Notes From China

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Notes From China Page 9

by Barbara W. Tuchman


  What should have been our aim in China was not to mediate or settle China’s internal problem, which was utterly beyond our scope, but to preserve viable and as far as possible amicable relations with the government of China whatever it turned out to be. We were not compelled to make an either/or decision; we could have adopted the British attitude, described by Sir John Keswick as one of “slightly perplexed resignation.” Or, as a Brookings Institution study concluded in 1956, the United States “could have considered its China policy at a dead stop and ended all further effort to direct the outcome of events.”

  Yet we repeat the pattern. An architect of our involvement in Vietnam, Walt Rostow, insists that a fundamental premise of American policy is the establishment of a stable balance of power in Asia. This is not a condition the West can establish. Stability in Asia is no more achievable by us than was unity in China in 1945.

  Basic to the conduct of foreign policy is the problem basic to all policy: how to apply wisdom to government. If wisdom in government eludes us, perhaps courage could substitute—the moral courage to terminate mistakes.

  * * *

  *1 The author wishes to acknowledge with thanks the assistance of Mr. Ray Cromley and Mr. John S. Service who supplied information and elucidation, and of Mr. William Cunliffe of the Military Records Division, National Archives, who found and secured declassification of the relevant documents, viz. Nos. 322 and 324 from Dixie Mission to Chungking; Nos. 21084 and 25246 from Marshall to Wedemeyer; Wedemeyer’s replies to Marshall of 22 and 27 January 1945; and the undated typewritten draft of the first of these. I am also indebted to Mr. J. C. James of the Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park for several searches, both negative and positive.

  *2 Hurley’s accusations, passed on by the White House to General Marshall and by him in a peremptory query to Wedemeyer, caused a furious quarrel between Wedemeyer and Hurley, followed by an enforced agreement between them on an explanation for Marshall that would leave Wedemeyer’s command blameless while not disputing Hurley. This was accomplished in a convoluted masterpiece covering everybody except Colonel Barrett, who had neglected the soldier’s elementary precaution of obtaining his orders in writing. At Hurley’s insistence, unopposed by Wedemeyer, Barrett’s nomination for promotion to Brigadier General, which had already gone forward, was withdrawn. His was the first in a line of honorable careers damaged to fill the need for scapegoats in China.

  *3 Morale at the Embassy having sunk low under the effect of Hurley’s rages and vendettas, the officers on duty in Chungking, whose careers were vulnerable to unfavorable action by the Chief of Mission, were anxious to be transferred, or in the case of two who were on leave in the United States, not to return. Atcheson, as Hurley’s ranking subordinate, though too senior to be adversely affected, could not remain under the Ambassador’s violent objection, and was transferred to General MacArthur’s command as Political Adviser. Hurley personally obtained the removal of Service whom he correctly guessed to be the principal drafter of the telegram, by direct request to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (Service being attached to the Military Command). In the case of Raymond Ludden, a political officer who had also served with the Dixie Mission and after a four-month tour of Communist territory had reported the likelihood of their coming to power, Hurley obtained a statement from Wedemeyer that he “no longer required Ludden’s services.” Fulton Freeman, third secretary of the Embassy, Japan Language Officer Yuni, and Arthur Ringwalt, former Consul in Kweilin recently transferred to Chungking, who suffered the longest under Hurley’s vindictiveness, were all variously reassigned. With the exception of Atcheson, who died shortly thereafter, the careers of all these men were slowed or otherwise damaged to greater or less degree by this episode. (Information supplied to the author by John S. Service.)

  “Leading cadres” at a May 7th Cadre School in Shensi

  Pumping station for irrigation and flood control at Yellow River

  Author at the factory home of Mrs. Chang Si-lan

  Transportation by cart

  The family survives: grandparents and children in Loyang

  Rural China: Silo and grinding stone

  Washday in Yenan

  Loudspeaker on roof of a commune in Shensi

  Women of the Neighborhood Committee in Loyang

  Propaganda in the museums depicting early peasant uprisings

  Restoration work on Buddhist statues in the Lung Men caves

  Primary schoolchildren rehearsing a dance with rifles in Nanking

  Staring at foreigners

  For Alma, the right kind of traveling companion

  AND FOR

  Li Yu-ing and Shen Chih-hung, escort and interpreter, whose untiring effort and unfailing amiability enabled us to see and learn so much

  BY BARBARA W. TUCHMAN

  Bible and Sword

  The Zimmermann Telegram

  The Guns of August

  The Proud Tower

  Stilwell and the American Experience in China

  Notes from China

  A Distant Mirror

  Practicing History

  The March of Folly

  The First Salute

  About the Author

  BARBARA W. TUCHMAN is a two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the author of numerous acclaimed works of history. Her titles include Bible and Sword, The Zimmermann Telegram, The Proud Tower, Notes from China, A Distant Mirror, Practicing History, The March of Folly, and The First Salute. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1963 for The Guns of August and again in 1972 for Stilwell and the American Experience in China.

  Following her graduation from Radcliffe College in 1933, she took a position with the American Council of the Institute of Pacific Relations in Japan, where she also wrote for the Far Eastern Survey and Pacific Affairs. Upon her return to the United States, Tuchman began working for The Nation, and in 1937 she corresponded from Valencia and Madrid on the Spanish Civil War. She died in February 1989, and was survived by her husband, three daughters, and four grandchildren.

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