The American and foreign press had started asking the G-mo’s permission to visit the Communists in Yenan in 1943. Chiang had agreed to let them go but kept putting off their trip. He eventually allowed three reporters from New York, London, and Sydney to leave in May of 1944 and a second group, consisting of Theodore White, Harold Isaacs, and Brooks Atkinson, to follow in September. A master dissembler, Mao told the first group, “The Chinese Communist Party has never wavered from its policy of supporting Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the policy of continuing the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and the entire people, and the policy of defeating Japanese imperialism and struggle for the building of a free democratic China.” Atkinson, reporting for The New York Times, said that the soldiers of the Communist Eighth Route Army were “among the best-clothed and best fed this writer has seen anywhere in China.”
Due, no doubt, to the journalists’ enthusiastic reports on military and agricultural progress in Yenan, the military mission sought by Washington continued to be politely put off. Early in 1944, the president had formally asked Chiang to allow military observers to travel “immediately” to Shansi and Shensi (both Communist-held areas), and Chiang had agreed to “facilitate” their trip but specified that the Americans could enter only those areas under Kuomintang control. The mission—code-named DIXIE *—was ready to go in March, but the G-mo continued to delay. Roosevelt, who repeated his request in April and May, had instructed Wallace to “insist” that the military mission be allowed to proceed, whereupon Chiang finally gave in.
One of the journalists who traveled with the mission described their arrival: “The Yenan people… were mighty glad. Within two months the door to their blockaded, forbidden areas had opened for the second time. And with all due respect to us, these [military] guests obviously carried more weight than the representatives of the world’s most important newspapers.” Men like John Service, who accompanied the military mission, were impressed by the youth and vigor, both physical and intellectual, of their hosts. “They are cordial and friendly—but not demonstratively anxious to make a good impression,” said Service, who also noted their “sincerity, loyalty and determination.” A Chinese journalist was more perceptive: “if you ask the same question of twenty or thirty people, from intellectuals to workers, their replies are always more or less the same… [although]… they unanimously and firmly deny the Party had any direct control over their thoughts.” John Davies, who described Mao as “big and plump with a round, bland, almost feminine face,” had been clued in by Ching-ling before he left. She told him that the Communists were “playing a waiting game.… The longer they wait the stronger they become.” Because of this, Davies took the long view, as did Brigadier General Dorn. “The Communists feel that their growing strength among the people of China will win them the entire country after the war, and that they are safe in biding their time. It is certain that the acute dissatisfaction among all classes indicates a break-up of the present Chinese Government at some time in the not too distant future.”
NOVEMBER 7, 1944, was a cold, gray day in northern China, and Brigadier General Hurley, his uniformed chest blazing with medals and ribbons, seemed a particularly bright spot as he stepped off his plane onto the otherwise bleak airstrip that served the home of the CCP. The Communist leaders, notified only after his arrival, climbed into the beaten-up ambulance that Mao used for transportation* and dashed out to the airport, running across the landing field to greet him. After saying hello, Hurley let out one of his famous war whoops and climbed into the ambulance. It was apparently a jolly ride as the big American bounced along with the leaders of the CCP, sharing the ups and downs of the deeply rutted road. When they passed a shepherd boy, Mao said that he himself had once worked as a shepherd, and Hurley countered with stories of his life as a cowboy. When Mao commented on the Yen River, which rose in the winter and dried up in the summer, Hurley talked about similar rivers in Oklahoma, where you could recognize schools of fish only by the amount of dust they raised. Colonel David Barrett, the head of the U.S. Military Mission, translated Hurley’s comments and jokes into flawless Chinese, and by the time the ambulance arrived at Yenan, everyone seemed happy. That evening the Communists gave a banquet for their American visitor.
The negotiations, which opened the next day, did not go as well as the preliminaries. Up to this point, Hurley had been his usual undoubting self. “Don’t worry,” he had told Service, “I’ll bring these two sides together.… That’s what I’m here for.… I’ve had experience with this sort of thing.” But Hurley had not had enough experience with the generalissimo and had come to Yenan “convinced that Chiang Kai-shek personally is anxious for a settlement.” Toward that end, he brought a proposal from Chungking that offered to legalize the Communist Party, share some of the supplies the KMT received from Lend-Lease, and allot the CCP one seat on China’s Supreme National Defense Council; in return, the generalissimo demanded that the Communists place their army and the people in their subject areas under his command. Chiang’s plan infuriated Mao, who used the opportunity to rail against the Kuomintang. In response, Hurley claimed that Mao was only repeating the propaganda of China’s enemies. Mao answered that he was expressing what most of China’s friends knew. Hurley responded with a defense of the KMT, and the day ended with nothing accomplished.
That evening and the next day, Hurley drafted what he believed to be a solution to the problem. He proposed a coalition government, which would include the CCP, an integration of the Communist armies under the control of the central government, and a bill of rights including freedom of speech and assembly. “An impressive document,” according to White, it was “an excellent outline for unity—and an even better outline of how little Hurley understood his friend Chiang Kai-shek.” The Communists were delighted. Although Hurley pointed out that he could not speak for Chiang, he told them that this document represented his views, and, as a token of good faith, he signed one copy for them and one for the Americans. Mao signed as well, and Chou En-lai was delegated to fly back to Chungking to discuss the proposal with Chiang.
While Chou waited to see Chiang—the G-mo was said to be ill when he arrived—he negotiated some of the finer points of the Hurley document with T. V. Soong and Wang Shih-chieh, a former educator and future minister of foreign affairs. T.V.’s reaction when Hurley first showed him his proposal was not encouraging. “You have been sold a bill of goods by the Communists,” he told the Oklahoman. “The National Government will never grant what the Communists have requested.” And indeed, when the final paper was presented to Chiang, he said he would have nothing to do with it. He refused to accept any solution that challenged his authority, saying that it was a sacred trust from Sun Yat-sen and a responsibility he was not free to share. Or, as Service put it, Chiang Kai-shek was “an extremely adroit political manipulator and a stubborn, shrewd bargainer… he… listens to his own instrument of force rather than reason.” Chou, who saw Chiang only once during his stay, was apparently treated with such contempt that he swore he would never return to Chungking.
For their part, the leaders of the CCP were unwilling to accept any scheme that left China under the exclusive control of Chiang Kai-shek. They had other solutions in mind. “The Chinese Communists are so strong between the Great Wall and the Yangtze that they can now look forward to the post-war control of at least North China,” John Davies wrote. “They may also continue to hold not only those parts of the Yangtze Valley they now dominate but also new areas in Central and South China.… The Communists have survived… and they have grown.… The reason for this phenomenal vitality and strength is simple and fundamental. It is mass support.”
Hurley still managed to persuade the two sides to go back to the bargaining table. He assured the Communists that Chiang was promising more concessions if they would agree to abide by the authority of the KMT. But it had become clear to Mao and his men that the generalissimo would continue to refuse any coalition in which his power migh
t be challenged. Nevertheless, since neither side wanted to be accused of obstinacy, they agreed to a future conference “to take steps to draft a constitution to pass control of the National Government to the people and to abolish the one party rule of the Kuomintang.”
Writing his report on the situation, Hurley managed to regard the negotiations in the most optimistic, if not delusionary, light. “I pause to observe that in this dreary controversial chapter two fundamental facts are emerging: (one) the Communists are not in fact Communists, they are striving for democratic principles; and (two) the one party, one man personal Government of the Kuomintang is not in fact Fascist. It is striving for democratic principles. Both the Communists and the Kuomintang have a long way to go, but, if we know the way, if we are clear minded, tolerant and patient, we can be helpful.”
But Hurley, according to Dorn, was looked on as a “buffoon” and “something of a clown”; the Communists even derided him out loud. Both the CCP and the KMT resented what Dorn called the Oklahoman’s “bland assumption that he could settle their difficulties by charm, by kidding, by so-called frank talks, and by empty promises.” For Dorn, there was only the thinnest hope for Hurley’s success. “It is not impossible,” he said, “that the common resentment against Hurley may tend—tend only—to throw the two parties together for the purpose of ridding themselves of his ‘negotiations.’ ”
UNKNOWN TO HURLEY at the time, Roosevelt, who was on his way to the Yalta Conference, was planning to come to an agreement with Stalin about China. The president’s intentions were made clear in a memo that circulated in the State Department a few weeks before he left for the Crimea. “We must,” the memo read, “have the support of the Soviet Union to defeat Germany. We sorely need the Soviet Union in the war against Japan when the war in Europe is over. The importance of these two things can be reckoned in terms of American lives.”
Although the United States and Great Britain knew they could defeat Japan without Soviet help, they feared the body count both on the Asiatic mainland and in an invasion of the Japanese home islands. The Americans were already having tough fights on other islands in the Pacific, a situation that left General Douglas MacArthur, who was to command the invasion of Japan proper, anxious to “secure the commitment of the Russians to active and vigorous prosecution of a campaign against the Japanese… [so] as to pin down a very large part of the Japanese army.” According to MacArthur, “the help of the Chinese would be negligible.”
The Yalta Conference, which included Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, took place from February 4 to 11, 1945. The most urgent business had to do with the end of the war in Europe, and most of the official meetings centered around that part of the world. The Far East was left to the end, although Stalin had given notice that he was planning to raise the question of the conditions under which the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan. As payment, he wanted the Kurile Islands, the southern half of the oil-producing island of Sakhalin, and a warm-water port (Roosevelt had previously suggested Dairen). On the afternoon of the fifth day of the conference, Stalin added the proviso that the USSR needed to share control over the railways and ports in Manchuria. “It was clear,” Roosevelt said, “that if these conditions were not met, it would be difficult for him… to explain to the Soviet people why Russia was entering the war against Japan… they would not understand why Russia would enter a war against a country with which they had no great trouble.” The president, understandably skeptical of Stalin’s concern about Russian public opinion, said that he had not yet discussed these points with Chiang Kai-shek because anything that was told to the Chinese was known throughout the diplomatic world within twenty-four hours.
The summary of the conference did not include the agreement made by the president that the Russians would enter the war in the Pacific, nor did Roosevelt mention it in his report to Congress after his return. The Yalta Conference, he said, had “concerned itself only with the European war and the political problems of Europe—and not with the Pacific war.” This and other provisions were kept secret so that Japan would not close the port of Vladivostok, which the Japanese might well have done had they known, and it avoided what would certainly have been lengthy debates in Congress. Moreover, it put off any immediate, angry reaction from Chiang Kai-shek.
During their meeting, Roosevelt and Stalin also discussed the current situation in China. Stalin said that Chiang needed new leadership around him and that he couldn’t understand why the G-mo did not bring the best people in the KMT into his government. There is nothing to indicate whether or not the American president and the Soviet premier talked about what they would do if Chiang, who had not been invited to Yalta, refused to go along with the decisions made there, but Roosevelt promised Stalin that he would discuss the pertinent matters with the generalissimo. As it happened, most of the important decisions made during that week remained secret until the end of the war, and the complete text of the agreements was not disclosed until 1947. Apart from demanding the unconditional defeat of Germany and its subsequent division into four zones of occupation, plans for war crimes trials, and a decision to invite China and France to join them in sponsoring the founding conference of the United Nations, Russia secretly agreed to enter the war against Japan within three months of the defeat of Germany. In other secret accords, the USSR was to gain back the Kurile Islands and the southern half of Sakhalin Island, taken over by Japan after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905; the port of Dairen was to be internationalized; Port Arthur was to be restored to its pre-1905 status as a Russian naval base; and the Manchurian railways were to be put under joint Chinese-Soviet administration.
“It should be remembered that at this time the atomic bomb was anything but an assured reality,” according to the State Department White Paper,* published four years later; “the potentialities of the Japanese… Army in Manchuria seemed large; and the price in American lives in the military campaign up the island ladder to the Japanese home islands was assuming ghastly proportions. Obviously military necessity dictated that Russia enter the war… in order to contain Japanese forces in Manchuria and prevent their transfer to the Japanese home islands.… It was, however, unfortunate that China was not previously consulted. President Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin, however, based this reticence on the already well-known and growing danger of ‘leaks’ to the Japanese from Chinese sources.… Here again military exigency was the governing consideration. At no point did President Roosevelt consider that he was compromising vital Chinese interests.”
Roosevelt left the Yalta Conference in a state of exhaustion. He had arrived looking tired, although his mind seemed as active as always. Harry Hopkins, who was ill, attended no meetings or dinners but sent comments from his bed and stayed behind to rest when the others left. Roosevelt, who said that he had three kings waiting for him in the Middle East, remained an extra day for a last meeting and lunch with Churchill and Stalin. Final agreements were signed at the lunch table with the papers scattered among the plates. It was a sad trip home, during which General Edwin M. “Pa” Watson, the president’s military aide, died.
A FEW DAYS after the Yalta Conference, Hurley, who thought he had figured out a way to bring the KMT and the CCP together, left for Washington in a buoyant mood. “The generalissimo and I have not only become friends,” he told the press, “but I may say we have achieved a degree of comradeship. The recent government changes* are largely responsible for the fact that the Chinese Government, the US command, and this Embassy are now working as one team.”
Before he left China, the conference to write the charter establishing the United Nations was announced for April in San Francisco. In that regard, Hurley had received two letters from Chou saying that the Chinese Communists should be included in the Chinese delegation to the San Francisco Conference. As a means of fostering unity, Hurley suggested that Roosevelt recommend this to Chiang, and, somewhat surprisingly, Chiang agreed. He included one member of the Communist Party, one person from each of
two other parties, and three people with no political connections in the delegation, which was under the chairmanship of T. V. Soong. Chiang himself had decided not to go. “If CKS goes to San Francisco for the conference of April 25,” Dorn wrote, “it will be necessary for him and Mme. Chiang to resume the fiction of their happy married life, for the benefit of the American press and public.” T.V. was certainly more comfortable working in the United States and the English language than anyone else whom Chiang could have appointed, and his opening statement at the First Plenary Session of the San Francisco Conference began with a graceful tribute to President Roosevelt.
In going to Washington, Hurley had left behind in Chungking a substantial group of Foreign Service officers who strongly disagreed with the new ambassador’s policy of unconditional support for Chiang Kai-shek. These men believed that the U.S. government should also be working with the CCP with or without Chiang’s consent. Shortly after Hurley and Wedemeyer, who accompanied him, arrived home, a group from the embassy in Chungking sent a wire to Washington expressing these views. Their attitude can be summed up in a memo John Service had written four or five months earlier:
Our dealings with Chiang Kai-shek apparently continue on the basis of the unrealistic assumption that he is China and that he is necessary to our cause.… The Kuomintang Government is in crisis.… The prestige of the party was never lower, and Chiang is losing the respect he once enjoyed as a leader. In the present circumstances, the Kuomintang is dependent on American support for survival. But we are in no way dependent on the Kuomintang…. We need not fear the collapse of the Kuomintang Government…. Finally, we need feel no ties of gratitude to Chiang
The Last Empress Page 67