American Strategic Deception Bureau

　Author's words: PS: I recently read some less popular history of the Tang Dynasty and found that during the 300 years of the Tang Dynasty, Qiongzhou was in a state of decline for 120 years. Qiongzhou was lost as early as the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang did not even think of recovering it during the Kaiyuan Period. It was not until the reign of Emperor Dezong of Tang that Qiongzhou was recovered.

　Well, not to mention the loss of Annan in the late Tang Dynasty, we should be thankful that Hainan Island was not lost!

　I really can't understand why Li Longji, a guy who boasts so much about his military prowess, never thought of retaking Qiongzhou when the Tang army had already reached Persia?

　Chapter 286: President Kennedy’s Troubles

　Vietnamese refugee camp in the Sonoran Desert, outside Los Angeles, California

　When he heard that President Kennedy was coming to inspect his place, Fili turned his head to look at the calendar on the wall and couldn't help feeling a little dizzy.

　What's going on? Why isn't President Kennedy going to Texas for a car parade? Instead, why is he visiting refugees in the California desert?

　Then, when Fili came to his senses, he couldn't help but shiver and felt a chill.

　Could it be that the legendary shot that made President Kennedy's mind explode...was changed from Dallas to Los Angeles?

　Well, it shouldn't be. If Kennedy's assassination was really just an accident, then as long as things didn't happen exactly according to the original historical dimension, Kennedy would not have been shot in the head by retired Marine Oswald somewhere other than Texas.

　If Kennedy's assassination wasn't just a matter of bad luck encountering a madman, but rather a plot to kill him, a conspiracy, a pre-written play, then the timing and location of this dramatic assassination of the president certainly couldn't be arbitrarily changed.

　—After meticulously planning and plotting to kill the president in Dallas, they suddenly have to move to Los Angeles... How can this work?

　As for the assassination of Kennedy in this dimension, which was caused by changes in the timeline and political situation, was it planned in Los Angeles from the beginning?

　This is also basically impossible.

　In the original history, if Kennedy's assassination was really a conspiracy, then the reason why the assassination group chose to kill Kennedy in Dallas was probably because there was one or more powerful bosses in the upper echelons of Dallas who could protect them so that the news would not leak out before they took action.

　During the years that President Kennedy was in office, he constantly voiced support for the black civil rights movement and repeatedly suppressed white racists in southern states. He had already made countless enemies in the traditional white upper class in southern states such as Texas, Georgia, and Mississippi.

　Just like the Civil War a century earlier, many granite-headed Southern gentlemen were unwilling to see the black people around them gain true citizenship rights. A considerable number of them had become so radicalized that they were like crazy, and some had even been sent to mental hospitals for their involvement with the Ku Klux Klan.

　In this case, if powerful figures within the federal government in Washington take the lead in collusion, and Wall Street tycoons and heads of U.S. intelligence agencies provide cover, then it is somewhat possible that a "public execution of the president" would be staged in Texas.

　However, open California is not conservative Texas, and Los Angeles does not have so many bigwigs who strongly oppose Kennedy. The Kim family is at least a local boss in Los Angeles, but no one has ever heard of any local political family whose relationship with President Kennedy is so bad that it is irreconcilable.

　Moreover, Los Angeles, the "City of Angels" where Hollywood is located, presents an "international" and "diversified" trend, just like Shanghai in old China, because there are too many forces and too many different forces.

　There is no way to cover up everything here and secretly carry out a major operation like assassinating the president.

　Not to mention, the Kennedy family itself has influence in Los Angeles. If there really is a big conspiracy in Los Angeles, how could the president not hear about it?

　Besides, it’s only October now, and there’s still a whole month until November 22, the day when Kennedy was assassinated!

　Finally, even if the assassination of Kennedy was moved to Los Angeles, California... so what?

　After stepping down as Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Forces in Vietnam, Fieri is now a CIA officer in charge of Vietnam War refugee affairs, not the mayor of Los Angeles, let alone the governor of California. As long as President Kennedy hadn't been assassinated in a refugee camp, this fate wouldn't have fallen on him.

　Of course, just in case, at least the safety issues in the refugee camps must be taken seriously.

　——We can’t let the “convergence of history” happen in the territory directly under Firi’s jurisdiction!

　If Kennedy had really been shot in the head in the refugee camp, Fili's political career would have been over, and even the entire Kim family would have been dragged down!

　Just like Nathuram Godse, the Indian assassin of Gandhi. Although he was a Brahmin, his involvement led to the original sin of hundreds, even thousands, of members of a large family, making their lives worse than untouchables in India. Even with profound academic achievements, it's difficult to find a respectable job—let's put it this way: if Indian officials heard anyone from this family applied for the civil service exam, they would immediately kick them out without further ado!

　(An Indian writer who later immigrated to the United States had a very difficult time in India because of this, and had to go abroad to seek development.)

　Ahem, back to the point. This refugee camp in the Sonoran Desert, once a former concentration camp for Japanese immigrants during World War II, is surrounded by no-man's land. With nothing but cacti and the Gobi Desert, there's no place for people to hide, let alone tall buildings to serve as sniper cover.

　In addition, the surface temperature in the desert during the day is as high as an oven, enough to dry out any assassin who lies in ambush for a long time.

　By the way, it would also allow the president to sit back in his car and enjoy the air conditioning, instead of sitting in a convertible, waving at cacti while eating sand in the wind...

　Therefore, the Vietnamese refugee camp in the Sonoran Desert should not be an ideal sniping range for external killers.

　In addition, the area around the Vietnamese refugee camp in Irvine is now a pastoral landscape. Unlike modern cities like Dallas, there are basically no high-rise buildings and few residents. Before the president entered the refugee camp, he also had few opportunities to interact with the public.

　Westminster has become somewhat urbanized, at least along Bolsa Avenue. It looks a lot like a city now, and with poor public security, a mixed crowd, and violent criminal gangs, it's hard to say if anything will go wrong.

　Unfortunately, Firi is not the local police chief and has no power to crack down on public security in Westminster...

　Fortunately, the Vietnamese refugee camp in Westminster is the smallest of the three refugee camps in Los Angeles, and most of the Caodaist believers who initially moved in have now been sent to Louisiana to catch shrimp. The remaining refugees total less than 100.

　Ferri simply closed the Vietnamese refugee camp in Westminster for renovation and temporarily transferred the remaining refugees to Irvine, so that President Kennedy would have one less place to visit and would not have to go to Westminster, thus improving the security factor.

　After closing down a refugee camp with a "too urbanized" surrounding environment, there are two remaining refugee camps in the countryside and wilderness. There is basically no need to worry about sporadic external killers lurking - the United States is not Iran, and it is basically impossible to mobilize an armed force on its own soil to directly attack the presidential convoy.

　Then, the remaining threat lies inside the refugee camp. Who knows if someone will suddenly attack and shoot Kennedy when the president visits.

　For this reason, Firi had to work overtime for a whole week. He did not go home to have fun with the women for a whole week. Instead, he conducted a careful screening of the two refugee camps, focusing on searching whether these refugees had hidden firearms and bombs - and he actually found two pistols!

　Frightened, Fieri, along with California National Guard soldiers temporarily assigned to manage the camps, conducted another thorough search of the two camps. Both Vietnamese refugees and American staff were subjected to body searches and luggage rummaging. To the already nervous Fieri, every Asian person looked like a Vietcong spy. And every American seemed like a KGB or FBI assassin.

　Fortunately, even though he had used his extraordinary magic to conduct reconnaissance and secret interrogations, he did not find any spies in the refugee camp. He only found a few smugglers who used the refugee ships to smuggle goods. Some of them even had connections with local Chinese gangs in Los Angeles. Fili immediately and decisively kicked them out of the refugee camp and sent them out to join gangs so that they would no longer occupy beds in the refugee camp.

　Not to mention the nature of their work, they have already established themselves outside, but they still want to steal relief food from the refugee camps. How shameless!

　Finally, he checked the list of American staff in the two refugee camps several times and was relieved after confirming that there was definitely no retired Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald.

　——Next, we will just have to leave it to fate and wait for President Kennedy’s special plane to land at Los Angeles International Airport next week.

　-

　Fortunately, President Kennedy's Los Angeles tour was uneventful, and the presidential motorcade only visited the Vietnamese refugee camps in the Sonoran Desert, not the more complex Irvine refugee camp. Along the way, they encountered no psychotic ex-Marine gunmen, no deranged assassins, and no more outrageous things like car bombs.

　Apart from security issues, there were no problems with the Vietnamese refugee camp's own preparations for welcoming the president.

　Thanks to Fili's prior adjustments, the Chinese population in the Sonoran Desert refugee camp reached 70%. And when it comes to superficiality, the Chinese are absolutely superb—they cleaned and tidied the house to welcome the leadership, and performed hygiene checks on every household, to name a few. They also urgently painted the walls, hung the American flag and the California state flag everywhere, and organized a group of young girls to present flowers to the president.

　In addition, a Vietnamese Chinese representative who was actually from Saigon was arranged to lament the brutality of the Viet Cong and thank the American president for his kindness, etc.

　Although President Kennedy inevitably encountered a large number of "Vietnamese refugees" who spoke Cantonese, Hokkien, Tagalog, Javanese, Malay, and Mandarin in the refugee camps in the Sonoran Desert, the only ones who could not speak Vietnamese were those who spoke Cantonese. However, no one seemed to care about this matter, let alone to find out the truth.

　In fact, the president’s entourage probably didn’t recognize it at all. Even the journalists accompanying the president didn’t notice the bug.

　In fact, Firi discovered that President Kennedy seemed absent-minded throughout his inspection of the Vietnamese refugee camps. He barely said a few polite words, distributed some candy to the children, then got back into his bulletproof car and hurried away. He only stayed there for a quarter of an hour from beginning to end.

　The representative of the Vietnamese overseas Chinese refugees had memorized the script for several days, but he did not get the chance to speak at all and could only applaud with others.

　But that's fine, with such a short time coming and going, it's hard to cause any big trouble...

　Next, President Kennedy's motorcade headed straight for 625 Oceanside Boulevard in Santa Monica Beach, the villa of his sister Patricia Kennedy. After that, there was no other movement, except for sending out invitations to prepare for a social party to welcome the president.

　Um, Mr. President Kennedy, are you here on tour or to visit relatives and take a vacation?

　Ferry was also lucky enough to receive an invitation, so he went to the party with his elder brother Bernard and sister-in-law, accompanied by Marita, who was wearing a burgundy evening gown.

　At the party, when several acquaintances gathered in a small room to engage in keyboard politics and private chats, Fili finally heard some clues.

　"Alas, the next election is drawing closer, and troubles at home and abroad are endless. The Democratic Party is also deeply divided. Newly born Patrick (the president's youngest son) is frail and sickly, causing the president a great deal of mental stress lately.

　Before his trip to Los Angeles, the president encountered a new problem. According to information obtained by the CIA, China, um, Red China, is making rapid progress in the development and production of its atomic bomb. It may be detonated next year, and a mushroom cloud could be seen as early as next spring.

　In order to prevent Red China from successfully developing its nuclear weapons, the Pentagon originally planned to use Taiwan or Japan as a base to mobilize strategic air force and paratrooper forces to carry out a surgical preventive strike on China's inland nuclear factories and nuclear test bases.

　But this requires the cooperation and approval of the Soviet Union, just as we previously joined forces to thwart the Suez War launched by Britain and France.

　Secretary Rusk had made several diplomatic overtures to the Soviets, but all had been rebuffed. Khrushchev seemed to still harbor some hope of mending his differences with Mao. We cannot even confirm whether the Soviets had leaked this information to Beijing.

　The Pentagon and the White House were arguing over whether to attack China's nuclear plants without the Soviet Union's permission.

　The president and most of the cabinet did not want to see Red China successfully detonate its atomic bomb, nor did they dare to rashly launch a military adventure when the Vietnam War had already begun, proactively provoking the Chinese to join the war in Vietnam and increasing the difficulty of the US military operations in Vietnam.

　President John F. Kennedy's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, held a glass of sparkling wine and said to Fieri, "What's more troublesome is that next year is the election year. If the Chinese atomic bomb explodes before the vote, it is likely to have a great adverse impact on the election situation.

　Well, just like the Soviet satellites and astronauts going into space before, which caused a huge shock to the American people..."

　After hearing this, Fili was stunned for a moment, then he realized that there was indeed such a thing happening next.

　If President Kennedy hadn't had any out-of-this-world ideas this year, he would have had to face the detonation of China's first atomic bomb next year!

　, the rising Chinese mushroom cloud

　While the Japanese were growing their small mushrooms by the hot springs of Mount Hakone, the Chinese were also growing their big mushrooms in the desert of Lop Nur.

　——The U.S. government actually knew for a long time that Red China was building nuclear facilities and developing atomic bombs.

　As early as the end of 1960, the Eisenhower administration had preliminarily confirmed the approximate locations of the Lanzhou uranium enrichment plant and the Baotou nuclear fuel production plant, and based on intelligence analysis, believed that China's first nuclear reactor could be completed around 1961 or 1962.

　Next, the United States ushered in a change of government, and Kennedy succeeded Eisenhower as the 35th President of the United States.

　Kennedy's hostility toward Red China was no less pronounced than that of his predecessor, who viewed China's attempted nuclear testing as the worst event of the 1960s. Kennedy's cabinet members and advisors, all imbued with Cold War thinking, clamored that if Beijing acquired nuclear capabilities, it would endanger the security of the United States and the free world, with a particularly significant impact on Asia and undermining American prestige.

　Moreover, China's acquisition of nuclear weapons would be the first step in the outbreak of nuclear expansion issues. During the Cold War, US officials generally believed that as the number of nuclear-armed countries increased, the world's instability would increase, bringing about various irrational and desperate doomsday crises.

　To this end, a diplomat suggested to Secretary of State Rusk that India could be encouraged or even helped to develop nuclear weapons to hedge against the risks posed by China's atomic bomb...but then he was criticized back - it is a bad thing for China to obtain an atomic bomb, but is it a good thing for India to obtain an atomic bomb?

　The United States currently has close ties with Pakistan, with extensive military cooperation. Do you think India, after acquiring an atomic bomb, would first bomb China, across the Himalayas, or would it first bomb Pakistan, also on the South Asian subcontinent?

　In order to gain a clearer understanding of China's nuclear program, the US military has dispatched its most advanced U-2 reconnaissance aircraft to Taiwan since 1961. These aircraft, organized into the "Black Cat Squadron," are flown by Taiwanese pilots and carry high-resolution imaging cameras to conduct reconnaissance in the mainland's deep interior.

　At the same time, the "Corona" spy satellite was used to conduct multiple reconnaissance flights over areas in inland China that were suspected to be nuclear industrial bases.

　结果么，虽然U-2侦察机在1962年就被中国的543部队打下一架，1963年又被击落了一架。但美国终于在1961年底找到了罗布泊的原子弹试验场，并且在1962年大致摸清了中国核武器计划的主要脉络。

　US intelligence officials generally believed that China would feel significantly stronger after detonating its first atomic bomb. This strong mentality would be reflected in conflicts surrounding China. Furthermore, China would believe that the acquisition of the atomic bomb would lead to a reduction in US interventionist behavior on the Asian continent. This would lead to a more assertive and unquestionable stance in China's foreign policy—clearly bad news for the United States, mired in the Vietnam War.

　As a result, the top decision-makers in the United States began racking their brains to try to "destroy" China's nuclear program.

　Given the intensification of Sino-Soviet hostility at this time, President Kennedy hoped to gain Soviet support to destroy China's nuclear program.

　Kennedy believed that the Russians would share his enthusiasm for preventing China from developing a nuclear capability. He also believed that China would become "our principal adversary in the United States by the end of the 1960s and beyond." A nuclear-armed China would jeopardize America's position in Asia.

　Since the Soviet Union's possession of a nuclear arsenal was a foregone conclusion, it was necessary to prevent China from also possessing nuclear weapons.

　In short, Kennedy's general idea is that since the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union has reached a stalemate and neither can suppress the other, the United States and the Soviet Union might as well ease the tension temporarily. Since the world's number one and number two cannot determine the winner, they should first join forces to defeat the number three!

　Didn’t the US and the Soviet Union join forces to beat up Britain and France in the Suez Canal War of 1956, as they refused to withdraw from the stage of history?

　Now that the US and the Soviet Union have joined forces again to defeat the Chinese who want to show up, it seems normal, right?

　That spring, Kennedy sent a special envoy to Moscow to emphasize to Khrushchev that a nuclear China, even with a small nuclear capability, would be "very dangerous to all of us," and to learn whether Khrushchev favored destroying China's nuclear program by force.

　However, Khrushchev offered only perfunctory responses and empty rhetoric, even downplaying the Sino-Soviet differences. He expressed his disagreement with the US view that China's nuclear weapons would pose a threat to the Soviet Union. He said China's nuclear program was not that significant. He argued that possessing nuclear weapons would actually lead to greater self-restraint. Because, "When someone doesn't have nuclear weapons, they're the loudest voice."

　Such an answer naturally could not satisfy Kennedy. In April 1963, under the repeated urging of the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff drafted an operational plan to directly attack China's nuclear program. The specific plan included: A. The US Air Force would carry Taiwanese paratroopers to launch an expedition, airdrop to Baotou or Lanzhou, and launch a suicidal sabotage operation against China's nuclear industrial facilities; B. Carry out strategic bombing on the exposed nuclear facilities in China's inland provinces; C. Use intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads to selectively attack China's nuclear industrial targets.

　But the prerequisite is that no matter which plan is adopted, it needs active and positive support from the Soviet side.

　General LeMay, Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, stated that destroying Chinese nuclear facilities with conventional bombs alone would be extremely difficult. This is because only numerous waves of bombers could completely destroy such a large industrial complex. Furthermore, the intelligence currently available to the US is inaccurate, preventing Washington from accurately targeting all targets and potentially missing several critical nuclear plants.

　Similarly, sending a suicide squad to cause sabotage is also not very reliable.

　The only way to solve the problem once and for all is to use a large number of intercontinental missiles to nuclearize China, but this is likely to trigger an overreaction from the Soviet Union.

　Furthermore, if the United States took unilateral action, it would have to consider Chinese retaliation, an escalation of the Vietnam War, or even a resurgence of the Korean War. As for how to legitimize this unwarranted military strike internationally, that would be even more difficult, and impossible without paying a diplomatic price.

　In the worst case scenario, nuking China would force Mao to bow to Khrushchev and prompt a new Sino-Soviet alliance, which would likely be counterproductive.

　However, if there is cooperation from the Soviet Union, the situation will be different, because no country in the world can resist the joint will of the United States and the Soviet Union.

　Therefore, the Kennedy administration decided to take a two-pronged approach and invited Chiang Ching-kuo to lead a delegation to the United States in September 1963 for preliminary talks on the use of airborne troops to jointly attack Chinese nuclear facilities. Taiwan was overjoyed and immediately promised that as long as the United States was willing to provide aircraft, Taiwan could select 9 suicide warriors "possessed by the spirit of the Kamikaze Special Attack Force" to launch a "Jing Ke Assassinating Qin Shi Huang"-style death expedition.

　On the other hand, the contact and lobbying work with the Soviet Union did not stop. In May, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Bundy met with Soviet Ambassador to the United States Dobrynin and explored the idea of ​​a joint US-Soviet attack on China's nuclear facilities, but Dobrynin refused to discuss the issue.

　Despite this cold response, the United States still refused to give up the idea of ​​joining the Soviet Union in nuking China. From June to September, Kennedy diligently promoted his "preventive surgical nuclear strike" plan to Khrushchev. Specifically, the United States and the Soviet Union would each launch a strategic bomber loaded with nuclear weapons to penetrate China's defenses at high altitude, or launch an intercontinental missile equipped with nuclear warheads to destroy the Lop Nur test site or the Lanzhou nuclear power plant. However, Khrushchev repeated his old arguments, saying that China's nuclear weapons were of no importance to either the Soviet Union or the United States. They would only have a "psychological impact" in Asia and would be of no importance to the Soviet government.

　After all, Khrushchev is not stupid. If the United States has the ability, just beat China up on its own. Why drag me into it to take the blame?

　The United States’ nuclear bombs are deployed directly in Europe, pointing at the Soviet Union. You tell me that China’s nuclear bombs are the biggest threat to the Soviet Union?

　Forget it! Anyone who believes such words is a fool!

　You know, no matter what, China is still flying the red flag and is still part of the Eastern Bloc.

　If a US missile nuked China, the Western bloc might applaud. But if a Soviet missile nuked China, not only would the Eastern bloc be instantly deserted, but Sino-Soviet relations would undoubtedly be completely ruined.

　By then, from Siberia to Mongolia to Central Asia, the Sino-Soviet conflict would have at least tens of millions of troops facing each other, if not a complete conflagration. So what would happen to the Iron Curtain frontier in Europe? Simply tear down the red flags of Eastern Europe and hand it over to you Americans? That's your plan, right?

　Were you, Kennedy, so high on drugs that you actually thought the Soviet Union would agree to such a stupid thing that would do no good but only harm?

　Not to mention, at this moment hundreds of thousands of US troops have landed in Vietnam, and the Viet Cong brothers have already exchanged fire with the US military. It is the moment when the Asian War is about to break out.

　If the Soviet Union, the big brother, not only did not support the Viet Cong at this time, but instead colluded with the United States and stabbed China in the back, and even used a nuclear explosion...

　Then, the so-called socialist family and the so-called world revolution will completely fall apart!

　The communist organizations in Southeast Asian countries, led by the Viet Cong, will also regard the Soviet Union as a traitor from now on!

　Note that there was no strictly pro-Soviet faction in North Vietnam at this time. Because the Soviet Union had not even begun providing military aid to Vietnam in 1963, Le Duan, wanting to be pro-Soviet at this time, could only rely on the Soviet Union to provide him with free money and even pay him back: clearly, he had not yet stooped to such a low position.

　In other words, the Soviet Union's remote animal husbandry technology was obviously inferior to that of the United States. As long as Moscow was unwilling to pay, it would not be able to raise Soviet filial sons.

　At the same time, as Khrushchev said, he really didn't think that if China developed an atomic bomb, it would cause much harm to the Soviet Union.

　Although he personally caused the breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations, he never gave up trying to make China "return to the right path" before he stepped down.