Zhou was more interested in litigating the past—laying out a theory of failure that would reflect well on his side. He surveyed events since Marshall’s arrival in China almost eight months before. “At the beginning of this period we had been devotedly pursuing the road you have proposed,” he claimed, “and, even though we confronted certain difficulties, we never wavered from that course.” Yet look what Washington had done in return. It had continued to fund Chiang’s war machine despite a stated commitment to peace. It had transported troops and given Chiang his own air force and navy. The Nationalist military position had markedly improved. “It is easy to draw the conclusion that we are actually being ‘roped in’ and are in the first stage of being ‘beaten up,’ ” Zhou continued. “We almost fell into a trap.”
There had long been fundamental contradictions in U.S. policy, Zhou observed. Now, he told Marshall, “the contradictions are reflected on you.”
CHAPTER 12
George Marshall Can’t Walk on Water
The contradictions were clear to Marshall from the start. Eight months earlier, he had pressed the question with President Truman, with Secretary of State Byrnes, with officers and aides: what should he do if the Generalissimo did not cooperate? No one had wanted to contemplate that possibility. But Marshall did not let it go, and Truman conceded that, ultimately, Washington would have to back Chiang.
Chiang, of course, knew this detail. There had been the leak from the White House, and on top of that, the signs had become more and more clear to him as Marshall’s mission ran its course. In a world split between two sides, the only thing that really mattered was which side he was on. Now he was calling Marshall’s bluff.
Marshall, however, was not simply folding. On August 10, he and Stuart issued an arresting public statement, his most dramatic public gesture in China in eight months. “Fighting is daily growing more widespread and threatens to engulf the country and pass beyond the control of those responsible,” it warned.
The statement’s purpose, Marshall explained to Truman, “was to bring both sides, along with the public in China, to a realization of the crisis and impending chaos.” Zhou deemed it an admission of failure. Nationalists grumbled that they had not been allowed to review the text. From the public, there was an outpouring of pleas for persistence. “I know what a heart-breaking task it must have been and must be for you,” wrote a man in Shanghai. “But you must not and should not be discouraged or disheartened.” A group of “overseas Chinese,” in San Francisco, wrote: “We entreat you to exert your final efforts to save the critical situation for the welfare of the 450 million people of China who are confronted with imminent calamity of perdition.”
That same day, in Washington, a State Department official showed up at the Chinese embassy with another statement in hand. This one was from the president, for the Generalissimo’s private consumption. In relaying it back to China, Chiang’s ambassador cautioned that the language was “unusually strong.”
Truman’s letter began by stressing that Marshall spoke for the entire American government, and his warnings should be taken accordingly. From there, it described in detail how recent events in China had affected views in the United States—driving both the administration and the public toward the “conclusion that the selfish interests of extremist elements, equally in the Kuomintang as in the Communist Party, are hindering the aspirations of the Chinese people.” It mentioned dismay over stalled democratization, over the influence of “militarists” and “reactionaries,” and over the “cruel murders” of liberals. The conclusion could be read only as an ultimatum: “Unless convincing proof is shortly forthcoming that genuine progress is being made toward a peaceful settlement of China’s internal problems, it must be expected that American opinion will not continue in its generous attitude towards your nation.”
It was signed by Truman, but the text came from Marshall. Initially, Truman had intended to deliver a public message of alarm. Marshall pushed back, arguing that a “statement sufficiently strong to cause a decisive change in the Gimo’s attitude and that of some of his more powerful advisers would almost inevitably so encourage the Communist Party as to change their present attitude to one of unmalleability or intransigency.” The letter was his alternative, a private reinforcement of his public warning. Marshall was also adamant about one logistical detail: neither he nor Stuart should deliver the letter, out of regard for the Generalissimo’s “face.” The parallels between this dispatch and the one that had brought Stilwell’s ejection during World War II were clear. Marshall was angry with Chiang but, unlike Vinegar Joe, saw no point in publicly humiliating him.
When Chiang read the letter, he asked Marshall to come to Kuling as soon as possible.
Mao had been working out a new theory. For the past year, Yenan had set policy on the assumption that the world situation inhibited the pursuit of armed revolution, at least as long as Moscow and Washington were talking rather than fighting. Mao’s new theory said otherwise. Between the two superpowers, there was an “intermediate zone” that included China—and it was in this zone that the battle between revolution and reaction would initially be fought. Even without a US-Soviet war, there could still be war between US- and Soviet-backed armies.
Mao articulated his theory in an interview with a sympathetic American journalist named Anna Louise Strong. His new geopolitical vision was matched with newfound military brazenness. “The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the U.S. reactionaries use to scare people,” he bristled as Strong transcribed. “All reactionaries are paper tigers.” In a war against Washington’s “running dogs,” his side would surely win: “We have only millet plus rifles to rely on, but history will finally prove that our millet plus rifles is more powerful than Chiang Kai-shek’s airplanes and tanks.”
For months those around Mao had sensed him wrestling with the choice of whether to definitively end his party’s show of cooperation. He had long been confident that in a full-scale war the Communists could at least fight to a draw. More recently, he had found cause for greater confidence. On the ground the conflict was developing along lines he had envisioned for decades. Years before, he had formulated strategies of “protracted war,” with his side retreating and biding its time while internal problems weakened the adversary. He had trained commanders to “lure the enemy deep” and then direct guerrilla strikes at the resulting vulnerabilities—or as he explained to peasant fighters, “the God of Thunder strikes the beancurd.” He had imparted an instructional verse: when the enemy advances, we withdraw; when the enemy rests, we harass; when the enemy tires, we attack; when the enemy withdraws, we pursue.
It was the approach he was taking now. He had made a mistake in Manchuria in the spring, hunkering down in urban positions against large Nationalist armies. Since then his forces had been retreating to the countryside, building strength for counterattacks to come as Chiang’s lines stretched thin. As American intelligence assessed, “In view of the vastness of the country and the strong hold of the Communists in extensive rural areas, the Nationalists have little or no more prospect of eliminating them as a military factor than they had in the futile ‘extermination campaigns’ of 1930–1935.” Mao gave his forces a new name: the People’s Liberation Army.
One hot summer evening, CCP representatives invited Till Durdin to dinner. Durdin had finished his stint on Marshall’s staff and returned to the New York Times in late July. But the message from his hosts seemed meant for his erstwhile boss’s ears: if the Nationalists kept attacking, the Communists would not just fight back; they would seek as much Russian help as they could get.
Then came Yenan’s response to Marshall and Stuart. Far from shocking the Communists into geniality, their statement brought a fierce reaction. An August 14 Emancipation Daily editorial included the kind of invective that had become common in the previous six weeks, but went a step further: “General Marshall himself is not above blame.” At first he had managed some real agreements, it explained, but since then had
stood by, complicit, as Chiang tore them up. “In this way,” the editorial charged, “7 1/2 months of ‘mediation’ have produced large scale civil war in China.” Never before had Marshall been so directly and publicly vilified.
At 10:45 the next morning, Marshall saw Zhou, along with Walter Robertson and General Yeh, the CCP Executive Headquarters commissioner. Both had been summoned from Beijing to discuss the Anping ambush. After Marshall’s earlier ultimatum, the Communists had agreed to cooperate with the investigation—and then dragged it into a morass of procedural disputes. At first, in fact unaware of the circumstances of the attack, Zhou had assumed the Marines were to blame. But even as the truth emerged, he remained impenitent. “The American Marines are virtually assisting the Nationalist troops, and freak accidents are bound to occur,” he threatened. “No one can be sure that no other incident will take place.”
Marshall stressed to Zhou that continued obstruction would make progress impossible. “I am being deprived of almost every argument and the Government is being furnished, in its opinion, the justification of all its contentions,” Marshall said. Anping risked being the shoal on which the mission ran aground, and it would be the Communists’ fault.
Yet even after his own public castigation by the CCP, Marshall resisted making that warning public. It was the same quandary he faced with Chiang: saying something vehement enough to move one side in a constructive direction would encourage the other side to move in a damaging one. In this case, Nationalist hard-liners would take a blistering statement about Anping as ultimate vindication, and any remaining hope of a peaceful resolution would vanish. Marshall could not quite make that break. Although he recognized the Communists were becoming more radical, he hoped it was still a negotiating tactic rather than a permanent change.
Marshall left Ning Hai Road before the meeting ended. He had gotten Chiang’s request that he set off for Kuling as soon as he could.
Chiang was no more moved by Marshall’s public statement than Zhou was. “The Communists bully and insult the U.S. and Marshall like this, and yet Marshall still insists on mediating,” Chiang complained in his diary. “Isn’t it wishful thinking?”
When Marshall reached Kuling, it became clear that Truman’s letter had not delivered the desired salutary shock either. Chiang said little about his side’s infractions, and his price for a return to real negotiation was if anything higher than before. Marshall responded with what was becoming a litany: the “geographical weakness” of the Nationalists’ military position, the likelihood of political and economic collapse if war spread, the vulnerability of a conflict-ridden China to Soviet subversion or domination—all the consequence of a “ruinous” approach. But Marshall did not think his argument did much good.
“I have never seen anyone as stubborn as him,” Chiang said afterward. He was discouraged, summarizing in his diary: “Marshall still believes that our taking military action against the Communists will only bring about a full-scale civil war and cause our defeat. And if we will use political negotiations and try to resolve our problems by making compromises, there is greater hope for peace.” It was an accurate recapitulation of Marshall’s case, and Chiang did not buy it. Trying to negotiate with the CCP was, he thought, like “trying to catch a fish in a tree.” He had held back his armies in the pursuit of compromise too many times before; he would not be fooled again.
Fortunately for him, Nationalist generals were still confident in their military prospects, despite Marshall’s fretting. To them, such fretting was increasingly beside the point—as they were saying openly, even to American officials. Whatever the insistence in Truman’s letter, they thought the imperatives of US-Soviet competition would ultimately override Marshall. They might have to listen to his nagging for now, murmuring acquiescence through gritted teeth. But when war came, such lofty concerns would fall away, and they would get the American help they wanted. It was a classic stratagem: borrowing the fearsomeness of the tiger.
“I am sure that you realize that the enclosed letter contains criticism of certain individuals responsible for U.S. policy in the Far East,” read a note that reached Chiang in August. The enclosed letter pronounced Marshall’s approach “unsound” and endorsed the advice that Chiang was getting from hard-line advisers: “air and ground forces should be disposed so that they can quickly and effectively suppress or annihilate Communist agitators and their armed forces.”
What was notable was the letter’s author: would-be ambassador Wedemeyer. Back stateside, his hopes of quickly returning to China dashed, he was spreading the word about Chiang’s cause. The reaction in key quarters, he related, was encouraging.
Wedemeyer’s griping about the canceled appointment had gone beyond the odd comment to reporters around Washington. Almost as soon as he had finished assuring Marshall that he bore no resentment—“whatever you advise in this regard I shall accept as gospel”—Wedemeyer rushed to peddle a different message. Before long, he was writing Patrick Hurley, Marshall’s predecessor as envoy, to complain about Marshall’s folly. He was asking the Chinese embassy for help with public speaking. He was complaining that “Marshall’s own statements concerning China are taken as equivalent to Bible texts by the U.S. people.” He was claiming, to Chiang and around Washington, that “so long as our policy remains unrealistic, I want no part of the job in China.” Ignoring his own indiscretion, he blamed traitorous State Department officials for the leaks about his presumed appointment.
Wedemeyer understood the changing American mood, and placed emphasis accordingly. “Exactly what happened to cause Dr. Stuart to be appointed,” he wrote suggestively to one Nationalist official, “I am not at liberty to state but I feel certain that you surmise.” Soon even that much restraint was gone: “Apparently there was opposition to my return on the part of certain individuals who knew that I would not tolerate half way measures in dealing with the Communist situation.” If such appeasement continued, he took to warning, “all of Asia in less than a generation will come under Soviet domination by means short of war.”
Wedemeyer had always concealed an element of perfidy beneath a surface of polished assurance. He had earned Marshall’s regard by brilliance as a planner and tactician in the opening stretch of World War II. Even then, however, he held the America First view that the United States had been tricked into World War I and counted the pilot-turned-arch-isolationist Charles Lindbergh as a close friend. Before that, Wedemeyer had been posted to Nazi Germany and come away persuaded that “however much one disapproved of Hitler’s methods, the feeling of the German people that he had raised them out of the abyss was real.” After the war, he remained fixated on the dangerous influence of Jews, especially in the “money-making areas”—part of a “planned penetration by certain exponents of contrary ideologies.”
By the time Marshall got around to sending a note of apology about the ambassadorial role, Wedemeyer’s whisper campaign was already under way. “I am so sorry,” Marshall wrote. “Altogether you have been made to suffer too much by my actions and I regret it very much.” Wedemeyer sent Marshall a gift—a book called The Great Globe Itself by William Bullitt, a former ambassador to Moscow who had become a strident critic of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. (Marshall despised Bullitt because of an incident during the war.) The book called for a unified anti-Soviet bloc to counter the Kremlin. Marshall read it on a summer day in Kuling.
Katherine called it his “death struggle.” As summer crawled along, Marshall implored both sides to accept that their best interest lay in a different path. He reiterated to Chiang the risks—political, economic, strategic—of aggressive military action. He went back and forth from Nanjing to Kuling, up and down the mountain. He said many times that he was on the verge of giving up. He was not giving up.
The Nationalists expanded the fight and maintained unrealistically stringent conditions for another cease-fire. They talked about proceeding with political reform, but without Communist involvement. Their American-supplied plan
es strafed Yenan.
The Communists called cadres to battle. An order was broadcast over the radio for all to hear: supporters everywhere should prepare to “shatter Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s offensive.” American intelligence judged it a “mobilization of all Communist forces for a full-scale civil war.” Party spokesmen called the Nationalists “killers,” “fascist profiteers,” “cannibalistic, murderous, rotten.”
The Soviets openly condemned the Generalissimo. It was a sign, the American embassy in Moscow concluded, that “Chiang cannot be counted on to serve or acquiesce in Soviet purposes” and that “the USSR had washed out in its plans the likelihood of a Chinese coalition Government.”
Truce teams retreated from the field to the Executive Headquarters in Beijing, the American officers conceding that they were accomplishing nothing. Both Communist and Nationalist team members walked away and did not come back.
The subtropical summer got even more oppressive. On Ning Hai Road, it could be 90 degrees indoors during the day, and only slightly cooler at night. There was malaria in the embassy. “In the heat,” said Melby, “all those with influence have fled to the hills.”
But Marshall pushed on, layering demands on weary aides. “The old man is working like the devil,” reported one, “but the irreconcilables on both sides are still irreconcilables.”
Even as he labored, Marshall saw influence draining away from those open to compromise to those bent on fighting. He saw the Communists deliberately provoking the Nationalists into action, the Nationalists intent on “a policy of force as the only acceptable solution.” He saw both sides trying to manipulate him to their own ends, playing for time and stalling as it suited them. He saw himself getting swept up in a “tornado of propaganda.”
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