Stilwell and the American Experience in China

by Barbara W. Tuchman

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  Chiang Kai-shek was well aware that if Stilwell or any American, no matter who, was given military authority in China, he, the Generalissimo, could not control the degree of aid or cooperation given to the Communists. He needed no other reason to determine his attitude. On August 9 Washington offered him General Hurley as intermediary and pressed hard for “immediate action” on Stilwell’s appointment, “otherwise it may be too late.” Chiang continued evasive. While pleased to accept Hurley, he replied that the command problem required thorough preparation and “mature consideration.”

  The choice of Hurley, ultimately unfortunate, was haphazard, though made with confidence. Marshall was responsible. He had steadily opposed the idea of an agent between the President and Generalissimo, but on learning that Hopkins was about to take action, he moved quickly to head him off. He wanted to ensure an appointee friendly to Stilwell and feared Hopkins would be influenced by the Soong-Chennault axis. When Stimson mentioned that he was looking for “an adequate job for Pat Hurley,” Marshall seized on the name as someone who would be accepted by Stilwell and who would be able to smooth over the strained relations resulting from Stilwell’s “extreme tactlessness.” He sounded out Hurley the same day and within hours the eager appointee was at the State Department where he informed Under Secretary Stettinius that Marshall was sending him to China and he would like to be made Ambassador. Though discouraged by Stettinius, he insisted that his request should be put to Hull. Meantime as intermediary he seemed a “very fortunate” choice to Stimson. “Hurley is loyal, intelligent and extremely energetic…pleasant and diplomatic in his manner” and “the only man that either Marshall or I could think of to revolutionize the situation of backbiting and recrimination and stalemate that has been surrounding poor Stilwell.” Queried by Marshall, Stilwell agreed to the choice on the theory that “it takes oil as well as vinegar to make a good dressing.”

  Roosevelt too was content. Once, in reply to doubts expressed by Morgenthau on the usefulness of personal envoys, he had said, “The only thing that saves the information is that I know my men.” He had confidence in Hurley’s ability to carry out a mission accurately but he startled Marshall by a telephone call to ask if Donald Nelson, lately chairman of the War Production Board and formerly of Sears, Roebuck, could go too. A horrendous feud between Nelson and his successor, Charles E. Wilson, was currently roiling the Administration. When Marshall asked why Nelson should go to China, Roosevelt replied calmly that he would like to get him out of the country, an aim with which, as Marshall said later, he could sympathize. He consented on condition that Nelson was not to meddle with policy or strategy but confine himself to selling razor blades. For purposes of public announcement this was translated as “studying China’s economy.”

  Nelson’s selection was the genesis of a principle of political appointment. “You get three years in Washington to find out whether or not you are a schlemiel,” Morgenthau said of him at this time to his assistant Harry Dexter White. “And if you are you get promoted,” White replied.

  On August 23 the American reply to the Generalissimo’s three conditions was delivered in a second message from Roosevelt to Chiang even more imperious than the first. Drafted as usual at the War Department, the message disposed of the three conditions, which to Chiang were of the essence, as “matters of detail.” That was the impression gained by Roosevelt and Marshall from a discussion with Kung who doubtless softened the terms after the amiable manner of Chinese intercourse.

  With regard to the first condition concerning the Communists, the President stated, “I do not think the forces to come under General Stilwell’s command should be limited….When the enemy is pressing us toward possible disaster, it appears unsound to refuse the aid of anyone who will kill Japanese.” Intent on the Japanese as the enemy, Roosevelt and his Government assumed the same was true of China. It never seemed quite real to them that the Generalissimo should regard—had always regarded—the Communists as the greater danger and made his decisions accordingly. The same obtuseness about China was shown by Hopkins who could not understand in talking with Davies why Davies should think that Stilwell would be “skeptical” of his proposed command or should suggest that its exercise would “be undercut at every turn.” Hopkins thought Stilwell would have “a great deal of power” because he would have the White House behind him.

  With regard to the second condition about the command relationship, Roosevelt suggested it should be “that of a head of state with his commander in the field.” The title given to Stilwell should imply “that directly under you he commands the armed forces in China.”

  With regard to Lend-Lease, Chiang was informed that a new arrangement was being worked out in Washington “relieving General Stilwell of his burden” which would be communicated to the Generalissimo later on. In the meantime Chiang was sternly reminded that “extended deliberations and perfection of arrangements may have fateful consequences.” He was urged to “take the necessary measures to place General Stilwell in command of the Chinese force, under your direction, at the earliest possible date….With further delay, it may be too late to avert a military catastrophe tragic both to China and to our Allied plans for the early overthrow of Japan.”

  If Chiang was less impressed by the need of urgency, it was because he was not bothered like Washington by doubts of his own staying power or fears of his own collapse. He thoroughly intended in his own mind to stay out the war, if necessary in the last provinces of the west, no matter how much of east China was lost, until the Allies should defeat Japan and he could emerge on the winning side. However calamitous the situation in the face of ICHIGO, he was probably not entirely unhappy to see it directed against the dissident south. Central Government armies were not engaged.

  It was also true that Chiang, as Gauss reported, had withdrawn increasingly from outside contacts and comments, “trusting no one but himself,” and was in consequence ignorant of how far the condition of his country and his people had degenerated. Indeed his failure to be more frightened than he was gave rise to reports that he was resting on some arrangement with the Japanese, but it is unlikely that these had any foundation. The condition of his army did not worry him unduly, partly because he never saw starving soldiers, partly because all he wanted was that the army should continue to be armed by the United States and be stronger than the Communist army. He equated strength with armament, ignoring organization, motivation, leadership and simple nutrition. For the rest, he had been convinced by Chennault that the war could be won by the air arm. He was not at all anxious for American landings and joint military operations. He disliked the idea of an immense intrusion of foreigners no less than the court of Peking had disliked it before him. Believing that the war could be won for him without his additional effort, Chiang predicated his policy in so far as he had any, on survival in power while the Japanese were defeated by the Allies outside China. As far as the external enemy was concerned, he had made a shrewd, and as it was to prove, a sound calculation.

  That the American advent could be other than welcomed was not an idea easily assimilated in Washington—though understood by some Americans in China. In the brief prepared for Wallace in June John Service stated that once it was recognized that the regime did not want to fight the Japanese any more than it could help, “we must go further and recognize that it may even seek to prevent China from becoming the battleground for large-scale campaigns against the Japanese land forces.” There is no evidence that this thought penetrated the War Department or the White House. If Stilwell appreciated it, as he could hardly have failed to, it was probably outweighed in his mind by the opportunity to take over military command in China and by belief in himself.

  The Lend-Lease arrangement being studied in Washington envisaged a Sino-American committee or board in Chungking to weigh requisitions which, when approved in Washington, would be delivered directly to units at the front; title would not pass until then. The hope was to eliminate the most conten
tious aspect of Stilwell’s functions, especially in expectation of the increased shipments that would follow reopening of the Road. The new arrangement would also put China in a position more like that of the other great powers. In a telegram to Stilwell on this subject Marshall assumed that future aid would go to a Chinese Army which might include the Communists if they were to unite with the Nationalists in fighting Japan. Schemes for resolving the command relationship of Burma to China ended in a decision to split CBI to which Stilwell reluctantly consented.

  When Hurley and Nelson arrived in New Delhi where Stilwell met them on September 4, he was much encouraged by their evident intention to “pound the table.” Hurley and Nelson, both tall, imposing men, talked even bigger than they looked. They were the apotheosis of American instrumentality. “First we’ll tell the G–mo what to do,” said Hurley, “and then we’ll explain to him what the U.S. will do.” Nelson spelled this out. He said they were prepared to face Chiang Kai-shek with two conditions: one, that China must be a united nation (meaning presumably a settlement with the Communists) and two, that China must prove its desire to help defeat Japan by giving Stilwell command of the Chinese Army. If Chiang refused to cooperate, Nelson said, they would “advise the President to throw her overboard and shift our base to Russia.” If Chiang did cooperate, he could expect the United States to help China industrialize after the war and to transfer Japan’s business to her. Stilwell could hardly help but feel that he had backing for the quid pro quo at last.

  Reaching Chungking on September 6 he was summoned to a meeting with the Generalissimo at 9:30 the next morning while Hurley and Nelson were given an appointment at 11:00. “Why me ahead of them? Love feast.” Chiang talked as if the command were a settled matter, just as he had in 1942 before the first campaign in Burma. He said “that up to now my work had been 100 per cent military—now, AS COMMANDER OF THE CHINESE ARMY, it would be 60 per cent military and 40 per cent political. If I used the Reds, they would have to acknowledge the authority of the National Military Council. He would advise me from time to time….He had full confidence in me. Kidded about my saying Chinese commanders were no good….Well here it is….Now what do I do?”

  * * *

  *1 The three were Harrison Forman, representing the New York Herald-Tribune, UP and London Times; Guenther Stein, representing the Christian Science Monitor, AP and London News-Chronicle; and Israel Epstein, representing The New York Times, Time-Life, Allied Labor News and Sydney Morning-Herald. Other members of the party were Father Shanahan, representing American Catholic publications, and Maurice Votaw, an employee of the Chinese Information Ministry, denounced by the other correspondents as a “Kuomintang stooge” and attached to the party as nominal representative of the Baltimore Sun. After heavy pressure by the correspondents a second group consisting of Brooks Atkinson, Theodore White and Harold Isaacs of Newsweek were permitted to go in September.

  *2 In November 1944, in view of Stilwell’s reported remarks to the effect that the Indian Army was inert and its officers lethargic, a Conservative M.P., Mr. Reginald Purbrick, asked in the House of Commons that Stilwell be declared persona non grata in any area where British troops were engaged. Several years after the war, General Alexander remarked in conversation with General Boatner, “Dear old Joe—he could be mighty naughty at times.”

  *3 The existing copy of this message is undated and may have been sent at some other time in the ensuing crisis but the principle remains the same.

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  The Limits of “Can Do” September–November 1944

  THE QUESTION WAS PREMATURE for Chiang’s acceptance was so far only verbal and none of his three conditions had been met. When Hurley opened negotiations on September 8 a new point of dispute emerged. The Generalissimo demanded that the Chinese divisions at Myitkyina should attack southward toward Bhamo to draw off the Japanese from Lungling. Stilwell objected on the ground that the troops needed rest, while the Yoke divisions, which had received no replacements at all since going into action in May, could take Lungling if they were brought up to strength. In any event, he estimated, the Japanese could probably resist an attack at Bhamo without withdrawing troops from Lungling. Officially his refusal was justified because Chiang could not give orders for action in Mountbatten’s theater. But in slighting the Generalissimo’s judgment, he gave him new cause for resentment that was shortly to have a critical result.

  With regard to the Communists Chiang repeated his condition that they must be incorporated into the Chinese Army under his overall authority before Stilwell could take command. As chief of state he could require no less but it was not a condition likely to be fulfilled. The British Ambassador, Sir Horace Seymour, queried by his Government at this time as to whether an effort should be made to bring the two parties in China to a compromise, thought that nothing could come of it. The Kuomintang, he advised, was already discredited, its military command “childishly incompetent” and the high fighting value of the Chinese soldier merely wasted. Knowing this and conscious of the strength of their own position, the Communists would make no vital surrender to the Central Government. If this much was plain to Sir Horace, it could not have been entirely unsuspected by Chiang Kai-shek. His condition was one on which the Stilwell appointment would be certain to founder, if on nothing else.

  When it came to Lend-Lease, T. V. Soong made it clear that the Generalissimo must have control. Hurley, as Stilwell recorded, “told him to write down DISAGREED in capital letters….That’s what the G–mo is after: just a blank check. Now we come to the showdown.” The blank check was now a richer prize than before owing to Stilwell’s success in north Burma. The capture of Myitkyina had enabled the ATC to fly a more southerly route without fear of Japanese fighters, thus shortening and flattening the Hump trip with astonishing results. Deliveries jumped to 18,000 tons in June, 25,000 in July, 29,000 in August and were to reach almost 30,000 in September, 35,000 in October and 39,000 in November. In fact there was no Hump after Myitkyina. By the time the Road was reopened in January 1945 the ATC was able to deliver more per month than the land route, causing Stilwell’s enemies to gloat at this proof of how stupid and obsolete had been his insistence on the Road all along. But the full result of the flattening of the Hump had not been foreseen; and the man who flattened it was the combat infantryman on the ground.

  By now the poverty of his armies was forcing itself on Chiang’s notice. Refusing to believe reports that sick and starving conscripts were dying at a staging center in downtown Chungking, he sent his son to investigate, who confirmed the truth. According to the story that was all over town within hours, Chiang went to see for himself, and finding conditions as stated, with two recruits lying dead in a corner, he flew into a rage, beat the Chief of Conscription in the face with his cane and ordered him arrested. A new man was appointed to his post but the system remained unchanged. In the month of August 138 dead soldiers were picked up in the streets of Kunming. Chiang was reported finally to be considering measures to consolidate divisions, as Stilwell had recommended two years before.

  In his shaky circumstances Chiang badly needed to control the distribution of war material, and especially to keep it out of the hands of the Communists. At the next conference with Hurley on September 12 he was “very difficult,” insisted on control of Lend-Lease and said that Stilwell, presumably because of Lend-Lease, had “more real power in China” than he had. According to the new American proposal, distribution of Lend-Lease was to be handled by an American commission sitting in Chungking with a Chinese representative, but this was no safeguard to the Generalissimo. His problem was clearly seen and stated by Gauss: with the war approaching the China coast, “it appears that we are to be faced inevitably with the problem of determining whether the Chinese Communists are to be supplied with American arms and equipment in the struggle against Japan.” Since this would have to be done against the will of Chiang Kai-shek, Gauss pointed out, the decision could bring about the fall of his regime.

  Stil
well stated his position on the Communists flatly and frankly in a memorandum for Hurley. “The 18th Group Army (Reds) will be used. There must be no misunderstanding on this point. They can be brought to bear where there will be no conflict with Central Government troops but they must be accepted as part of the team during the crisis.”

  This was not exactly a conspirator’s undercover plot to use the Communists to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek as was later, in the hysterical days of American anti-Communism, suggested. Hurley, who subsequently joined and largely assisted the hysteria, at this time took Stilwell’s proposition for granted and made no demurrer. Stilwell was equally plain with Marshall. “If CKS and Co are allowed to control supplies you know who will get them. You also know who will not get them. Somehow we must get arms to the Communists who will fight.” In the last three words lay his interest.

  He received a visit on September 13 from two Communist emissaries who brought greetings from Chu Teh and Mao. He did not record what was discussed except to report to Marshall that “They have communicated with me and will fight under my command but not under a Chinese commander designated by CKS.” According to his diary he told his visitors he would go to Yenan and they departed much pleased.