The Intrepid Moles of Quemoy

Nearly two decades ago, the U.S. almost went to war over the Chinese offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu. "If you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost," Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said of the crisis, thus arousing anxious critics to denounce him for what they called "brinkmanship." Today, these half-forgotten pinpoints of land rank with the Rock of Gibraltar and the Maginot Line as among the world's most notable military anachronisms. Yet they are still guarded by an intrepid army of some 100,000 Chinese Nationalists, who are sporadically shelled every other day from the Communist mainland. TIME Correspondent Roy Rowan visited Quemoy and filed the following report:

The offshore wind, whipping against a coastal pillbox, brings the distant voice of a woman. Her words are lost. Only the rise and fall of her singsong voice, propelled by a powerful loudspeaker, is faintly audible. But the soldiers manning the pillbox know her message by heart. In the name of Chairman Mao, she is beckoning them to the mainland, just 1 1/2 miles away.

The soldiers are not to be seduced. They are doggedly anti-Communist--RECONQUER THE MAINLAND! a sign at the airport proclaims. They maintain defenses that probably will never be used, and when the woman broadcasts from the mainland, they shout back. Neither side listens.

Quemoy was once a barren outpost, but Chiang Kai-shek is said to have decreed in 1951: "Make it green." So the Nationalists have planted 70 million seedling trees, mostly Australian pine. They have since added bananas, mangoes, pears and apples. There are fields of corn and sorghum that help to make the island's 62,000 civilian inhabitants self-sufficient. The island even has a frail industrial base, a pottery plant and a liquor distillery. "For the soldiers, we have a lot of peanut candy shops and billiard parlors," a guide remarks.

Hidden Guns. Driving along the modern paved highways that crisscross Quemoy, one can imagine the island as a bucolic, semitropical retreat, but under the lush greenery are machine-gun and artillery emplacements, truck depots, trenches, and the gaping mouths of tunnels that honeycomb the hills. Blasted out of solid rock, these tunnels are 25 by 35 ft., large enough so that tanks and trucks can drive for miles inside them. One tunnel where the molelike troops are quartered contains half a mile of double-decked bunks. There is even a 1,000-seat theater hollowed out of the granite. Everywhere the eerie glow from fluorescent lights turns the damp rock walls a sickly purple.

At one 155-mm. howitzer position, imbedded in granite with only its muzzle protruding, the battery commander has choreographed a little ballet to impress visitors from the outside world. His twelve-man squad performs with perfect precision--running, jumping, stamping and shouting--all the while simulating the loading of the big gun. Most of the troops have little opportunity to fire live ammunition, however. Instead, the Nationalists concentrate on "psy-war." They have a high-powered radio station that reaches deep into the mainland. High-altitude balloons intermittently shower propaganda leaflets on the "enemy," with slogans like "Chiang Kai-shek is concerned about you." The hope is that the leaflets and the broadcasts will inspire mass defections. In fact, the last defector from the mainland to reach Quemoy was a fisherman who swam ashore in November.

Quemoy still has its few moments of actual warfare, though nothing like the 175,000 rounds of shells that came pounding in during one two-day period in 1960. According to a Nationalist officer, artillery duels are confined to odd-numbered nights, and they usually involve only about 40 or 50 symbolic rounds, which explode in sparsely populated areas and cause little damage. On one such night in Quemoy City, however, the showing of a propaganda film on the island's impregnable defenses was interrupted by three artillery shells that went off right outside the building. Quemoy's gunners replied in kind. Casualties on both sides appear to be negligible, however.

Every able-bodied citizen on Quemoy is issued his own rifle and must visit a firing range for target practice at least once a month. Women also must serve in the militia. There are a number of dummy soldiers, too, who bravely man fake machine guns to decoy Communist spotters. Privately, though, even some government officials concede that the mountain of military hardware may not be necessary, and that unification with the mainland may be inevitable. Back on Taiwan, where younger bureaucrats and even some young legislators are quietly discussing the changes that will come when Mao and Chiang are gone, one official observes: "We need low-income housing more than we need Quemoy and Matsu." Some day, another Nationalist predicts, Quemoy will be a park.

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