CHINESE PROPAGANDIST DUE FOR RELEASE : JOURNALIST YAO IMPRISONED 20 YEARS FOR CULTURAL REVOLUTION.

Byline: John Leicester Associated Press

Yao Wenyuan was known as China's killer with a pen when he vanished into prison 20 years ago. Back then, his trial and conviction were a sensation.

The former journalist - expected to be released today - was the wordsmith in the ``Gang of Four'' behind many of the excesses of the 1966-1976 ``Cultural Revolution,'' when millions of people were persecuted and killed.

The group included Chairman Mao Tse-tung's wife, Jiang Qing, a former movie actress. Yao was the propagandist, manipulating China's media to attack and vilify their enemies and rivals in government.

``His weapon to kill people was the pen,'' a government-run magazine said after Yao's conviction, along with the other Gang members, in January 1981.

Evidence at Yao's televised trial included a diary entry in which he asked: ``Why can't we shoot a few counterrevolutionary elements? After all, dictatorship is not like embroidering flowers.''

Yao was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for persecuting officials and ordinary people in an attempt to seize power. The sentence was backdated to the Gang's arrest - Oct. 6, 1976 - meaning he should be freed today.

Yu Zhihong, a spokeswoman for China's Public Security Ministry, confirmed Yao is still in prison and said she was ``sure he will be released when his sentence is complete.''

When he is released, he most likely is headed for obscurity, a footnote to an era of violence and chaos Chinese leaders would rather forget.

The Communist Party used the trial to close the book on the Cultural Revolution. By blaming the Gang of Four for much of the violence, Chinese leaders shifted attention from the role others played, including thousands of officials still in power.

They wanted Chinese to focus on rebuilding the nation and its economy, not examining the party's unsavory past. Discussion of the movement is discouraged.

So what will the government do with a former firebrand like Yao?

Zhang Zhong, one of two lawyers who defended Yao at the trial, believes he will be able to resume a normal life, enjoying some of the fruits of reforms China enacted following the Cultural Revolution's upheavals.

``He will come back to Shanghai,'' Zhang, 71, said in a telephone interview. ``Our country has a complete legal system now.''

But Western scholars and diplomats in Beijing expect the government to keep Yao, now 65, shielded from view and from foreign reporters who would love to hear his insider's stories of the Cultural Revolution.

Yao's original sentence included depriving him of his rights as a citizen for five years after his release, which will give officials broad leverage to restrict his movements and contacts.

``I would be astonished if he were allowed to meet people after his release, except perhaps one or two close family members who can be effectively intimidated to keep their mouths shut,'' said Bill Jenner, a China expert at the Australian National University.

Yao would not be the first former senior leader the government has kept locked away - even after a formal release date. Jiang Qing was freed from custody for medical treatment in 1984, then reported to be confined to a villa until she committed suicide in 1991.

Yao, according to some accounts, may be the last surviving member of the Gang of Four. Wang Hongwen, the youngest, died in 1992. There also have been several unconfirmed reports that Zhang Chunqiao - who along with Jiang Qing was given a death sentence later commuted to life imprisonment - is dead, too.

China's Justice Ministry and the State Council, or Cabinet, said they could not answer questions about Yao or Zhang, even though it is their responsibility to do so.

Yao was last seen stammering and sweating profusely during the trial. His lawyer, Zhang, said Yao has been imprisoned in Qincheng jail outside of Beijing - where the Gang of Four once held victims in solitary confinement.

He is said to have gained weight working as a librarian in the prison in the 1980s, to have had books, newspapers and family visits, and to have written lengthy letters to relatives. The security ministry's spokeswoman said he was healthy.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Associated Press

Yao Wenyuan, seen in a 1980 photo,was convicted in a sensational trial in China.