Henry Liu

Following the suggestion, Liu received US$17000 1984 from Taiwan.

Henry Liu (7 December 1932 – 15 October 1984), often known by his pen name Chiang Nan, was a Taiwanese-American writer and journalist.

He was a vocal critic of the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party), then the single ruling party of the Republic of China in Taiwan, and was most famous for writing an unauthorized biography of Chiang Ching-kuo, then president of the Republic of China.

He later became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and resided in Daly City, California, where he was assassinated by Bamboo Union members who had been reportedly trained by the Kuomintang's military intelligence division.

Liu was born on December 7, 1932 in Jingjiang, Jiangsu, Republican China.

When he was nine years old, his father was killed by Communists.

When he turned sixteen, he was drafted into the Nationalist Revolutionary Army, and he left for Taiwan in 1949.

After leaving the military, he worked for the state-run radio and later as a reporter for the Taiwan Daily News, where he was sent on assignment to Hong Kong, Manila, and the Vietnam War.

After marrying his wife Helen Cui Rong-Zhi, he became a foreign correspondent in 1967, and moved to Washington DC, where he took graduate classes at American University and worked part-time as an interpreter for the State Department.

Later, his emigration to the United States was said to be motivated in part because he felt the government of Taiwan was suppressing him.

He became a United States citizen in 1973–74, around the same time he left the Taiwan Daily News.

After leaving the newspaper, Liu published articles, essays and books that were critical of the Chiang family and associated people, including Chiang Kai-shek, Soong Mei-ling, Chiang Ching-kuo, K. C. Wu and Wang Sheng, with books on Long Yun and K. C. Wu planned at the time he was assassinated.

Liu ran two gift shops in Fisherman's Wharf and San Mateo and was a freelance journalist for several publications in Hong Kong and the San Francisco Journal, a US-based Chinese-language newspaper published by Maurice Chuck.

After publishing several articles about the Chiang family, he received a letter from General Wang Sheng warning him from publishing a biography of Chiang Ching-kuo.

He proceeded to publish an unauthorized biography of Chiang Ching-kuo in 1975, which was formed from three articles he had written in 1975 about Chiang's life prior to 1949.

Liu planned to update the biography to cover more recent history, but was once again warned against writing about the Chiang family by Admiral Wang Hsi-ling in 1977.

Earlier, in the wake of the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident, Chen had reorganized the Bamboo Union to assist the Kuomintang-led government in gathering information and suppressing dissidents.

Liu finally revised the biography after a meeting late in 1983 where he favorably received a suggestion to tone down the criticism of the Chiang family from a family friend, former intelligence agent, and his former publisher on the Taiwan Daily News, Hsia Hsiao-hua.

On 15 October 1984, Liu was assassination of Henry Liu in the garage of his home in Daly City, California shortly after 9 a.m. Helen Cui, Henry's wife, had noticed two Asian men riding bicycles near their house that morning and the morning before; she heard loud noises in the garage and discovered her husband had been killed.

The assassination had been planned by Chen Chi-li, leader of the Bamboo Union Triad, and carried out by two Bamboo Union members, Wu Tun and Tung Kuei-sen.

Chen was acting on the request of the head of the Kuomintang's Military Intelligence Bureau, Vice Admiral Wang Hsi-ling, who had requested that Liu be "[given] a lesson" after writing articles critical of the Kuomintang government.

Wu and Tung cornered Liu in his garage, and the three men struggled, ending after Wu shot Liu in the head and Tung shot Liu twice in the abdomen.

Some of Liu's friends suggested the "somewhat gossipy" biography of Chiang Ching-kuo delved into the background of Chiang Kai-shek's mother too deeply, while others suggested he was about to publish some works harmful to some governmental officials.

Police ruled out robbery early in the investigation and an ROC spokesman denied government involvement.

Preparations for the assassination of Liu started in July 1984, according to the tape-recorded confession of Chen Chi-li, leader of the Bamboo Union Triad.

In July 1984, Chen and an unnamed "prominent Taiwan movie producer" received espionage training after being inducted into the service of military intelligence.

On 14 August 1984, Chen and the movie producer met with Vice Admiral Wang Hsi-ling, the head of the Kuomintang's Military Intelligence Bureau, and two of Wang's officials, Major General Hu Yi-min and Colonel (no relation).

During the meeting, Chen Chi-li and the movie producer were told that Liu had betrayed the Republic of China as an agent of the People's Republic of China with his criticism.

Chen Chi-li and the movie producer arrived in the United States on 14 September 1984, but the producer unexpectedly backed out shortly afterward for personal reasons, leaving Chen Chi-li to recruit two other Bamboo Union members who had also recently arrived in the US to assist him in the assassination, and Tung Kuei-sen.

Wu had left Taiwan earlier in September, after local police had found a gun in his tea shop.

Tung had arrived in July to explore business opportunities in southern California.

The original plot would have used local northern California Bamboo Union members to carry out the assassination, but the head of the San Francisco branch failed to meet them in late September as planned.

On 9 October 1984, Chen Chi-li and two other men drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Tung joined the group on 12 October 1984.

Chen Chi-li was observed while conducting surveillance in Liu's Daly City neighborhood, being later identified as "the Asian man who couldn't speak English" by neighborhood children who had found him feeding candy to their lost dog on 13 October 1984.

After the assassination, Liu's killers fled to Los Angeles, where Chen Chi-li telephoned officials in Taiwan to confirm the hit prior to boarding a plane to Taiwan.

After reading news accounts of the murder, Chen Chi-li realized he had been duped into believing that Liu was a communist agent, and he recorded his confession on 18 October 1984.

The killers were reportedly offered US$20000 1984 each by Wang for the successful killing, but they refused the money.

Chen's October confession mentions the existence of a second recording of a conversation between Chen and "high officials" in the Kuomintang government.

The FBI sought the second recording, but the existence of the second recording was never conclusively proven.