Wang Kuang-yu (
Wang is the first former secret agent who has written a book about his career.
"The bureau has been a secret agency for decades and this is a book with answers to many people's questions about the life of a secret agent."
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
"I did not leak any classified information which I should not have," Wang said.
The 63-year-old former head of the bureau was the first director-general who began his career as the lowest-ranking secret agent. During his career at the bureau, Wang has been assigned to various posts which ended up giving him the experience he needed to became the head of the bureau.
"Wang was very familiar with different procedures at different departments of the bureau because he has been through most of them. As a result, he was a perfect candidate to take over the director-general's seat," said Weng Wen-wei (翁文維), who was also once a director-general of the bureau.
When Weng was the director-general, Wang served as a chief inspector at the bureau's training center in Hsintien, Taipei County.
In his book, Wang mentioned several memorable incidents which made the front pages, including the "rumors" that the bureau has secretly analyzed the 2000 presidential campaign and the accusations of former New Party legislators Hsieh Chi-ta (謝啟大), Elmer Feng (馮滬祥) and the party's overseas member Tai Chi's (戴錡) that former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) wife Tseng Wen-hui (曾文惠) was trying to flee to New York with US$85 million in cash stuffed into 54 suitcases after the KMT lost the election.
"First of all, it is impossible to fit that much money into only 54 suitcases. Secondly, it is not difficult to figure out how much US dollars in cash a person can purchase from a local bank. Third, if Tseng really wanted to do this, she could have done it through wire transactions," Wang said.
However, Wang admitted at the press conference yesterday that the bureau did investigate and analyze the 2000 presidential campaign and reported its research to the then-KMT government.
"We did do this but I can also tell you that we never did it again," he said.
"However, as a secret agency, I guarantee you that our statistics were much more accurate than other questionnaires completed by private companies."
According to Wang, the bureau's statistics showed that potential votes for then-presidential candidates Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and James Soong (宋楚瑜) were close. The percentage of Lien Chan's (連戰) supporters fell way behind Chen and Soong.
"High-ranking officials did not like the result of our investigation so we decided to stop doing this," he said."As special agents, we just followed orders."
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