Gore '96 or the DNC, where the contributions would have received much greater scrutiny and been subject to FEC guidelines." On the same day, Trie also delivered to the White House the letter about the situation in Taiwan. Under the circumstances, we have to consider that the money came from both the PRC and Triad activity. The Presidential Legal Defense Trust was a legal mechanism for allowing Americans to give the president money to cover his attorneys' fees. The trustees of this fund were a blue-ribbon assembly capable of handling a broad array of possible ethical dilemmas; but one doubts that even they were prepared for a Chinese courier with nearly a half million dollars in one hand and a letter threatening a major global crisis in the other. The Clinton administration will no doubt characterize this as yet another of the amazing coincidences that have dogged the Clintons since their Arkansas days. Trie's first errand on March 21, 1996, was to see the fund's executive director, Michael Cardozo, at the office of G. William Miller [treasury secretary under President Carter]. Trie opened an envelope, and $460,000 in checks and money orders spilled out. As Cardozo counted the money, Trie excused himself to go to a scheduled lunch at the Tony Palm Restaurant with Mark Middleton. [Middleton, has since become the only White House aide to plead the 5th Amendment.] At the Palm lunch, Trie gave Middleton a high-priority letter to be delivered immediately to the White House. At 1:14 PM-minutes after Trie's lunch ended-Middleton faxed a letter from Trie addressed to the president. The immediate recipient was Maureen Lewis, who handled the president's personal correspondence. Middleton's cover note read: Dear Maureen, As you know, Charlie is a personal friend of the President from L.R. [Little Rock]. He is also a major supporter. The President sat beside Charlie at the big Asian fundraiser several weeks ago. Thanks for your always good assistance. Personally, mark The letter did get to Clinton's desk. The Thompson Committee reprinted the letter in its entirety; here is its text, all phrasings and spellings preserved: Dear President, Regarding the current situation in the Taiwan Straight Crisis and also the U.S. aircraft carriers and cruisers involvement, I would like to propose some important points to you in order not to endanger the U.S. interest based on the following: 1. Any negative outcomes of the U.S. decision in the China Issue will your administration position especially in the campaign year. 2. Why U.S. has to sent the aircraft carriers and cruisers to give China a possible excuse of foreign intervention and hence launch a real war? And, if the U.S. recognizes, "one China" policy, don't such conduct will cause a conflict for "intervening China's internal affairs?" Therefore, won't the recent inconsistent talks by the captains and some government officials in the mass media cause problems for the U.S. policy of not interference of China's internal affairs? 3. With the Chinese background and the recent six years business experiences in China and Taiwan, I think the U.S. senators and Congressmen do not fully know that most Chinese don't expect the intervention from the U.S. 4. Before last June, there is no conflict between the common goal of economic growth and cooperation of China and Taiwan, Li's visit [Taiwan President Lee Teng-Hui's visit to his alma mater, Cornell University] is the direct cause of the crisis. 5. Has the U.S. government considered if China starts to occupy the two small outer islands [Wu Chiu and Ma Tzu], will the U.S. proclaim war against China? or just withdraw its ships? 6. The complication of China's internal problems of military challenges to the Jiang Tze-Ming administration, together with other possible independence movements from Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Xin-Jiang and the returning of Hong Kong issue, the bluff to Taiwan Independence issue, Will U.S. be involved in such complicated internal matter by showing up the military ships at present moment. 7. Once the hard parties of the Chinese military inclined to grasp U.S. involvement as foreign intervention, is U.S. ready to face such challenge? 8. It is highly possible for China to launch real war, based on its past behavior in sino-vietnam war and then Bao-Tao war with Russia. I hope the president will carefully consider these issues and make the decisions that are beneficial to the U.S./China and Taiwan altogether. Yours sincerely, Charlie Y.L. Trie It doesn't take a degree in international relations or military strategy to see in this letter a direct threat against the actions of the United States should it act in accordance with its long-established commitment to defend Taiwan. Robert L. Suettinger, an Asia hand on the NSC staff, wrote a memo to then-NSC Director Anthony Lake characterizing the Trie letter as "a rather provocative letter about U.S. actions taken prior to the presidential election on Taiwan." "The reply," Suettinger continued, "reassures Trie that the U.S. has no hostile intentions toward the PRC, and the situation has returned to a calmer state." Despite the odd grammar and syntax, which make the letter sound as if it had been translated from Mandarin by someone with one year of English and a dictionary, the reasoning has a steely precision. It sends a number of related strategic messages: Get out of the PRC's face or it will cut off your campaign allowance; the presence of the 7th Fleet in the straight is an "intervention in China's internal affairs" ; "hardliners" in the PRC are about to get really mad; they just might "launch a real war." But is it "they"-or "I"? Is this really a back-channel letter from the highest political and military authorities of the PRC or is it a letter from Bill Clinton's neighborhood chef and fund-raiser? Viewed from the point of view of reasoning, that's all but impossible. Trie's work-product the "Trie Report", as some have generously called it-from his service on the Commission of the United States Pacific Trade and Investment Policy, to which President Clinton had gone to great lengths to appoint him, makes clear his limitations as an abstract reasoner. The report was labeled by other commission members as "superficial, grammatically deficient, and generally unhelpful." One witness interviewed by the Thompson Committee called it "completely incomprehensible." But the letter he sent to Clinton via Middleton is different. While the "Trie Report" is airy, the letter is blunt. While the report means nothing, the letter means business. And-more to the point, while the report rings with biz-school clichés, the only clichés in the letter are those all too familiar from official statements emanating from Beijing. One of these is "intervening in China's internal affairs," a standard Beijing byword for outside criticism of its miserable human rights record, or for international concern for the independence of Taiwan-which, of course, is not an "internal" matter at all, except in the PRC's fantasy world, in which Taiwan is a "renegade province" of the mainland. Clinton's NSC drafted a reply by Clinton that, unfortunately, marks a humiliating retreat from the historic American policy of guaranteeing the independence of Taiwan from Communist China. The president signed it, and it was sent to Trie-and, we must assume, to whatever paymasters Trie was serving when he sent his letter to Clinton. The letter in response, sent on April 26 read as follows: Dear Charlie, Thank you for the letter you sent me via Mark Middleton. I hope that events since you wrote have clarified U.S. policy, but let me mention some additional points. U.S. policy at the time, particularly the redeployment of the Independence and the Nimitz, was intended as a signal to both Taiwan and the PRC that the United States was concerned about maintaining stability in the Taiwan Straight region. It was not intended as a threat to the PRC. Moreover, we made clear to both sides that U.S. interests were engaged in the region, and that we wished for PRC-Taiwan disputes to be resolved through peaceful means. We all are glad that tensions in the Straight have receded since that time, and the actions we took played a part in that development. It was good to hear from you. Sincerely, Bill Clinton This letter was the precursor to the complete sell-out of Taiwan that Clinton announced during his July 1998 trip to China. If the letter had stopped after "maintaining stability in the Taiwan Straight region," it would have not signaled any fundamental change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan. But it went on to say that the U.S. carrier battle groups deployed to the Taiwan Straight were, in the words of "Old Clinton" to his good friend Charlie, "not intended as a threat to the PRC." Then why were they there? To threaten Taiwan? Adding that sentence exposed the United States' real Taiwan policy. The import of Clinton's reply is that the Clinton administration will no longer be prepared to deter Beijing in any menacing actions it may care to take towards Taiwan. Formerly linked to Taiwan by a shared rejection of communism, the United States now views Taiwan and the PRC as morally interchangeable entities who just happen to have an inexplicable quarrel that could threaten "U.S. interests" if not "resolved through peaceful means." Clinton folded in the face of pressure from Beijing, delivered in a letter by a man whose previous experience was as a "made" member of a Triad gang, a fry cook, a member of the Arkansas Fire Extinguisher Board, a big-time DNC donor whose checks were returned under a cloud, who is now under indictment for violating election laws. But do gestures like Clinton's reply to Trie, or even his public rejection of Taiwan in July 1998, really have serious consequences? Sometime they do not-but then again, sometimes they start wars. President Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, gave a speech in 1950 in which he described U.S. security interests around the world-but did not mention South Korea. This omission gave the PRC and its North Korean satellite-state the impression that the United States did not care about the future of South Korea. Six months later, the Korean War broke out. The United States never made the same mistake about Taiwan, and consequently, the Chinese Communists knew better than to attack that island, the refuge of Chinese anticommunists. Now that has changed. Sources: Thompson Report at 2535, 2766. IBID at 2718. IBID. Note: Clinton went to great lengths to ensure Trie a place on the Commission on the United States Pacific Trade and Investment Policy, even to the point of adding a seat on the already filled commission in January 1996. The administration sought to minimize the amount of vetting [background investigations] that Trie underwent. In this regard there is a significant misstatement in the minority report of the Thompson Committee. The minority goes to great lengths to exonerate Trie from any suspicion that he had contacts with a foreign government: "Another relevant factor is that Trie authorized an FBI investigation of his background in December 1995, and the investigation found no problems that would prevent Trie's nomination to a Presidential Commission. An individual seeking to hide contacts with a foreign government presumably would not have either subjected himself to such an investigation or emerged from it unscathed." But a letter from FBI Director Louis Freeh to Congressman Gerald Solomon says this: "The FBI did not conduct a background security investigation on Mr. Trie. FBI records do not reflect whether any other U.S. governmental agency conducted a background investigation or, in fact, whether Mr. Trie was granted a security clearance." Trie was simply awarded a clearance based on a White House requested "Executive Agencies Name Check" by the FBI, which is a rather superficial process. The Trie Cover-up Meanwhile, back at the Presidential Legal Trust, an innovative cover-up was in progress. Cardozo and the fund trustees had cause for alarm. Cardozo and his board were smart Washington players; some of them had experience battling Richard Nixon's abuses of power in Watergate. A large donation from a Little Rock fry cook turned clientless consultant was not something they could accept in the ordinary course of business. But rather than go to the U.S. Attorney, or to outside counsel, they seem to have gone to Hillary Clinton. In an April 4, 1996, White House meeting, the first lady began by pretending not to recognize Trie's name, but then, according to the Thompson Report, she "recalled him as the owner of a restaurant in Little Rock frequented by then-Governor Clinton." Hillary's vagueness was a clever ruse as Trie had interacted frequently with Bill and Hillary alike, both in Little Rock and later in Washington, including at White House and DNC dinners where he was at the president's table. In one memo the Clinton's team wanted to reward Trie at a DNC VIP fund-raiser because, according to one aide, "he gave $100,000 that I believe went to healthcare." Another function honoring DNC managing trustees [those generous individuals who either raised more than $250,000 or wrote $100,000 checks to the DNC in 1994] had Trie sitting at the first lady's table on February 15, 1995. But the most telling Trie/HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton] connection was a 1995 phone message in the White House just before the first lady's Beijing trip. "Mr. Charlie Tree [actual spelling not ours] of Little Rock called, spoke with HRC in Little Rock about going to Beijing. Wants to know if he can go with her." So Hillary knew Charlie a little better than she let on. All the more reason why she would recognize that his check-stuffed envelope was indeed the sort of thing that Clinton loyalists had better investigate before an independent counsel did. So the fund trustees decided to invesstigate the source of Trie's money, and for that purpose they hired Terry Lenzer and his firm, Investigative Group, Inc. But Cardozo put one condition on the investigation: It should not look into trie himself, because he was close to the Clintons. The investigation turned up some allegations of money being transferred through a Buddhist sect [not the famous Al Gore fund-raiser], but Trie was kept out of it. Eventually, however, the Clinton Legal defense trust returned the entire $640,000 that Trie had delivered. We do not yet know with precision, the source of Trie's donation to the Clinton Legal Defense Trust, but given what we now know of Trie's background, the probability that his cash came either from the Chinese government or from Triad crime activity through his business partner Ng Lapseng, or from both working together, is high. This cash bought Trie access for his letter and respect for its message; the message in turn brought about a critical and long-sought change--long sought by the PRC, that is-in U.S. foreign policy. Bill Clinton sold Taiwan's security to the PRC. In January 1998 the Department of Justice handed down an indictment of the Trie campaign finance violations. But don's expect Trie to tell very much. For one thing, Janet reno's Justice Department is not asking very much: the indictment avoids references to the Chinese government and makes Clinton's DNC sound like a passive victim of Trie's machinations. But there is another reason why Trie will clam up. A Triad ceremony called "The Thirty Six Oaths of The Hung Mun" sets forth in detail the rules for a member of the Triad. Rule #18: "If I am arrested after committing an offense I must accept my punishment and not try to place the blame on my sworn brothers. If I do so I will be killed by five thunderbolts." Sources: IBID at 2719. June 18, 1994, memo from david Mercer to John O'Hanlon, re: VIP requests. Memorandum for harold Ickes, from Terry McAuliffe, Laura Harrigan, Ari Swiller, February 15, 1995, re: Managing Trustee Dinners. [Two VIP dinners were being arranged to identify those DNC fat cats who "will be an anchor in the 1995 and 1996 fund-raising efforts." Seated with the president were Pauline Kanchanalak and Mark Jiminez.] August 29, 5:20 pm, government call slip to Melanne from Aiya. "Triads and Other Asian Organized Crime Groups." http://www.swlink.net/~acav69/trie.htm Bard Visit me at: The Center for Exposing Corruption in the Federal Government http://www.xld.com/public/center/center.htm Federal Government defined: ....a benefit/subsidy protection racket! DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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