The New York Times International - 27.08.2019

8 | TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

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king 45 days on foot. He played gin
rummy and argued dogma with Mao,
talked for days about the United States
and philosophy with Zhou, danced with
Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, and got to know
Mao’s inner circle, including Liu Shaoqi,
the third-ranking leader. They watched
Laurel and Hardy movies together.
Mr. Rittenberg joined the Chinese
Communist Party in 1946. He became an
English-language translator of news
dispatches for the party’s propaganda
arm and an interpreter of Chinese for
communiqués and contacts with inter-
national leaders. He traveled with Mao
and the Red Army and witnessed events
of the civil war that led to the Commu-
nist victory in 1949, and to the formation
of Mao’s Beijing government, the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China.
Despite his growing status, Mr. Rit-
tenberg was incarcerated twice on
trumped-up charges. After the Commu-
nists took power in China, Stalin, the So-
viet leader, charged in a communiqué to
Mao that Mr. Rittenberg was a secret
American agent sent to undermine the
revolution. Without trial, he was held for
six years in solitary confinement.
Cleared of the bogus spy charges and
released in 1955, he resumed his status
in privileged upper echelons of the
party. He was named to a high post in
China’s Broadcast Administration, and
later became a director of Radio Beijing,
which regularly denounced the United
States. He also wrote for Xinhua, the
state-controlled news agency and was a
liaison to foreign journalists and digni-
taries. He sometimes broadcast propa-
ganda himself, anonymously in English
with a soft South Carolina drawl.
He was well paid and lived with his
third wife, Wang Yulin, and their three
daughters and son in a Beijing suite lux-
urious even by Western standards, filled
with priceless Ming dynasty antiques.
(He had previously been married to an
American who divorced him when he
left for China, and to Wei Lin, a Chinese

state radio announcer who, as a gesture

of solidarity with the party, divorced him

after he was accused of espionage.)

He is survived by his wife and chil-

dren, Xiaoqin (Jenny), Xiaodong (Toni),

Xiaoxiang (Sunny) and Xiaoming (Sid-

ney Jr.), and four grandchildren.

Mr. Rittenberg was an avid propagan-

dist during Mao’s Great Leap Forward,

a campaign from 1958 to 1961 to trans-

form China from an agrarian economy

to a collectivized, industrialized society.

The campaign, which banned private

farming and enforced edicts with indoc-

trination and forced labor, was a disas-

ter, causing widespread famine and tens

of millions of deaths.

He was more directly involved in the

early stages of Mao’s Cultural Revolu-

tion, a decade-long purge of “bourgeois”

intellectuals, party officials and others

suspected of anti-Maoist thought. Start-

ing in 1966, thousands of young Red

Guards persecuted millions with im-

prisonment, torture, public humiliation

and property seizures in struggles to

create a Maoist cult of personality.

Mr. Rittenberg joined the Red Guards

in denouncing what they called “estab-

lishment” bureaucrats and haranguing

the masses. His speeches and news con-

ferences were published in the Red

Guard newspapers. One picture from

the era shows Mao autographing Mr.

Rittenberg’s copy of his “Little Red

Book” of sayings. Another shows Mr.

Rittenberg on a speaker’s platform,

holding the book up and exhorting

crowds in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square

to defend Mao’s thoughts.

Soon after the pictures were taken,

Mr. Rittenberg was himself denounced

by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, ostensibly for

attending a secret meeting to plot the

government’s overthrow. In 1968, he

was imprisoned, again without a hear-

ing, this time for a decade in solitary

confinement in a dark cell seven paces

long and three and a half paces wide. His

wife was sent to a labor camp, his chil-

dren to live with relatives.

During Mr. Rittenberg’s second im-

prisonment, the Cultural Revolution left

the country in chaos, Mao’s health be-

gan to fail and the so-called Gang of Four

— Mao’s wife and three other leaders —

assumed greater power. China’s Com-

munist Party became what Mr. Ritten-

berg called a “shadow” of its old self.

“The spirit was gone. The party be-

came a mere machine for exercising

power over the government and the

people,” Mr. Rittenberg told The Finan-

cial Times in 2012. “Official corruption

and careerism, rare before the Cultural

Revolution, now become prevalent and

systemic.”

Released in 1977 after Mao died and

Jiang Qing was arrested, Mr. Rittenberg

emerged from prison disillusioned with

Communism. He returned to the United

States in 1979 for a three-month visit

that he portrayed as a “vacation,” to see

relatives, to lecture and, apparently, to

quietly discuss his repatriation with the

Carter administration. He returned to

China, his status undiminished, and was

named to an important academic post.

But he quickly left China again for

what he said would be a five-month visit

to America. His wife went with him, and

it turned out to be a permanent move.

The children joined them and assumed

American names and citizenship. He

had kept his own American citizenship,

and he soon settled into a new life.

His welcome by American officials

raised suspicions that he had been a

C.I.A. agent all along, but he scoffed at

the idea, and no proof was ever offered.

He was still welcome in China, however,

and he and his wife for several years

made a living conducting tours of China

for Americans.

Then, in a breakthrough, the chair-

man of ComputerLand hired Mr. Ritten-

berg to help him establish ties to a vis-

iting high-level delegation of Chinese

business leaders, and to provide guid-

ance for marketing American products

and services in China. He knew many

Chinese business and government lead-

ers, and understood the bureaucracy

well enough to advise clients about

traps and shortcuts.

He founded Rittenberg & Associates,

a consulting firm for American compa-

nies doing business in China. He joined

the Chinese studies faculty at Pacific Lu-

theran University in Tacoma, Wash.,

and wrote about China’s markets for the

Strategic News Service, a weekly busi-

ness digest. Mr. Gates and Mr. Dell were

readers.

Over the years, his services were en-

gaged by hundreds of venture capital-

ists and American companies, including

Microsoft, Intel, Prudential Insurance,

Polaroid and Levi Strauss. He made a

half-dozen business trips to China annu-

ally, and kept an apartment in Beijing.

“He may have been a card-carrying

Communist, but he’s also very much a

capitalist,” David Shrigley, a former In-

tel executive, told The Times in 2004. He

said Mr. Rittenberg helped Intel open a

semiconductor plant in China in the

1990s. “He understands what’s really

going on in a very nuanced way that

proved tremendously valuable to us.”

A modernizing China wanted the

business, and officials commended

Americans for hiring what they called

friends of the People’s Republic as ad-

visers. And it was a windfall for the Rit-

tenbergs, who bought a home on Fox Is-

land, Wash., overlooking Puget Sound, a

condo in Bellevue, Wash., and a home in

Scottsdale, Ariz. Mike Wallace of CBS

and the Rev. Billy Graham were among

their friends.

In a reflective interview with The Fi-

nancial Times in 2013, Mr. Rittenberg

voiced regret over his support for Mao,

calling him “a great historic leader and a

great historic criminal,” and expressing

dismay over his own role in the Cultural

Revolution.

“I took part in victimizing innocent,

good people,” he said. “It was institu-

tionalized bullying and scapegoating,

and I couldn’t see it because everything

about the regime was good for me and I

felt I was part of a movement for human

progress, freedom and happiness. I was-

n’t feeling what happened to other peo-

ple. It’s a kind of corruption, exactly the

kind of corruption that ruins the whole

thing.”

Sidney Rittenberg was born in

Charleston, S.C., on Aug. 14, 1921. His fa-

ther, Sidney, was president of the

Charleston City Council, and his grand-

father had been a prominent South Car-

olina legislator. His mother was the

daughter of a Russian immigrant. After

graduating from the Porter Military

Academy in Charleston in 1937, he

turned down a scholarship to Princeton

to attend the University of North Car-

olina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in

philosophy and graduated in 1941.

He joined the American Communist

Party in 1940, drawn by its platform of

free speech, racial equality and roots in

the labor movement. Without giving up

his Communist ideals, he acceded to a

party request and resigned in 1942 when

he was drafted by the Army in World

War II.

His life was chronicled in a documen-

tary, “The Revolutionary” (2012), by Irv

Drasnin, Don Sellers and Lucy Ostran-

der, and his memoir, “The Man Who

Stayed Behind” (1993), written with

Amanda Bennett, a former correspon-

dent in China for The Wall Street Jour-

nal.

“I had been right to help those who

were working for a new China,” he said

in the memoir. “I had been dead wrong,

however, in accepting the party as the

embodiment of truth and in giving to the

party uncritical and unquestioning loy-

alty.”

American adviser to Mao and to Western capitalists

R ITTENBERG, FROM PAGE 1

Sidney Rittenberg and his wife, Wang Yulin, in New York in 1979. On that visit to the

United States, he discussed his repatriation to America with the Carter administration.

EDWARD HAUSNER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

“The spirit was gone. The party

became a mere machine for

exercising power over the

government and the people.”

globe to transport passengers between
North America, Europe and Asia, cut-
ting the time of the traditional routes
through London and Dubai. Iceland
would be an enticing stopover, if not the
final destination.
“Everybody thought I was crazy,” Mr.
Mogensen said. “Maybe they were cor-
rect, and that made me want to do it
more. I knew virtually nothing about the
airline industry. My mission statement
was ‘Impossible is just an opinion.’”
For a while, he looked like a prodigy.
Between 2011 and 2015, the number of
tourists visiting Iceland more than dou-
bled to 1.3 million a year.
The growth reflected the force of so-
cial media in driving tourists to the film-
ing locations of popular shows and mov-
ies. As fans of the blockbuster television
series “Game of Thrones” learned that
much of the action was shot in Iceland,
entrepreneurs started tours of key loca-
tions.
Justin Bieber’s 2015 music video “I’ll
Show You” showcased Iceland’s breath-
taking Fjadrargljufur canyon, prompt-
ing tens of thousands of people to de-
scend on the area. They used Instagram
to share their experiences while tracing
Mr. Bieber’s dangerous romp across an
arresting ledge and into a glacially fed
lagoon. So intense were the crowds that
Iceland’s environmental authorities re-
stricted access.
That same year, WOW extended serv-
ice across North America. In 2018, the
number of annual visitors had increased
to some 2.3 million.
But as Mr. Mogensen acknowledged,
WOW got carried away. In extending
service to Los Angeles and San Fran-
cisco, and later to India, it added wide-
body jets. New premium cabins compli-
cated its business and added to its costs.
“One of the mistakes we made was
moving away from that original vision,”
he said.
As costs increased, profitability gave
way to losses. By last year, Mr. Mo-
gensen was frantically ditching unre-
warding routes. He beseeched investors
to extend more credit and even pursued
a rescue by the government. But early
this year, the money ran out. Creditors
seized the jets, grounding the airline.
Fannar Flosason, 30, a WOW soft-
ware engineer, was home on paternity
leave after the birth of his son when he
received an email late one night deliver-
ing the grim news.
He has since taken a job at a local
start-up, putting him among the lucky
ones. “I know a bunch of people who
worked at WOW Air who are still unem-
ployed,” he said.
More than 600 of the 960 people laid
off in March remained officially unem-
ployed as of late July, according to the
Directorate of Labor.
Birgitta Jondottir worked full time in
the WOW payment system. She now
works part time leading tours through
tunnels threading a glacier near
Husafell, a two-hour drive north of
Reykjavik. She stays there three or four
nights every other week, leaving her 6-
year-old son with her partner in the cap-
ital. “It’s been a little bit hard,” she said.
The WOW founder rejects responsi-
bility for Iceland’s latest afflictions.
“Tourism got us out of the financial
crisis,” Mr. Mogensen said. “We were
the fastest-growing company in the his-
tory of Iceland. The tourist boom would

not have happened if WOW had not hap-

pened.”

But now tourism is rolling backward,

with the number of international vis-

itors on track to drop by 16 percent this

year compared with the year before, and

the numbers of Americans on pace to

plunge by 20 percent.

The sudden shortage of Americans —

widely celebrated as a free-spending

people — is bemoaned by merchants of

Viking-themed tourist knickknacks, by

whale watching tour operators and by

real estate agencies.

Reykjavik’s skies have in recent years

filled with construction cranes erecting

hotels and glass-fronted harborside con-

dominiums. Americans have snapped

up waterfront property with special ea-

gerness. The end of WOW has cooled

construction while making financing for

new projects hard to secure.

“It is hurting everybody,” said Stefan

Gudjonsson, head of research at Arion

Bank, an Icelandic lender. “We are see-

ing projects put on hold, hotels espe-

cially.”

A worrying glut of unsold property

has materialized, threatening the bal-

ance sheets of developers and their fi-

nanciers.

“The supply of newly built apart-

ments is very high,” said Vidir Kristjans-

son, general manager of Domus Nova, a

luxury real estate agency. “Developers

are having problems selling.”

Any mention of trouble involving

banks may conjure terror in Iceland,

where financial shenanigans and the re-

sulting devastation in 2008 were monu-

mental even by the standards of the

global debacle.

But experts express confidence that a

recession will not trigger a financial

panic. After the 2008 crisis, bankers

were sent to prison, and the government

forced lenders to substantially increase

the cash they reserve against bad loans.

Still, the downturn in the tourist trade

constitutes a painful event, given that it

is Iceland’s largest industry.

So far this year, the number of visitors

has plunged by more than one-third, she

said. In previous summers, the center

has added three or four full-time season-

al workers. This year, it has added only

one part-time employee.

In Reykjavik, the decline is less easily

detected. At shops downtown, tourists

shell out $500 for Icelandic sweaters.

They fill restaurants serving fish stew,

grilled whale and smoked puffin. During

the brief and tenuous dusk that passes

for night in summer, people from around

the globe jam into cacophonous night-

clubs that pulsate until 5 in the morning.

But people who make their living on

the tourist trade bemoan a palpable

change.

“We can feel the pressure,” said Jana

Arnarsdottir, 23, as she set up for lunch

service at Glo, a chain of vegan restau-

rants in Reykjavik. “This whole town is

affected by tourism.”

Iceland’s unemployment rate spiked

to 4.7 percent in May, compared with 2.

percent in January. At the Reykjavik un-

employment office, those out of work

are growing resigned to settling for less-

desirable jobs.

“It’s much harder now,” said Ivars

Rapa, 48, a Latvian immigrant who re-

cently lost his job at a fish processing

factory that furloughed its several hun-

dred workers. The struggles of the fish-

ing industry, a major piece of the econ-

omy, stem in part from concerns about

fish stocks, which prompted the govern-

ment to limit the catch. But WOW’s

doom has amplified trouble. Fewer

flights means fewer opportunities to ex-

port Iceland’s seafood.

Mr. Rapa recently applied for work at

warehouses, in security, and at commer-

cial kitchens. As of late July, he expected

to gain none of these positions given the

deteriorating economy.

“Tourists are not coming as they were

before,” he said.

At Hestaland, a farm outside the town

of Borgarnes that leads mostly Ameri-

can visitors on trail rides atop hand-

some Icelandic horses, the guesthouse

has vacancies. “It used to be sold out all

the time in July and August,” the owner,

Gudmar Petursson, said. “Now, quite a

lot, we have rooms.”

At Lake Myvatn, where tourists soak

in natural hot springs and gape at pits of

boiling mud, demand for local accom-

modation has plunged. Thuridur Hel-

gadottir, 54, manager at Vogar Travel

Service, has dropped prices by as much

as half. She plans to shut down for four

months this winter, a quieter season.

Yet beneath the concerns about Ice-

land’s economy, some believe that a dip

in tourism may be healthy; a needed

respite for an overwhelmed island.

“When the people who are coming are

more about getting Instagram posts,

and everyone goes to the same spots,

then it’s overcrowded,” said Hordur Mio

Olafsson, 32, whose family business

leads tourists through lava caves near

Husafell. “What people are seeking here

is pristine nature in this strange country

in the North Atlantic, full of mystery.

Now, we have a chance to do things

properly.”

Failed airline pulls Iceland tourism down

I CELAND, FROM PAGE 1

The village of Husavik, Iceland, which draws whale watchers. The country’s unemployment rate spiked to 4.7 percent in May, compared with 2.9 percent in January.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SUZIE HOWELL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A horse-riding company on Iceland’s west coast. A sudden drop in American tourists,

known as free spenders, is bemoaned by Icelandic merchants and tour operators.

Whale watching off the coast of Husavik. Despite concerns about the economy, some

believe that a dip in tourism may be a healthy respite for an overwhelmed island.