Lin Liguo

People’s Republic of China state institutions Maoism 1945–1971 ✕ Killed in a plane crash

Lin Biao’s son, an air force officer said to have led the Project 571 coup plot

The son of Lin Biao and Ye Qun, he entered the physics faculty of Peking University and became a Communist Party member. When the Cultural Revolution began he dropped out and joined the air force in 1967; in 1969 air force commander Wu Faxian made him deputy director of the Office of the Air Force Command, through which all crucial documents passed. According to the official account he drew up the “Outline of Project 571” with confidants in Shanghai in March 1971 and plotted to assassinate Mao. In the early hours of 13 September he left Shanhaiguan with his parents aboard a Trident, which crashed near Öndörkhaan in Mongolia. Whether Lin Biao knew of the plan is unclear; the most widely held view is that Lin Liguo originated it.