The Importance of Trying to Do the Right Thing (mdweek message)

The Importance of Trying to Do the Right Thing

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

December 5, 2018

This morning, many of us watched the beautiful Book of Common Prayer based state funeral held at Washington National Cathedral for President George H. W. Bush.  It brought to my mind a remembrance I have of one interaction with the man eulogized this morning.  In early June 1989, I was a newly-arrived junior officer working at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.  I was the director of the Fulbright office, working out of the Press and Cultural Affairs offices on the grounds of the U.S. Ambassador’s residence.  The weekend of June 3-4 had been chaotic:  the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had moved in and recaptured Tian’anmen Square from hundreds of student and worker demonstrators supporting more transparency and democracy in China’s governance, killing hundreds if not thousands of unarmed civilians in the process.  When I showed up for work on Monday, June, 5, for my first official full day in my new job, I was greeted by immediate fallout of the horrendous events of June 4.  Dr. Perry Link, the director of the Beijing Office of the National Academy of Science's Committee for Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China asked to come in and meet with me; along with him were two unidentified Chinese nationals who were academics.  As soon as they sat down, I knew what was up: I recognized the Chinese scholars’ faces from television feeds in February 1989 covering the visit to Beijing of President Bush (who had formerly served as head of the U.S. liaison office in Beijing before diplomatic relations were established in 1979).  At that time, the Chinese government had detained and prevented the attendance of a Chinese scholar who had been invited to the U.S. dinner responding to the official Chinese state dinner.  He was “China’s Sakharov,” astrophysicist Fang Lizhi, and he was released a few hours after that dinner.  But now in June, here he was in my office in front of me, together with his wife, Peking University professor Li Shuxian.  The two had been high on the list of “counter-revolutionary criminals” put out by the Chinese government just after the massacre.  They were afraid for their lives, and were seeking refuge in the U.S. Embassy.  It was clear to me that they would be executed if the Chinese authorities found them. 

I made tea for them and Dr. Link, and then went to brief my boss, Minister Counselor for Public Affairs McKinney Russell.  He immediately went to the Chancellery to brief the Ambassador, James Lilley, and Political Minister Counselor, Raymond Burghardt, and ask for guidance.   He returned an hour later with very unwelcomed news:  the Embassy leadership did not feel it was in a position to grant refuge—such an action risked severe provocation of the Chinese government, putting American lives and facilities at risk, was not necessarily going to be effective in protecting the scholars, and needed to be cleared by the White House in any event.  So I was told to turn our guests out.   I objected, citing the very real threat to our guests lives if they left the compound.  So McKinney talked more with the Chancellery, and came back with a plan to carry the guests out discretely by car, and put them in what they told me would be a “reasonably secure location” (as it turned out, an international hotel).  So I then told Drs. Link, Fang, and Li that they had to leave, reassuring them as best I could and handing them off to the embassy people managing the transfer.   I was following orders, but I felt dirty and deeply morally compromised.  I again told my bosses how wrong I felt this was. 

The next morning, Tuesday June 6, word had come in from Washington.  President Bush, as soon as he had been told of the situation and the fact that we had expelled the would-be refuge seekers, apparently had broken his regular calm, cool demeanor, and had jumped up and yelled,”Get them back into the Embassy’s protection!”   And so they were brought back in.  It soon became clear why Embassy leadership had initially hesitated.  Within hours of their entering the compound, Chinese troops opened fire on diplomatic housing compounds and buildings.   An evacuation of non-essential personnel was declared.   We began assisting in a voluntary evacuation of all U.S. citizens living in China.   Helmeted troops armed with AK-47s surrounded all our offices, every two meters, all facing inward.  My one Chinese employee in the Fulbright office was instructed by the Chinese Diplomatic Services Bureau that he was fired from his assignment at the U.S. Embassy, and told to immediately leave the compound.  He was arrested as he left. 

The Fangs were to remain in the compound for a year and a half, during which time there was intense harassment of all the officers working there and, once they returned in the fall, of their families and dependent children.  Many voices began to argue breaking diplomatic relations.  Yet during this time, President Bush sent his National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft on secret visits to help find ways to repair the relationship and help China return to their declared path of economic openness and reform.   

It was clear to me in all this that in crisis and danger, decision makers are faced with hard choices, with equities arguing for different, and sometimes contradictory, courses of action.  Functionaries like me and my bosses were bound by the limits of our own authority, legality, and political reality, but also had to deal with our own conscience and questions of human decency.   

Through all of this, President Bush hued to a tricky middle line: supporting greater freedom and human rights in China while maintaining the positive mutually beneficial relationship the two countries had worked out.  He was willing to risk great things on account of own conscience and for the sake of doing the right thing.  I have always honored him for that ever since. 

Good intentions are often appealed to in defense of harmful behavior.  But as my mother used to say, “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”  And while good intentions are never a free pass for bad behavior, they remain very, very important.  Trying to do the right thing might not always make you right.  Good intentions may not be an adequate defense against accusations of horror or damaging others.  But both—good intentions and trying to do the right thing—are necessary if we ever want to be at peace with our conscience and with each other. 

Grace and peace.  --Fr. Tony+