Another four days passed before Stilwell finally discovered that the driving force behind his unaccomplished removal was T.V., who had twice wired Chiang from Washington that he must be recalled. “He [T.V.] had it all set up with the G-mo, when May & Ella heard of it,” Stilwell wrote. “At once there was a hell of a fight. Ella finally told me yesterday that I didn’t know the half of it but ultimately would. Said she had to choose between ‘her own flesh and blood’ (T.V.) and the good of China. Gave me a lot of slop on their size-up of me. Regrets we did not get together a year ago.… Says my position is greatly improved & that no further attacks will be made,—positive about this, so I suppose T.V. got a good swat.”
Needless to say, the sisters never told Stilwell that their campaign was based on the split in the Song family. According to Alsop, who worked in an annex of Soong’s house and saw him when he came home, there was “a tremendous family fight which went on for about two days in the Generalissimo’s villa up on the hill. I can recall Dr. Soong coming back from these sessions in a state of complete exhaustion. Madame Kung and Madame Chiang*… maintained… that American aid for China depended on General Stilwell.… The ladies said, ‘If you throw the American hero out of command in China, you will become very unpopular with the United States and you won’t get any airplanes or any guns, or anything else.”
Having failed in his machinations and caused Chiang to lose face, T.V. underwent what John Service called a “dramatic eclipse” vis-à-vis Chiang. According to Stilwell, “there was a fight there and he [T.V.] was told [by Chiang Kai-shek] to be sick and go home.” What Stilwell did not realize was that the fight had been about him. Many years later, T.V. told his nephew Leo Soong that he had returned from Washington to inform Chiang that he had finally “secured the unqualified support and understanding of the U.S. Administration” for Stilwell’s removal. He met with the G-mo over breakfast, but when he gave him the good news, Chiang said that he had recently seen Stilwell (the meeting arranged by the sisters), who had “pledged that he would be much more cooperative in the future.” Hence, Chiang wanted to give him “another chance.” T.V. was infuriated. “Are you the chief of an African tribe that you should change your mind so capriciously?” he asked. Chiang became so angry that he slammed his fist on the table, upsetting and breaking dishes. In the opinion of Leo Soong, “Dr. Soong had over stepped the boundaries of normal argumentation or discourse and crossed over into personal insult which failed to respect the office of Chief of State.” As punishment for his insubordination, T.V. was forced to stay in seclusion in his home in Chungking—his every move monitored by Chiang’s goons—and to remain there while Chiang and May-ling attended the Cairo Conference the following month. On their return, Chiang received the following letter of apology. Dated December 23, 1943, it remains a masterpiece of Chinese mea culpa:
“In the past two months,” T.V. wrote,
I have isolated myself and undergone deep introspection. My faults and recalcitrances are numerous, and there is no limit of my pain and regret. Although officially our relationship is like a subordinate to a superior, affectionately we are just like one’s own flesh and blood.… After the outbreak of the War of Resistance… the only thing I kept in my mind was to immerse myself in work and, under your guidance, devote my tiny strength to winning the final victory. However, I am a foolish and naive person, and my behavior is always fraught with sharpness and foolhardiness. When it comes to looking at the general situation, I was careless and uncomprehending. What is worse, I have been spoiled by your over-protection and over-affection for me, so that whenever I tried to argue for my position, I was bigoted in my opinions and so tactless that it hurt. These are my… mistakes, and I must rely on Your Excellency’s teaching and inspiration to correct my stubbornness and dullness.… After you admonished me and I repented, I realized how generous you are in giving me the chance to improve myself. Now… waiting to be punished, I dare not indulge in wishful thinking or improper expectations.… I will only follow Your Excellency’s order. I bend down and beg Your Excellency to examine my honest sincerity, and give me instructions… my loyalty to you will be shining eternally like the blue sky and the white sun.… I anxiously and fearfully submit this letter for Your Excellency’s close examination. I respectfully kowtow to Your Excellency and wish you well.
The letter, which must have cost the writer a piece of his soul, led to an attempt at reconciliation, which failed when T.V. criticized the manner in which economic matters were currently being handled in the country, implying that he was the only one competent to run China’s finances. He remained out of power until the following June, some nine months later. Even then, although he resumed his job as foreign minister and was named president of the Executive Yuan, he complained about his sister. “Madame Chiang recently told Mrs. Hemingway [writer Martha Gellhorn], who told Mrs. Roosevelt, that the members of the Finance Ministry had not been doing their best under Kung because they were left over from his (T.V.’s) administration.… The people around the Generalissimo are very jealous of me. They would do anything to destroy me. Under these circumstances, how can I work and have the President believe in me?”
Meanwhile, May-ling had started addressing Stilwell as “Uncle Joe.”
PART SIX
1943–1945
40
What a gag the Big Four will put on: STALIN , the COMMUNIST, really approaching the democrat, with capitalistic tinges. ROOSEVELT the DEMOCRAT, backing Imperialist Britain. CHURCHILL the IMPERIALIST , giving lip service to the Atlantic Charter. CHIANG KAI-SHEK the FASCIST, posing as a democrat.
—GENERAL JOSEPH STILWELL, 1943
THE GENERALISSIMO’S first summit meeting with Roosevelt and Churchill, which took place in Cairo during the last week of November 1943, was, according to Crozier, “the climax of Chiang Kai-shek’s wartime career in international eyes.” With her husband now on a level with the U.S. and British heads of state, Madame Chiang, fully aware of his inadequacies, had insisted that Stilwell accompany them to Egypt in order, as she phrased it, “to put China right with the powers.” Fortunately for Chiang, there had been the reconciliation with Stilwell before the conference, carefully engineered by May-ling and her eldest sister.
The protocol for the Cairo meeting had not been easy to establish. Since Russia was not at war with Japan, it was impossible to have one meeting to include all four leaders, and it was decided that Roosevelt and Churchill would meet Chiang in Cairo—the generalissimo insisted on being first—and then move on to confer in Tehran with Stalin, who demanded that “there should be absolutely excluded the participation of the representatives of any other power.” One of the purposes of the summit, the largest so far in the war, was to determine how much effort and money should be spent in China to prepare for the oncoming fight with the Japanese. Roosevelt had insisted on inviting Chiang over Churchill’s objections. He wanted not only “to keep China in the war tying up the Japanese soldiers” but to lay the ground-work for rapprochements between China and Russia and the two competing political factions in China itself—the KMT and the CCP—thus getting a jump on postwar issues. The president, according to Fairbank, “had a most unrealistic sentimentality about China.” This was probably due in large part to growing up in a home surrounded by Chinese artifacts collected over the years by his mother’s family, the Delanos. It was, Fairbank said, as if Roosevelt’s “trading ancestors had given him possession. He [Roosevelt] tried to dispose of the insoluble China problem by saying that it should take the place of Japan in the East Asian power scene. Meantime he was willing to throw money at the problem in the typical American fashion and hope it would go away.”
The other participants in the Cairo Conference were naturally curious about Chiang Kai-shek, who at one point held more than eighty official government positions simultaneously. His arrival at the airport had been kept secret for reasons of security, however, and he was hurt that neither of the other two leaders was there to greet him. For this and other reas
ons, Roosevelt made an effort to confer at length with him before the sessions got started. The president also insisted that the generalissimo be present at the first meeting of the conference, making it impossible for the British to influence the U.S. position in prior consultations about China. This irritated Churchill, who felt that the attention of the delegates to the conference was “sadly distracted by the Chinese story, which was lengthy, complicated, and minor” but wound up occupying “first instead of last place in Cairo.” Nor was the prime minister impressed by the generalissimo. Nevertheless, he had what he called “a very pleasant conversation with Madame Chiang Kai-shek, and found her a most remarkable and charming personality”:
Churchill:
You think I’m a terrible old man, don’t you?
Mme. Chiang:
I really don’t know. You believe in colonialism and I don’t.
Churchill (after a long long conversation):
Now tell me what do you think of me?
Mme. Chiang:
I think your bark is worse than your bite.
This was the first time that Roosevelt, Churchill, Hopkins, Marshall, et al. had had to deal with Chiang Kai-shek in person and come to grips with what Stilwell’s political adviser, John Paton Davies, Jr., gently referred to as the G-mo’s “capriciousness.” In an attempt to cover for her husband’s lack of knowledge, May-ling, the first woman to attend a conference of the Allied war leaders, insisted on being present at all meetings to translate what he said, explaining that she needed to convey “the full meaning of the thoughts the Generalissimo wishes to express.” In spite of this and her efforts to camouflage his ignorance and shifting attitudes, Mountbatten wrote in his diary that Roosevelt, Churchill, and their chiefs of staff were “driven absolutely mad” by Chiang’s constant reversals.
Just before the first session of the conference, Stilwell, who had been asked by the Chiangs to make the presentation for China, received a message from the generalissimo saying that he would attend the meeting himself. This was followed by several other messages with Chiang waffling back and forth as to his intentions. Finally, surrounded by his generals, Chiang deigned to appear. “Terrible performance,” Stilwell wrote in his diary that evening. “They couldn’t ask a question. Brooke* was insulting. I helped them out. They were asked about Yoke [the Y Force of Chinese soldiers, which was supposed to enter Burma from the east] and I had to reply. Brooke fired questions and I batted them back.” When Mountbatten presented his views for the Chinese to comment on, Stilwell advised Chiang to stall answering until the next day. In an ill-considered attempt to distract the gentlemen from her husband’s poor performance, May-ling, who was wearing a black satin sheath dotted with yellow chrysanthemums, continually arranged and rearranged her feet in order to give glimpses of what Brooke called “the most shapely of legs” via the long slits in her skirt. “This caused a rustle amongst those attending the conference,” he wrote, “and I even thought I heard a suppressed neigh come from a group of some of the younger members!”
In his diary, General Brooke wrote that Chiang reminded him “of a cross between a pine marten and a ferret.… A shrewd, foxy sort of face. Evidently with no grasp of war in its larger aspects but determined to get the best of the bargains.” May-ling, he noted on the first day of the conference, was “a queer character in which sex and politics seemed to predominate, both being used indiscriminately individually or unitedly to achieve her ends.” Unlike most men, Brooke did not find her attractive: “Not good looking, with a flat Mongolian face with high cheek bones and a flat, turned up nose with two long circular nostrils looking like two dark holes leading into her head. Jet black hair and sallow complexion. If not good looking she had certainly made the best of herself and was well turned out.… Tapered fingers playing with a long cigarette holder in which she smoked continuous cigarettes.”
A dozen years later, the English general still remembered the day he met the Chiangs:
This very Chinese day has remained rooted in my memory. I have never known whether Madame Chiang gatecrashed into the morning’s meeting or whether she was actually invited. It makes little difference, for I feel certain she would have turned up whether she was invited or not. She was the only woman amongst a very large gathering of men, and was determined to bring into action all the charms nature had blessed her with… she certainly had a good figure which she knew how to display at its best. Also gifted with great charm and gracefulness, every small movement of hers arrested and pleased the eye.… The trouble that lay behind all this was that we were left wondering whether we were dealing with Chiang or with Madame. Whenever he [Chiang] was addressed his Chinese General sitting on his right interpreted for him, but as soon as he had finished Madame said “Excuse me gentlemen. I do not think that the interpreter has conveyed the full meaning to the Generalissimo!” Similarly, whenever Chiang spoke his General duly interpreted the statement, but Madame rose to say in the most perfect English, “Excuse me, Gentlemen, but the General has failed to convey to you the full meaning of the thoughts that the Generalissimo wishes to express. If you will allow me I shall put before you his real thoughts.” You were left wondering as to whom you were dealing with. I certainly felt that she was the leading spirit of the two and I would not trust her very far. As for Chiang, I think the description I gave of him fits him very well: a shrewd but small man. He was certainly very successful in leading the Americans down the garden path.… I often wonder how Marshall failed to realize what a broken reed Chiang was.
Brooke seems to have disapproved of almost all the Americans at the conference. Stilwell, he said, “was nothing more than a hopeless crank with no vision and Chennault a very gallant airman with a limited brain.”
On the day before the conference, Churchill’s doctor, Lord Moran, was called in to see Madame Chiang in a “well-guarded villa” near Mena House Hotel, where most of the other conferees were staying. He was greeted downstairs by a middle-aged Chinese doctor, who looked both “intelligent and apprehensive”—so much so that, as Moran put it, “I am not sure that his expectation of life was as good as that of his patient.” He filled Moran in on May-ling’s medical history and explained that she was currently suffering from “nettle-rash,” for which over the years she had received every kind of treatment and advice. (She was also complaining about her eyes and her stomach at the time.) The English doctor was then led by the nervous physician upstairs, where he found May-ling in bed. “She is no longer young,” he wrote later, “but there is about her an air of distinction; there is still left a certain cadaverous charm.” May-ling complained that the rash was keeping her awake at night. After he had finished examining her, she asked what was the matter with her.
“Nothing,” he answered.
“Nothing?” she asked with a slight smile. “I shall soon get well, you think?”
“Madame,” he replied, “you will only get better when the strain of your life is relaxed.”
“I have seen many doctors in the States,” she said, scrutinizing the Englishman; “they have all told me stories saying that if I did something I should soon get well. You are about the first honest doctor I have seen.” With that, she rang for a servant, who appeared immediately and whom she sent out of the room. After a few minutes, the servant returned with a package, which May-ling presented to the doctor with her thanks. It held an “exquisitely carved” ivory tablet. With the appearance of the gift, Moran, as he phrased it, “saw that the audience had come to an end.”
Roosevelt and Hopkins met privately with the Chiangs at least four times during the conference. Although no minutes were kept, we know that the generalissimo asked the president for a loan of $1 billion and that Hopkins thought the Chiangs were in many respects “childish.” Although the U.S. State Department had sent a Chinese-speaking diplomat to translate during the discussions, he was quickly dispatched back to Washington so that May-ling could continue to reinterpret what was said to and by her husband.
The evening afte
r the G-mo’s first abysmal performance, Stilwell went to the Chiangs’ villa to help him formulate his questions and answers for the next day, and he returned the next morning to prepare May-ling for lunch with Chief of Staff Marshall. It may have been at this lunch that the general remarked that he hoped “we will all be able to get together on this matter.” At this point one of the general’s biographers says that Madame Chiang “leaned forward, put a slim hand on Marshall’s knee, looking directly into his eyes, and said, ‘General, you and I can get together anytime.’ ” According to this biographer, his subject “was a sucker for beautiful and intelligent women, and Madame Chiang could do no wrong from that time on.” The same was not true, however, of the general vis-à-vis the generalissimo. The next day, Chiang repeated his back-and-forthing, eventually deciding to attend the session but then refusing to agree to use his Y Force in the assault on Burma. At the same time, one of his top generals continued to demand American planes, pilots, and war material, saying that China had its “rights” in the matter. Marshall was infuriated. “Now let me get this straight,” he said to the offending general. “You are talking about your ‘rights’ in this matter. I thought these were American planes, and American personnel, and American material. I don’t understand what you mean by saying that we can or can’t do thus and so.”
The Last Empress Page 61