We were just alone and she had prepared (she always had and still has a wonderful Chinese chef)… a divine dinner just for the two of us. Then she took me into the sitting room, sat me down, and she proceeded to give me a sermon. She got up, and it was really an evangelist sermon. It was like a Baptist harangue… she told me that I must, I must realize that this was God’s will, that I must not fight it because God had further plans for Seymour’s life after death.… And then she went on to tell me, ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re going through, because I too had a deep love for someone that I was thinking of giving up everything for.’… She said she was willing to divorce the general, do anything, etc… It was Willkie.*
THE NEXT STOP on Madame Chiang’s tour was Wellesley College. During the previous year, the school had awarded her an honorary LLD and established a fund in her name. There was, however, some confusion about the donations, since the college planned to use them to “cultivate an interest in China on the Wellesley College campus,” while Madame Chiang expected them to be sent directly to her. The money was eventually put aside to pay for scholarships, and later that year, Madame Chiang sent the fund a gift of $25,000.
Madame and her party arrived at Boston’s South Station, where, in spite of a snowstorm, five thousand people were waiting to greet her. Traveling in an armored car with Secret Service men lent by President Roosevelt, she made a hurried trip through Boston’s Chinatown before heading out to Wellesley, where a battery of photographers was waiting for her. Later that day she joined eighty members of her class for tea. Unlike May-ling, who had progressed from pudgy to svelte, many of her classmates had put on weight and settled into stout middle age—a fact Madame didn’t hesitate to mention to one or two of them. In the style of the day, many had arrived wearing large, unattractive hats, which May-ling asked them to take off so she could see their faces. Their reactions to her must have added to a vanity already well nourished by the press: “It was hard to believe that this slender, graceful person… was the same chunky little Chinese girl with the round chubby face and sometimes frizzed pompadour of our freshman year,” commented a classmate from Pittsburgh. “She looked at least 15 years younger than most of us did.” And according to another, “She seemed so young and fresh and vivacious, and the rest of us seemed so fortyish.”
The one time during her tour that May-ling seemed to be overcome with genuine emotion occurred at the beginning of the speech she gave at the college. As she started speaking, she teared up and gripped the sides of the rostrum. According to an observer, “Students, Faculty, Friends, they all held their breath, as Madam Chiang set her teeth hard into her lip (‘I bit it as hard as I could,’ she said later that afternoon. ‘It still hurts!’).” After a little more than a minute, two applications of smelling salts, and a glass of water supplied by one of the nurses who had accompanied her, she gained control and was able to speak. “Strong emotions often tend to render one inarticulate,” she said. “It is not easy for me… to express my feelings today.… During the years of absence from Wellesley I have often thought and wished for the moment when I would be able to return.”
After her speech, there were the usual comments about Madame’s esoteric vocabulary. In an article called “Mme. Chiang Stumps Even Her Teacher,” the reporter for The Christian Science Monitor listed indehiscence (a botanical term for the state of being closed at maturity), maunder (to move slowly and uncertainly), and cenote (a sinkhole) among a list of eight difficult words she had used, saying that even Wellesley professors had to consult their dictionaries. There were also endless articles about the fact that during a walking tour of the campus, Madame wore slacks—a departure from college rules that encouraged Wellesley to change its clothing regulations.
After her visit to Wellesley, Madame Chiang spoke at Symphony Hall in Boston, then returned to New York, where she spent some days in seclusion before setting off for the West. During her several stays at the Waldorf, the Secret Service men assigned to her were informed by her nephew when she was planning to go out so that they could clear the hall between her suite and the elevator and between the elevator and the hotel exit. More often than not, however, she did not appear until several hours later. When the head of the Secret Service asked her to try to stick more closely to the time indicated, she insisted that he be removed. Apparently, her young niece and nephew were just as arrogant in their behavior as their aunt.
There was the usual crowd of onlookers waiting outside Union Station in Chicago when Madame arrived there on March 19, the usual gathering of officials to greet her, and the usual refurbished suite at the best hotel in the city. Once again, an excess of security had been provided—seventy policemen, four policewomen, and a quantity of Secret Service. There was the usual reception, for which she wore black velvet trimmed with red sequins, matched by earrings, rings, and brooch of rubies and diamonds. As before, she emphasized China’s need for more airpower at her press conference, accepted more money for China relief, and gave another address in favor of cooperation among the nations. Responding to a recent speech by Churchill, in which he had suggested that Britain, the United States, and Russia should be in charge of the postwar world, she wrote Chiang that she had not only set in motion action by Roosevelt to counteract Churchill but had been promised that there would be speeches in the Senate and House as well, saying that China should be among the four postwar powers. And as usual, she made a superb impression. Carl Sandburg, Chicago’s famous poet, commented on her “perfection at chiseling syllables. She is a marvel at timing her pauses and making each word count,” he said. “… Yet she doesn’t know how she does it any more than Ty Cobb knew which one of his eleven ways of sliding to second he was using.”
On March 25, the train containing Madame’s private Pullman car, previously used by President Roosevelt, arrived at the Oakland station across the bay from San Francisco. Transferring to a U.S. Navy yacht escorted by two Coast Guard cutters and a fireboat spewing water displays, Madame Chiang and a large reception committee arrived at a San Francisco pier, where they were met by an honor guard of soldiers, sailors, marines, the city’s municipal band, and Chinese children waving flags. From the Embarcadero, the party proceeded up Grant Avenue, the main street of the Chinese quarter of the city, where kites were flying, streamers were blowing in the breeze, and most of the inhabitants of the largest Chinese colony in the Western Hemisphere had gathered to greet her. When she reached the Palace Hotel, she retired with her youngest brother, T.A., until it was time to go to her first public event, which took place at City Hall and included more Chinese children, marching bands, and military units, along with flowered floats. During a press conference the following day, she answered a question about postwar trade between the United States and China by saying that the possibilities “are so great that man’s imagination can hardly encompass them. We have great need of your engineering and technical skill and of your manufactured products. In return, we have raw materials and we are a market of 450,000,000 people.”
While in San Francisco, May-ling invited General Stilwell’s wife and daughters to tea. “Mme. Chiang saw my husband before she left China,” said Mrs. Stilwell afterward, “and she says he’s in fine shape. It will be the greatest thing for General Stilwell’s morale when he hears about this,” she added in what one might guess was purposeful (or inadvertent) sarcasm. There was the usual banquet for more than a thousand people and the usual speech at the Civic Auditorium. It is not surprising that Lauchlin Currie found fault with Madame’s excessive rhetoric. The man who had once admired her way with words took exception to the following sentence: “The present Nazi and Shintoistic indoctrinations of mendacity and deceit I attribute to the disjunctive reasoning of warped minds and they cannot endure; for only the truth and the conviction of the truth of human postulates can withstand the onslaughts of time and violence.”
But as in other cities, reporters fell all over themselves trying to describe her. “Who is this woman of the ivory satin skin,
the perfect English tinged with a slight Southern accent, the soul of an unconquerable nation in her piercing eyes?” asked one woman reporter. An editorial writer for the San Francisco Chronicle was even more carried away: “Madame Chiang’s visit to San Francisco marks a turning point that perhaps is of the most profound importance in our entire record of civilization… she is the symbol of a China where, for the first time since history was put into written records, there is a practically united people. Moreover, she is the symbol of women’s power and achievement, for she, more than any other single human factor, performed the miracle of unity.”
But another old friend and adviser, Owen Lattimore, now director of Pacific Operations and head of the Office of War Information in San Francisco, was hurt and infuriated by her. Having just sent her a collection of recordings of all of her speeches and broadcasts in the United States, he was surprised and distressed not to have been invited to a reception “for chosen important Americans.” According to Lattimore, he spoke to her public relations aide, saying “in a rather mild way, that I thought it was a mistake from the Chinese point of view not to invite to this reception the man who had been the personal adviser to the Generalissimo, because people might misinterpret it as a sign of a disagreement or trouble within his regime.” The PR man agreed and invited Lattimore to the reception. But when his turn came to file past Madame and shake hands, “she did not say a word to me, nor did she put her hand out. She looked at the next person coming up, acting as if I were not even there. I do not think that the cold attitude of Madame Chiang was because she was angry with me.… She thought that I was no longer useful and dropped me.”
May-ling’s last stop on her official tour of the United States was Los Angeles, where the celebrations had been taken over by Hollywood—the studio executives behind the scenes and the stars whose appearances they ordered up for various events. These included a reception held for what the Los Angeles Times called “the elite… the ultra-elite, and… a small group of about 12… who constituted the ultra of the ultra.” This event took place in the Ambassador Hotel, where Madame Chiang was staying. With her astute sense of the hierarchical—political, financial, and social—it probably came as no surprise to her that the heads of the studios—“the ultra of the ultra”— were the people chosen to meet her privately in her suite. But the highlight of her stop in Los Angeles was a superproduction at the Hollywood Bowl. It was, according to the official book of her visit, “one of the most stirring and gorgeously staged events of Mme. Chiang’s entire tour.” In another book, it was more accurately described as “overdetermined historical display.”
The shell of the Bowl had been painted bright blue, and an enormous stage had been erected, along with special boxes for the most important dignitaries. A trumpet blast, which announced the program, was followed by a welcome to the audience of thirty thousand by the mayor of Los Angeles. Spencer Tracy then introduced a parade of famous female stars led by Mary Pickford. The audience applauded for each one: Joan Bennett, Ingrid Bergman, Ida Lupino, Ginger Rogers, Irene Dunne, Deanna Durbin, Marlene Dietrich, Kay Francis, Judy Garland, Janet Gaynor, Rita Hayworth, Dorothy Lamour, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Barbara Stanwyck, Shirley Temple, Lana Turner, and Loretta Young. After a drumroll, a detachment of infantry came onstage, followed by a large contingent of marines, sailors, and cadets from the Army Air Corps—all with their appropriate anthems. Last came the merchant marines, who stood at attention along with their compatriots while the Los Angeles Philharmonic “reinforced by several bands,” played a marching song from the Chinese army. After the servicemen presented arms, Madame finally appeared, riding into the amphitheater in an open Rolls-Royce with eight Chinese cadets walking alongside. The audience stood while she was handed out of the car and led to a box, where she sat just in front of the stars. As she took her seat, Mary Pickford, wearing an enormous flowered hat, came over, bowed, and presented her with a bouquet of American Beauty roses.
An invocation by a Methodist bishop, followed by “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the Chinese national anthem, led into an elaborate pageant called “China, a Symphonic Narrative”—an enactment of Chinese history with five hundred Chinese extras, narrated by Walter Huston. “A woman has swept the cobwebs from this nation’s past,” he announced as a huge flag crossed the stage with the carriers hidden behind it. After the flag came actors dressed as Chinese peasants, their bodies doubled over to indicate hardship, their faces hidden by coolie straw hats. They were followed by nubile Chinese girls bearing flowers. “Soon the nation will celebrate its harvest” was the announcement interrupted by booming guns, which sent the actors fleeing into the wings. “China which was never bred for war.… People of China, take heart, do not despair.… The China of tomorrow speaks through a valiant woman’s voice.… The China that gives us our great and gallant guest.”
If Madame Chiang was amazed by this overwrought and graceless rendering of Chinese history, she gave no sign of it. Speaking slowly and deliberately, she wove her usual spell over the audience, demanding respect with her voice—never too high nor too low—and her message. She was the only person that this writer has ever heard utter the words “Yes, alas!” and not sound like a fool.* If anything, the blatant artificiality of what preceded her speech only made her appear more genuine and dignified. “We were simply bowled over by Madame, who was way ahead of her press agentry,” said David O. Selznick, adding that he was disappointed that people did not seem to have paid enough attention to the “symphonic narrative” and “march” created for the occasion—compositions he called “the first important serious music to come out of the war.”
THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL was Madame Chiang’s last public appearance in the country, although she did not return to China until three months later. T.V., who had originally disapproved of her trip, thought she had overstayed her welcome and told her so more than once. His concerns were borne out when she returned to New York in April and began commenting on the situation in India, causing the infuriated viceroy to lodge a protest and request a promise that Madame Chiang would issue no more “mischievous statements.”
In early May, Chiang cabled May-ling to come home. In spite of this, she traveled to her old school in Georgia and paid an official visit to Canada before returning to the East Coast. She enjoyed her trip to Canada, where she addressed Parliament, throwing in a few words like “ochlocracy” (mob rule) and “immane” (monstrously cruel). According to DeLong, Madame believed Canada gave her “a bigger welcome than [it] would have her nemesis Churchill.” When Emma told her that she had missed the broadcast of her speech there, May-ling read it aloud to her friend herself. “How do you think it compares with the other talks?” she asked. “Which one did you like best?”
She had asked Emma to meet her at Bear Mountain State Park in the Hudson Valley, fifty miles north of Manhattan. When Emma arrived, May-ling told her that she had seen Willkie the day before, and since it was raining they had played gin rummy at $10 a game, the winnings to be given to war orphans. Willkie kept winning. “I tried everything to distract him,” May-ling said, “teased him about kissing the ballerina in Moscow, and kissing Chinese babies, but to no avail. After he had won seven games straight, I threw the cards in his face and quit.” That morning she had received a wire from him: “The gospel according to Hoyle* prescribes that angels don’t throw cards and the[y] should pay their debts.” There were other communications as well. In one letter sent to “My dear May” and signed “Affectionately yours,” Willkie said he “would never forget the delightful chats we had together while you were in the United States and also your little lectures.”
Joseph Kennedy had three long visits with Madame Chiang at the Waldorf before she returned to China. “She strikes me as a most interesting and attractive woman,” he wrote in his diary.
There are definitely two facets to her personality, one is the statesman, the manager of the airplane business, assistant to the Generalissimo.… The other definite side of her chara
cter is a charming female. She smiles. She appeared to be horrified when I told her she had sex appeal and immediately asked if I meant like Gypsy Rose Lee. I said not exactly that, but if she wanted another word, charm. I said I thought that it helped her to sell herself to the American public, but she said that women like her as well as men and I said her charm did that for the women, but her appeal helps her with the men. She always appeared to be horrified but I secretly thought she rather liked it.
On my first visit she read me two of her stories that she had written when she was 19, one rather a staid one and one rather a naughty one.… She reads beautifully and on my last visit she read me her two broadcasts.… She told me she writes all her own speeches and does all her own research.… She told me she had been approached here by a syndicate for three articles a week and she asked me how much I thought she had been offered. I said possibly $10,000 a week and she said a million and a half dollars. This sounds almost incredible, but… it may not be unlikely because of the international force of her personality and her ability.
At the end of June, May-ling’s old friend and “official shopper,” Mrs. C. T. Feng, went home to California—a sure indication that Madame herself was about to return to China. Wife of the Chinese consul general in San Francisco, Feng had been in attendance on May-ling for close to three months, purchasing silk and woolen fabrics and shopping for items of clothing, shoes, and furs at Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman.* One woman, who was young at the time, with a body similar to May-ling’s still recalls trying on fur coats at Bergdorf to be sent to Madame’s hotel.
By the time May-ling left the United States, an amount of $800,000 to $900,000† had apparently been deposited in her account, representing the total of several different transfers, most of them made in May before she left. In each case, she had endorsed the checks and turned them over to David Kung for deposit to his personal account. There is no way of knowing where the money came from, but some say it was given to Kung to open an office in New York to deal with his aunt’s correspondence and some shipping business of his own. David, who complained that he was exhausted from the strain of his aunt’s visit, had asked an American girl from the Chinese News Service, who had been assigned to May-ling’s staff, to be his secretary, but she had refused because, as she put it, “I hate his guts and so does everyone else.” Queried about David’s sister, Jeanette, who had apparently made unwarranted advances to her, the secretary labeled her an “insufferable pig.” This attitude was echoed—although more politely—by the ever-obliging publicity man, Hollington Tong, who had been blamed for the many confusions arising from contradictory orders given by the two young Kungs. Having been “insulted by the Kungs, pushed around and brushed off,” he had evidently become “so fed up with the entire show” that he was considering resigning from government service.
The Last Empress Page 57