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unopposed by Wedemeyer, Barrett’s nomination for promotion to Brigadier General, which had already gone forward, was withdrawn.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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Notes From China Page 9