Red Blight

Prologue

Lord Byron

Chapter I — Incompetence or Treachery?

“The greatest single mistake made in China, leading to our present debacle, was the withdrawal of United States forces from the Peking, Tientsin, Chingwangtao triangle in 1947.” This was done obviously at the direction of President Truman, General George Marshall and the State Department.

This statement comes from Major General William Arthur Worton, Chief of Staff, Third Amphibious Corps, U. S. Marines in China, 1945-1946, but with twelve years prior experience there. He adds: “Twenty-five thousand men easily could have maintained this important triangle—Peking, Tientsin, Chingwangtao—which would have kept the Chinese Communists from moving South of the Great Wall. They were not strong at that time, and a display of American strength in Nationalist China would have served as a deterrent to them.”

Instead, our withdrawal of U. S. forces from this strategic area was the first show of American weakness that gave the lie to both Nationalist and Communist Chinese, if not to the whole of Eurasia. The Russians constantly had complained that the Americans were occupying sovereign territory of China, but the request for us to do so had been made in 1945 by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Government for the purpose of disarming the Japanese and of stabilizing the country.

General Worton, with five officers and a handful of men first moved into the area in August, 1945, turning the civil government of China over to the Nationalists. A month later, a force of sixty-five thousand U. S. Marines moved in and occupied the area, and from then on to 1947, there was relative peace and quiet.

In view of the testimony of General George C. Marshall before the joint houses of Congress on the hypothetical issue that if we permit Chiang’s forces to attack South China, we will be starting a global war, I would like to quote General Worton on a similar issue.

“The occupation of Peking was not specifically in my orders,” he says, “but I was to occupy whatever strategic territory I deemed necessary. In the triangle previously referred to, was located the important mining area of Kailan at Tang Shan, which supplied the coal output of 150,000 tons per month, and the Nan Yuan, Pei Yuan Airfields. When I determined that the Communists would go into Peking if I did not, I decided to occupy Peking. At eleven o’clock one evening, Chou En-lai’s agent in Tientsin informed me that if I moved on Peking, the lives of every American Marine would be the price. I told him I was going into Peking, just when and where our forces would enter, and that he had better have as strong a force as I intended to have, and that I would also be supported by an air cover. We followed our blueprint, and not one of our men was scratched. We had no opposition whatsoever.”

With the withdrawal of U. S. forces from this area the coal output, supplying power as far south as Shanghai, dropped to 30,000 tons.

In Worton’s opinion, “as small a force as 15,000 troops, officered by men acquainted with China, could have kept the Reds from crossing into the coveted triangle.”

But Marshall was determined to withdraw our forces. “The State Department to this day,” says Worton, “has never asked the opinion, as far I can ascertain, of any qualified military men who spent any length of time in China, on this subject.” He adds, “Manchuria should have been occupied and we should have insisted on a joint occupation force there with our allies. Any study of China and the Far East must be predicated upon a study of our relations with China since 1784. We have consistently held to the Open Door Policy for China and the Far East. We went to war with Japan because Japan had seized the coastal areas and was controlling the communication lines of China. Many men died across the Pacific to regain China for the free world, and yet, in the course of minutes, as time is known, we have lost China. It is a truism of students of the Far East that, ‘As China goes, so goes the Orient’.”

The U. S. should have taken Dairen, Port Arthur and Cheefoo, while we were at it, and should have insisted on occupying the Kalgan Pass, gateway to Mongolia. These rightfully belonged to the Nationalist Government at the conclusion of the Japanese war, according to Worton. Another disastrous move on the part of the U. S. was the recall of Lieutenant General Albert C. Wedemeyer from the China Theater. “Wedemeyer had the complete admiration and respect of the Chinese,” he says. “Although he had been the Generalissimo’s Chief of Staff for nearly three years during the war, at no time had he subordinated himself to Chiang. Wedemeyer was first, last and always an American, and an officer in the service of his country.”

Others claim that China’s and the world’s present situation can be attributed to any number of mistakes on the part of Chiang Kai-shek, General Marshall and the United States Government. Ignoring the tragedy of Yalta for the moment, one vitally important mistake Chiang made was the decision to fly his troops into Manchuria after the war, against the advice of General Wedemeyer. His mistake was an honest one, because he undoubtedly felt that the United States, having gone so far, would see him through to the end. He knew that if China were to occupy her rightful place in the world, control of the industrial potential of Manchuria was a “must.” In spite of the fateful decision at Yalta, about which Chiang was informed several months later by Ambassador Hurley, he still could not believe that Roosevelt, whom he deeply respected and admired, would slap him in the face by giving away Manchuria.

Truman, inheriting Roosevelt’s policy of appeasement toward Russia, sent General Marshall to China in 1946 on the impossible mission of forcing the Generalissimo to accept Communists into his Government. Marshall, who at that time had the admiration and respect of the entire United States, undoubtedly had a freer hand than any diplomat in our history. Had he been unbiased in his judgement, the future of China, Asia, and probably the Eurasian Continent would have been different. He had unlimited resources to give, a neat nest egg of $500,000,000, and the decision to spend some, all, or none of it was his, and his alone.

When Marshall arrived in China, the Nationalist Armies were over-extended, that is, their supply lines were stretched so long and so thin that they could not be protected from constant Communist raids. Chiang’s Armies held the main lines of communication, to be sure, and all the large cities of North China and a few in Manchuria. However, these Armies, although many of them were trained and equipped with American arms, had little ammunition, and they were surrounded on all sides by the Soviet-backed Communist Armies. The Communists retained the initiative, could strike when and where they wished, and thus succeeded in keeping their opponents paralyzed. It was not difficult to see that the future of Chiang’s Armies was dependent solely on aid, especially on munitions, and that no country on earth but the United States could supply their requirements. To shut off this aid meant strangulation and death.

Marshall’s first act was to set up a headquarters in Chungking, where he assembled his American experts on China and started a series of conferences with Communist and Nationalist leaders. From the beginning, the Chinese Communists showed, by their every action, that their only interest was in cutting off North China and Manchuria. They had no intention whatever of joining any kind of coalition government, over which they would not have complete control. After a great deal of discussion, these conferences resulted in superficial agreement on a few points of the controversy.

Prior to his return to Washington, the General decided to make a hasty trip to Yenan, probably out of curiosity. He must have wanted a closer look at these people whose propaganda he appeared to have accepted as fact during the entire war. Whether this was emotional caprice or political expediency only history can tell. We cannot assume that he was ignorant, therefore we must assume that he knew what he was doing.

Certainly the utterances of that period indicated that Marshall subscribed to the idea that we were dealing with “agrarian reformers.”

In his testimony before Congress, Marshall stated flatly that he had known all the time that the Chinese Communists were Marxists “because they told me so,” he said. But while he was negotiating with them he certainly gave the impression to others that he did not think they were the same brand of Communists as were the Russians. This fact, in itself, makes him doubly culpable, in my opinion. It is an intent to deceive, which makes the deception all the more sinister. If he knew all the time that the Chinese Communists were the same brand of Communists as the Russians, and he still threw the weight of every decision he made in China to them, then he could not possibly have given more aid and comfort to the enemy, Stalin, had he been a member of the Communist Party.

On Marshall’s arrival at the Airport of Yenan, he was greeted with pomp and ceremony by every military unit the Communists could muster. Welcomed enthusiastically by stocky Mao Tse-tung, in his coarse homespun peasant’s garb, suave Chou En-lai, in the snappy uniform of a three-star General, and Chu Teh, wearing a Russian soldier’s fur-lined cape, he accompanied his colorful and grateful hosts on an inspection of the troops. The Cadets from the Communist Military Academy, who had hiked in some fifty or sixty miles in order to form the Guard of Honor, were the best dressed and best outfitted of all the troops in the Communist Army. While spartanly clad in coarse but neat dark blue uniforms, they gave every evidence of superb leadership and discipline. Especially trained and selected, these Cadets became the equivalent, in Communist China, of the Soviet NKVD, or uniformed police troops.

In marked contrast, there was a battalion of Ming Bing, or militia, armed with spears for the occasion and lined up for the General’s inspection. These troops were dressed in everything from long robes to dirty white jackets and vests, and decorated with rings, bracelets and earrings. Their long, rusty spears were topped with flowering pompoms of dried grain. In no respect did they differ from their forbears of two thousand years ago.

The rest of the show consisted of masses of people in the drab dress affected by the Communists. The more colorful costumes of the non-Communist Yenanese were conspicuous by their absence.

Marshall must have been impressed!

For quarters, or hotel accommodations, the General had been assigned the best Yenan cave, boasting all the comforts offered by that archaic type of dwelling. His person was safeguarded during the night by two crack soldiers armed with ancient Chinese broadswords.

Making the most of their distinguished visitor’s sojourn among them, Chairman Mao Tse-tung gave a banquet, followed by a Chinese Opera. The dinner was staged in a large bare room with cracking plaster walls. The table consisted of rough hewn boards, contrasting strangely with the lavishness of the food. Dozens of southern style delicacies were imported for the occasion: crisp, roasted Peking duck; succulent sweet and sour pork; thousand-year-old eggs—the whole washed down with copious draughts of sweet local wine. Formal speeches of mutual friendship were followed by cries of “Gambei!” or “Bottoms up!”

After the banquet, the entire party crossed the river to attend the Opera. The Communists had improvised a crude bridge over which their esteemed guest might ride, but it was so wobbly that Marshall preferred to get out and follow his car across.

The Opera was performed in an unheated, barnlike structure. It was so cold that the audience kept on their heavy coats and were provided, in addition, with blankets to wrap around their feet. In spite of the fact that charcoal braziers were placed between the stage and the first row, the temperature in the building was close to freezing, and the breath of the actors as they chanted their lines came out in puffs of smoke. These performers were Spartans indeed, changing their costumes in the draughty, unheated barn, their teeth chattering and their tawny flesh a mass of goose pimples. The costumes, in contrast to those seen on a Peking or a Shanghai stage, were fashioned of rough, drab bits of cast-off apparel, crudely sewn together and patched with whatever pieces of material could be begged, borrowed or stolen.

The show itself, like the Ballet in Moscow, was a superb exhibition of Chinese art, for, when shown to foreigners, it was free from Communist propaganda. The falsetto voices of the actors sing-songed the ancient Chinese poetry, while their bodies swayed to its rhythmic cadence. During the performance, an usher went up and down the aisle tossing hot towels to guests who called shrilly for them. These, wrung out of boiling water, gave the hall a dank, slightly rancid atmosphere, reminiscent of a river in summer. Roasted watermelon seeds were pressed generously upon the honored guest by his Chinese Communist hosts, who were noisily but skillfully cracking them edgewise between their strong front teeth and spitting out the husks.

Not all the visitor’s stay, however, was passed in entertainment. Before leaving Yenan, General Marshall sat behind locked doors with Mao and members of the Politburo. No other American was allowed to be present at this meeting. What was said is not known, but there were rumors in Communist circles that the subject of the conversations had to do with the future of Manchuria, and perhaps all of Asia.

On leaving this capital city of Communist China, Marshall returned to the United States to make his report to President Truman.

When he came back to China, Marshall made his residence in Nanking (the Nationalist capital at that time), but established a Northern Headquarters in Peiping (meaning Northern Peace), in order to work out a truce between Communists and Nationalists. The futility of this endeavor was obvious even to the Chinese GI, who nicknamed the Peiping Headquarters the “Temple of the Thousand Sleeping Colonels,” and to the American GI, who dubbed it “Marshall’s Bird Sanctuary.”

If the soldiers in the lower brackets put their tongues in their cheeks, those in the higher echelons took the mission very seriously. They kept a very sober face, indeed. Shoulder patches were issued and worn by all the members of the Peiping Headquarters and its truce teams. These were called “Ballentine Beer Patches,” due to the three rings in the emblem representing the Nationalists, the Communists and the Americans. No doubt this symbol, to some of the homesick GI’s, was a nostalgic reminder of the good old USA.

Truce teams, made up of one Communist, one Nationalist and one American officer, were sent out into the field, their purpose being to try to bring about agreement between the opposing forces. With the Chinese Communist Army and the Nationalist Army locked in a deadly battle for power, any action on the part of the third member, the United States, would be likely to aid one party only at the expense of the other. With Marshall’s preference for Mao over Chiang Kai-shek, the “truces” forced upon the Nationalist Armies at the most inopportune times, from a military standpoint, acted to the advantage of the Chinese Communist Army. Because of the slowness of their transportation and their lack of modern means of training, the Chinese Communist Armies, as in the days of Genghis Khan, were constantly in need of breathing spells. During these periods they could regroup their forces, move and gather supplies, and train their troops. Such breathing spells, provided in the form of “Cease Fire!” commands to the Nationalist Armies, upon the insistence of Marshall, came almost as a gift from Heaven.

As history has shown, Marshall threw the weight of every decision to the Communists. This, combined with the mistake the Generalissimo made in trying to hold Manchuria without American support, would appear to be at least one of the reasons for the situation in China today. In addition to the fact that Marshall favored the Communists, that he acquiesced in the sellout of Manchuria, if not all of Asia, to the Russians, the final and fatal blow was delivered to the Nationalist Government itself. The expected help in arms, ammunition, money and supplies from the United States was either cut off entirely or reduced to a trickle. Too late did the Nationalist Government recognize its precarious position and force itself to accept the fact that, apparently, we just did not care who won the fight in China, so long as it was not the Generalissimo.

Continued evidence to the above effect appeared from numerous sources. In the summer of 1950, Walter H. Judd, Representative from Minnesota, commented in public:

“Why should the Soviets think that the most important thing for American Communists to do right after the defeat of Japan was to get American assistance to China stopped?” To him, the answer seems to appear obvious, in that without the right kind of outside aid, the Chinese Government could not possibly recover. Only a handful of people appeared to understand that, to a Chinese, the idea of putting his country ahead of family interests, just was not his idea of patriotism. First loyalty, always, in a Chinese family, was to that family.

Marshall asked for patience and generosity for the European countries saying that it had taken the South fifty years to recover from only four years of civil war. But he did not seem to remember that Chiang had been fighting Japan for more than eight years, coupled with a civil war with Communists in his own country for more than twenty years. China, too, needed a little patience and generosity from us, just as much as Italy or Greece or France. And what would England have done without our patience and generosity? By comparison, were not China’s needs embarrassingly small?

One may call the Nationalist Government of China all the names there are, synonymous with corrupt, incompetent, reactionary, undemocratic—but in the light of what is known today about Communism and its stated methods, aims and ambitions, which is the lesser of the two evils—Chinese Nationalism or Soviet Internationalism?

An interesting news item came to light in a press dispatch by International News Service, dated September 19, 1950, as follows: “Marshall’s statement on Far Eastern Policy electrified the jammed committee room (Senate Armed Services Committee) because it had been accepted for years that he had authored the recommendation that peace in China be sought through a coalition government. Before this committee, Marshall repudiated all claims for having had anything to do with it, much less to have authored it by saying that it had been drawn up in the State Department while he was testifying on Capitol Hill in the Pearl Harbor investigation.” According to the same news dispatch: “The author of the Marshall Plan added that the Chinese policy was issued ‘while I was on the ocean going over there’ as President Truman’s personal representative.”

Could Marshall have meant that he had not even been consulted on such an important matter, prior to being sent to implement that policy? Hardly. Former Secretary of State Byrnes, in his memoirs entitled “Speaking Frankly,” spoke thus frankly on this subject:

“As soon as President Truman appointed General Marshall his personal representative in China, I asked the General to study the draft (of policy) so that he could help prepare the final statement for presentation to the President. The Sunday before I left for Moscow, Under Secretary Acheson, General Marshall and members of his staff met in my office. By the end of the morning’s discussion, we had agreed upon the statement of policy. Thereafter the President made no change in that policy except upon the recommendation of General Marshall or with his approval.”

I learned from an intimate source that when Marshall left for China he had in his pocket, documents outlining the policy of enforcing a coalition government on Chiang Kai-shek and also a letter from the President stating flatly:

“I understand that these documents have been shown to you and have received your approval.” What could General Marshall think himself to be, an ostrich with his head in the sand?

Much has happened since 1946, particularly as pertains to the relationship between China and General Marshall. A few excerpts from the September 15th, 1950, issue of the Congressional Record, Volume 96, Number 184, bring the matter further to a head. Senator William E. Jenner from Indiana holds the floor:

Senator Jenner’s full and documented statements cover eighteen pages of the Record but interest here is centered upon those comments bearing on China, which confirm my own first-hand information and knowledge. He goes back to April 26, 1938, when Marshall was appointed a member of the liaison committee created by President Roosevelt for the coordination of policy of common concern to the Departments of State, War and Navy. From then on, Marshall remained one of the top-ranking policy makers in our Government. Truman was aware of the closeness between Marshall and Roosevelt, and of their consultations on matters of vital policy affecting our security and the defending of our interests around the world. Was this, perhaps, a reason for Truman’s wanting Marshall as Secretary of Defense, even as a possible stop-gap in a Democratic political crisis?

“Marshall knew of the deceit and the duplicity that was indulged in by President Roosevelt during the critical years of 1939, 1940 and 1941, by which we were secretly committed to go to war.... He went along with the most criminal and outrageous betrayals of American interests and principles in history that resulted from Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam,” says Jenner. To anyone’s comment: “He was a soldier. He was taking orders,” I feel urged to ask: “Does there not come a time in everyone’s life when he has to decide whether he is first a citizen of integrity? General of the Army Douglas MacArthur made that decision in April, 1951, and made it unflinchingly.

“At Yalta,” Jenner adds, “the President did the age-old thing with regard to Asia and General Marshall knew that at Potsdam, President Truman confirmed the sellout of half the world to the Soviet Union ... this meant that American GI’s were turned into political whipping boys, betrayed by their own Chief of Staff and used for advancing the cause of Communism across the earth.... Marshall lent all of his great prestige and power to the Jessup-Lattimore-Service-Acheson line calling for a cessation of the civil war, paralyzing the Nationalist Government and withholding aid from Chiang, while he knew that the Russians were not only taking over Manchuria and northern China, but were being rearmed with captured Japanese equipment and were preparing for the eventual conquest, not only of China, but of the whole Far East.”

Harold Lamb, historian and authority on Asiatic history, has commented: “Curiously enough, when I began to study the Mongols nearly thirty years ago, I found two studies of the methods of Genghis Khan made by young American Army officers. They were George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur.” How differently these two men have interpreted their research, in the light of their subsequent actions!

Let me quote a remark or two from the March, 1951, issue of The American Mercury. I have high regard for the journalistic integrity of Walter Trohan, Washington, D. C., Bureau Manager of The Chicago Tribune, and concur heartily with his comments in an article entitled: “The Tragedy of George Marshall”:

Mr. Trohan states that these are disillusioning words, and imply that “free men must not be told the truth; they indicate that the speaker is in a mental purgatory for hidden sins which he has either observed or committed; and they emphasize the graver tragedy: that an old man who must conceal past errors from his countrymen is still exercising powers of decision.”

Trohan asks, and so do I: “Should free men trust a leader who will not trust them with the truth? By what right does a public servant say to free men: ‘You trusted me with leadership, but I will not give a true accounting because the truth might do irreparable harm’?”

Marshall has ever been quick to blame the people for the ills that may beset them—never the leaders, as warrant a remark he made following the debacle of the Korean war: “The basic error has always been with the American people”—these same American people who cannot be trusted with the truth, lest “irreparable harm” be done.

Other indications as to the stature of the man reveal themselves as isolated vignettes. When Marshall arrived in China and was met by General Albert C. Wedemeyer, even after he had read and suppressed the Wedemeyer Report, he told his junior officer of his intention with regard to forcing Communists on the Generalissimo. Wedemeyer commented in all calmness:

“General, you can’t do it. It is impossible!”

To which Marshall replied in white heat: “I am going to do it, and you are going to help me!”

Marshall’s double-cross of Wedemeyer in appointing the latter Ambassador to China in 1947 is another instance. Secretary of State James Byrnes had told Wedemeyer to go ahead and buy his civilian clothing, which he did, and as Wedemeyer was on the point of severing his last connections from the Army, Marshall learned that the Communists strongly opposed the Wedemeyer appointment and recommended instead, J. Leighton Stuart, President of Yenching University. Without consulting with or informing General Wedemeyer, Marshall immediately appointed Stuart, leaving Wedemeyer to find out through second-hand sources that he was no longer Ambassador-elect to China.

A parallel action of this nature in which Marshall had a direct hand was the midnight dismissal of General MacArthur, who learned of the order when an aide heard it on a radio news broadcast and relayed it to Mrs. MacArthur.

Again, with reference to Marshall’s so-called ignorance of the China policy situation, Jonathan Daniels, in his authorized biography of Truman, quotes Admiral William D. Leahy as saying: “I was present when Marshall was going to China. He said he was going to tell Chiang that he had to get along with the Communists, or get no help from us.”

Before the removal, by Truman, of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur from all of his commands in the Far East—one of the greatest acts of perfidy to go down in American history—few people realized that Marshall was not a West Pointer. This, of course, is in no way to be held against Marshall, but, during World War I, as General Pershing’s aide-de-camp, when Pershing was Chief of Staff, a promotion of Marshall to a Generalship was requested of MacArthur by Pershing.

MacArthur was willing enough, provided his military record merited it. From Walter Trohan’s documented personal files comes information that Marshall’s record lacked sufficient time served with troops. “MacArthur proposed to remedy this,” says Trohan, “by giving him command of the Eighth Regiment at Fort Screven, Ga., one of the finest regiments in the Army.” Marshall was moved up from lieutenant-colonel to colonel, but his way to a general’s stars appeared to be blocked forever when the Inspector General reported that under one year of Marshall’s command the Eighth Regiment had dropped from “one of the best to one of the worst.” It was mandatory, therefore, that MacArthur decline the promotion. Is it any wonder, today, that Truman’s action in removing MacArthur from the military scene should be most pleasing to the Secretary of Defense?

Of course, this is not the whole story, for Pershing was a persevering soldier and had no intention of giving up his determination to see Marshall become a general. In 1936, he bypassed the Army entirely, and went directly to the White House where he succeeded in persuading President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to “appoint” Marshall a general. Later, Marshall had proved himself so “acceptable” to Roosevelt that, over the heads of “twenty senior major generals and fourteen senior brigadier generals, Roosevelt made him Chief of Staff.”

I believe that the “tragedy” implied by Walter Trohan concerning Marshall lies in the current knowledge that Marshall, despite personal bravery, even stoicism, was sadly lacking in vision to match it. Thus, he became a willing tool in the hands of the opposition. He trusted Russia as an ally and, contrary to the Churchill belief, he did not care how much of Europe Stalin took, so long as we sent Russia enough tanks and ammunition to crush the German Army. He was easy prey to the insidious propaganda put out by Hiss, Acheson, Lattimore, Jessup and others who, misguided or otherwise, permitted American lives to be sacrificed to make both Europe and Asia “safe for Communism.”

We know now what was in the Wedemeyer Report. Because it disagreed with Marshall’s ideas he, personally, suppressed it. In contrast to his decision, Wedemeyer had advocated a strong defense against Communism in China, and had gained the Generalissimo’s complete approval for American supervision of all aid, financial, military, psychological—that would have been forthcoming if the report had been approved.

Marshall, as was Pershing, is for an enormous army—for pitting manpower, our most precious commodity, against the enemy, in place of our superb technological and psychological know-how. General MacArthur has shown the absurdity and the tragedy of any such commitment on our part. Should Marshall, with Anna Rosenberg at his side, be allowed to continue with plans to fight the Asiatic hordes thusly, we are, indeed, doomed. May God forbid!

Once again, in retrospect, it appears that American foreign policy had been to support the Generalissimo as long as he fought the Japanese, but to do nothing that might offend the Communists at any time. For the past ten years, or more, our Government seems to have had its bets on Communism in China—if not in all Eurasia—to win. The facts are against any other conclusion, and we must, again, assume that Marshall, the President, and the State Department know what they are doing. And if they know what they are doing, they must be doing it deliberately.

From 1946 through 1948, Marshall ordered destroyed all of the reserves of ammunition earmarked for Chiang Kai-shek. These had been stored in India and could easily have been transferred to China at the end of the war in 1945. Marshall also ordered our military mission to refuse further training and aid to the Nationalist armies.

On leaving China, General Marshall was overheard to remark enthusiastically, “There is a definite liberal group among the Communist Chinese.” This particular group included China’s “Front Man,” Chou En-lai, Communist Foreign Minister since October, 1948, and his assistant, Chiao Kuan-Hua, spokesman for the Communist delegation that was entertained in late 1950 by the United Nations, and which was housed and fed at the Hotel Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

It is not difficult to see how Marshall contributed to Chiang’s capitulation to the Communists. How can we answer for our refusal to accept the 30,000 Chinese Nationalist troops on Formosa, initially offered by the Generalissimo to the United Nations for combat in Korea or in South China? We accepted units, even token ones, from other members of the U.N., but not from Nationalist China, who is still an official member. Of course, I know the answer is couched in the language of “Peace, peace.” But Stalin will not be provoked into full-scale war until Russia is ready for it, and the danger of letting Chiang attack south China is no more than a blind.

How can we have aided the Russians more, or brought greater tragedy to ourselves than we already have by our own actions?

Chapter II — Yenan Interlude — FOOTNOTES:

Prior to October, 1949, the capital of Communist China was the two thousand-year-old city of Yenan. After the capture of Peking, the leaders established grandiose headquarters in that ancient seat of emperors, known as “The Pearl of the Orient.” It was in the quaint old city of Yenan, however, that the important incubation period of these present rulers took place. Here they spent the war years, planned their strategy to take over all of China, and cemented their contacts with Moscow. From the cold, crude caves of this primitive stronghold to the glittering palaces of Peking was a tremendous leap, and doubtless it gave the conquering heroes many jolts. How often they must have longed for that unique little city, remote and quiet, in Shensi Province.

That those early carefree days on the edge of the Gobi Desert did not altogether prepare them for their present responsibilities was evidenced by the fact that after the Communists occupied Peking the municipal government staff there was temporarily retained. The new Communist mayor explained, “We have been living in the hills (Yenan) and know far less about municipal government than you do. Therefore we must learn from you.” Even Mao Tse-tung, whose word is law all over China, has already been quoted as saying, “The task of reconstruction is apt to be far more difficult than the achievement of power.”

Shensi Province boasts one of the best climates in China, dry and healthy, with many bright sunshiny days. However, it is frequently visited by suffocating dust storms from the desert, giving the inhabitants a yellow-powdered coating on the hair, face and clothing. The farm lands which were owned formerly by a few of the comparatively wealthy peasants were, in 1949, divided into little holdings or made into cooperative farms. No all-out effort was made to collectivize[1] the land, as in Russia.

The city of Yenan has a population of about fifty thousand, most of whom live in caves burrowed into the clay cliffs of three converging river valleys. Before the move to Peking, the schools and army headquarters of the city were all underground, and only outside the city were there many buildings of any size.

One of the most important landmarks was the International Hospital, located on the edge of the city in a series of caves. It was called “International” because it was supported in part by contributions from abroad. The United States had made every effort to be helpful. During the war, for the first time in its history, and largely through the humanitarianism of the China Theater Commander, Lieutenant General Wedemeyer, this hospital was one of the best equipped, if not the best equipped, in all of North China. When Mao Tse-tung’s little five-year-old daughter fell ill with pneumonia, penicillin was flown to her directly from General Wedemeyer’s headquarters. Without it she would, almost certainly, have died.

The hospital was Madame Sun Yat-sen’s favorite project There she spent many hours, allowing the patients and nurses to bask in the radiance of her sacred person. This beguilling “Saint Elizabeth,” after impassioned pleading, succeeded in 1945, in getting the United States to expedite shipment of increased amounts of medical supplies to the hospital from Communist sources. A small contingent of U. S. soldiers was stationed in Yenan as a liaison between the Communists and the Nationalists. These cartons and crates were opened, as a matter of routine inspection by Colonel Ivan D. Yeaton, Communist expert and one of the American military observers there. To his great consternation, he found that, instead of the urgently needed medical supplies, the crates and cartons were filled to bursting with Communist propaganda books and leaflets. Going directly to Madame Sun, he said, “Why, Madame, I am disappointed and astonished to find that you have abused the courtesy extended to you by the United States Government. I find that this last shipment, instead of containing medical supplies, is filled with nothing but Communist propaganda!” Madame Sun blushed prettily and replied with false calm: “I am sure that you are not aware of the many kinds of medicine our patients need here.” It goes without saying that her supplies were cut off, then and there.

Although Communists laid great stress on the good the hospital was doing for all Chinese, the conduct and methods of admissions smacked of the General Hospital in Moscow. Patients were classified in three categories: The Hierarchy of the Communist Party and their families took precedence over all; next in line were the Red Army officers and soldiers and their families; last, least and very rarely came the non-Communist Chinese.

Another distinguished landmark located just outside the city was the famous “Prisoner of War School.” Here the captured Japanese soldiers were never referred to as “prisoners,” but always as “students,” and their compound was referred to as “The School.”

Although, during the war, the Chinese Communist Armies made great claims about their successes against the Japanese, their primary purpose was to capture Japanese prisoners of war with the idea of converting them to Communism. Those who showed promise of becoming good subjects promptly were sent to Yenan, given courteous treatment and enrolled in the Communist School under Moscow-trained instructors. Students who showed little aptitude or whose loyalties were questioned were weeded out rapidly and returned to their own troops. This last proved to be a diabolical form of punishment, for a Japanese soldier is taught never to surrender, but to fight to the death. The mere fact that he had allowed himself to be captured and was returned to his own troops in good condition was clear evidence that he was either a coward or untrustworthy. His end was often the guard house or a bullet in the back of his head.

Graduates of the school were dispatched as spies into Manchuria or sent back to Japan, there to scatter the red seeds of Communism. This was referred to as going to the “Front.” When one friend would say to another, “I haven’t seen Yashi for four or five days. Where can he be?” the reply invariably was, “Oh, he’s gone to the Front!” Thus the Prisoner of War School helped to spread the red gospel throughout the Japanese-speaking areas. Its guiding spirit and conductor was Okano, now known as Sanzo Nozako, who aspired to be the Stalin of Japan, and who is said to be working vigorously to bring all the Japanese into the Communist orbit.

The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party had appropriated for special meetings one of the few well built halls just outside the Walled City. On its bare walls were life-size, full length portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Chu Teh, together with a large flag bearing the Hammer and Sickle. This hall also served as Mao Tse-tung’s city residence. Only on the rarest occasions were foreigners ever received here, and at such times the portraits and flag were laboriously removed. Surrounding the hall were the best and most productive of the local farms, which had been confiscated by the Communist Hierarchy for their own use. Here they spent many weekends relaxing and enjoying life.

The office where foreigners were habitually received was in a large cave. It was decorated with life-size portraits of Stalin, Mao, Chu Teh, Churchill, Roosevelt and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek placed over a grouping of small allied flags. The general atmosphere appeared to be one of friendly cooperation based on mutual aims and interests. When foreign visitors were present, the Chinese National flag was displayed conspicuously over the gates of the compound, as a token of good will, and to create the false impression that both parties were working in harmony. On all other occasions, and in all other places, it was considered extremely bad taste to mention Nationalist China, Great Britain or the United States, especially with references to any part they were taking in winning the war.

Anyone living in Yenan at that time became aware of the complete absence of religious symbols. The ancient temples were occupied by Communist families. Religion, as in other Communist countries, had gone underground or disappeared. Even the tiny symbolic caves, so revered by the Chinese as places of worship, were never used openly. Instead, Americans often caught glimpses of Communist soldiers going through their ritual when they thought themselves unobserved by hostile eyes. Doubtless these little scenes reminded some of the better informed GI’s of similar ones enacted in Moscow, where the old peasant women braved the wrath of the NKVD and the Stalin Youth to worship at the few churches that were allowed to remain open.

The Catholic missionaries, long distrusted by the Communists, had been forced into a life of almost complete religious inactivity. Their Compound, once a busy center, had become the home of the Lu Hsun Art Academy. The old convent had been converted into dormitories for students of both sexes. In the Chapel, Communists had torn down the painting of Jesus, which was the first object seen on entering, and had replaced it with a more than life-size portrait of Stalin. The Holy Vessels and Sacred Images lay in rubble on the floor. Only the organ was left. Here, the music students practiced American jazz and sang “The Internationale.”

Ancient Pagoda built hundreds of years ago, seen from outskirts of Yenan. Caves at right are similar to those used to house the Japanese Prisoners of War.

“Ballentine Beer Patches”

Worn by Marshall’s

workers in Chungking.

The movie actress wife of Mao

Tse-tung appears pleased with the

story she has just told General

Marshall, while the latter seems

to wonder if he got the point.

Left to right: Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, General Chang, (Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s propaganda chief), and General Chu Teh, shown after conference in Yenan.

Mao has just proposed a welcoming toast to General Marshall, and politely listens while others do likewise. The banquet was held in Marshall’s honor.

Chinese Nationalist and American flags fly between banner welcoming Marshall, Nationalist General Chang and Communist Chou En-lai. Side banners say “Long Live Peace in the Far East!”

Saturday inspection of Caves in Yenan. Last, on the extreme far end to the right, is the cave in which Marshall was installed.

Crowds greeting Marshall on his arrival in Yenan. At extreme left can be seen the Ming Bing with their long spears. Note American and Chinese Communist flag on jeep.

Left to right: Chairman Mao, Chou En-lai, Marshall, General Chang (Nationalist), and Chu Teh. On the right are picked troops of the Communist Military Academy.

Under Communism man still competes with the lowly donkey. Here several are seen carrying fire wood in Yenan.

A camel caravan arriving at Yenan from the Gobi Desert after passing through the Great Wall. The lead camel wears a mask to frighten away evil spirits. (In photo below)—Oxen laden with bundles and wares to be sold in the Yenan markets.

The Market Place in Yenan, run by non-Communists as in the days of their ancestors.

Child-mother with twins in improvised home-made tandem baby carriage.

Caves of the Communists and Red Army seen in the distance, sheep grazing beneath them. Small house in foreground was used for storage of food.

Protestants suffered equal indignities. From outlying districts came reports of religious oppression and sometimes of atrocities. American missionaries, both by word and letter, told of the destruction not only of churches but of agricultural and hospital activities which had operated for many years to help all Chinese, Communist and Nationalist alike.

The population of Yenan was for the most part non-Communist. The distinction was not difficult to note for the Communists were easily recognized by their dull blue cloth uniforms, their bobbed haired women wearing no make-up, and their complete lack of Chinese silks and gay colors. The non-Communist majority were allowed to continue their usual occupations undisturbed, as long as they minded their own affairs. Nearly all the merchants within the Walled City were non-Communist, and all gathered daily in the big market, as they had done for generations, to display their wares in the open, on boards or on the ground. When the Communists wanted anything, they forced the merchants to cooperate by handing over a desired commodity, and at the Communists’ own price.

Due to the Chinese and Mongolian background of most of the Communist leaders, many of them did not, at first, wish their women to play any political roles or to appear at public banquets with the men. With the growing acceptance of the Russian doctrines, however, all were considered equal, and the women worked and ate beside the men. The female Communists tried to look as unlike the old fashioned Chinese women as possible. Their adopted cause had emancipated them, if emancipation meant compelling them to work as hard as the men. In Russia, after the Revolution, the women, dressed as men, were allowed to load and unload trucks, which the men drove. The rules for the masses, however, did not apply to the wives of the leaders. They were encouraged to mix freely, to wear better clothes, and to indulge in light make-up occasionally. Moreover, it is said that they all ate quantities of sunflower seeds in order to obtain the fine, firm breasts for which many a Soviet woman is famous!

Tipping was not allowed in the Red realm, for it indicated class distinction. As all classes were supposed to be equal under Communism, any breach of this regulation was severely punished. In Yenan, an American GI tried to express his gratitude to a young Communist for helping him make some furniture for his cave by offering him a package of American cigarettes. The Chinese boy frowned and backed away. “No, thank you,” he said, “I cannot accept anything for my services. We are all equal now.” The American shrugged slightly and put the cigarettes on a table. A few minutes later, when his back was turned, the Chinese boy and the cigarettes had disappeared. The following day the American soldier found the Communist youth smoking furiously behind a pile of rubbish. He learned later that the boy had been spied upon by other Communist youths who, out of envy or an excess of Party zeal, had beaten him unmercifully. After generations of accepting the traditional “cumshaw,” or little token of appreciation, it is well nigh impossible to convince a Chinese, Communist or otherwise, that this time-honored custom is wrong.

During the war, all American troops stationed in Yenan lived in caves on the level nearest the ground. This made for greater convenience in getting in and out, in line with the wish of the Chinese Communists to show the foreigner every courtesy. The Americans had one small house built primarily to shelter the electric generator they had brought with them, and here also lived the Commander of the Americans. The generator made it possible for the Americans to have the only electric light in Yenan. In contrast, the natives and families of the Red Armies burned wicks in precious oil or built small fires for occasional light. Their rule was to bed down with the sun and to arise with the dawn.

One other building allocated to the Americans was used as a recreation room, where the GI’s and a highly selected group of Chinese Communists played games and had their meals in common. This group of Communists assigned to fraternize with the Americans was headed by a fellow named Lock Ho, meaning “Old Horse,” whose job was to start arguments and to guide the Americans in their thinking. The GI’s were never allowed to fraternize with any Chinese who was not thoroughly indoctrinated, even at the Saturday night dances. Nurses from the International Hospital, students from Yenan University, girls and women from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, other students, teachers and members of families of the Communists, all were completely propagandized before being permitted, or ordered, to attend the dances. In other words, the Americans never came in contact with any Chinese who was not fully imbued with the tenets of Communism. Be it said to the credit of the Americans, the Reds, despite their efforts, were never able to work on the GI’s with any degree of success.

On hunting trips, a propaganda expert went along with the Americans, but even this could not spoil the superb sport and the pleasure that came from shooting an occasional wolf, mountain lion or tiger. The pheasant coveys were numerous and the birds huge, making them much sought-after additions to the monotonous diet. A man who was a good shot, even with an old carbine, would bring down five to ten cocks in a day. There were no bird dogs, but when Chu Teh, a fine shot himself, and a tireless hunter, accompanied the group, he had his bodyguard act as a retriever, a service the American “Imperialists” did not have.

The jeeps and trucks of the United States Army were a source of wonder and terror to the natives, who were entirely unfamiliar with any motor transportation. In this connection, pregnant women proved a special headache to the GI’s. When the donkeys or Mongol ponies, on which the pregnant ladies were riding, shied away or stood on their hind legs at the approach of a vehicle, the ladies naturally fell off their mounts screaming and yelling in their high, piercing voices as they rolled into the dust or a ditch, their bundles and belongings flying helter skelter in all directions. Even when the Americans drove slowly or stopped, the havoc wrought was considerable. Many of the pregnant riders were indignant and demanded “cumshaw,” or money, to compensate for damages to their person and pride, but fortunately there were never any serious accidents.

Many things puzzled American soldiers in Yenan. One was how a Chinese herdsman, driving dozens of sheep and pigs, could meet and pass, on a narrow mountain path, another herdsman equally encumbered. Amid ear-splitting squeals, grunts and Chinese swear words, men and animals would pass each other without loss or mishap, each going in his own direction, with his own animals intact! Surely no American could accomplish such a feat.

The GI’s had constant trouble with money. The Communists manipulated the exchange any way they wished, but always in their own favor. Nobody knew exactly how much money he was worth at any one time. Eager to procure all the American dollars and Nationalist currency possible to finance trips to the South for their agents, the Communists put up their special script in small packages to entice the Americans to purchase them for one United States dollar. They were counting heavily on the GI’s never-failing interest in a “souvenir to take home.”

Every foreigner, on entering Yenan, was thoroughly briefed by the Commander of the American Observer Group, who boarded incoming planes. This presented a clear indication of Moscow influence. All entrants were told never to use the word “coolie,” as it signified class consciousness. They were not to mention the words “Reds” or “Commies,” as these terms cast aspersions upon the dignity of their hosts. All, Communists and non-Communists must be referred to as “local people.”

American movies were shown almost nightly out of doors in summer. These were so superior to the Chinese or Russian movies that the enthusiastic natives would pull down the gates of the Compound if any effort was made to keep them out. In the winter, however, the movies were shown indoors, and only guests invited by the Chinese Communists were allowed to attend. Chu Teh was on hand almost nightly and was a particular fan of Betty Hutton’s. He returned eight times to drink in her charms as the heroine of the picture “Texas Guinan.”

The only other movies were those supplied by the Chinese Communists. Crude and boring, they were largely sent from the Kremlin, and were in Russian with no Chinese sub-titles. A leader, in a sing-song voice, gave the general idea of the picture, particularly stressing the propaganda line it illustrated. The audience, not understanding Russian, could hope for only slight amusement.

Even the Hierarchy gave every evidence of preferring American films. The lavish background in the Guinan picture made a particularly deep impression, as it was such a far cry from the way even the most important Chinese and Red Army officers and their families lived. In the upper tiers of mud caves, dug into the soft cliffs, they existed as primitively as had their ancestors thousands of years before them. Little or no furniture cluttered the Reds’ caves, and almost all their utensils were wooden bowls and horn cups. After the Americans and the British came, the local people salvaged the tin cans thrown out by the visitors and had them beaten into plates and dishes, copied faithfully from the originals by the blacksmith. Unused to comfort, their beds were skins thrown on boards or spread on the mud floors—a sharp contrast to the luxury of the sleeping arrangement built for Ambassador Hurley when he was in Yenan. This crude approach to a truly beautiful Chinese bed was seven feet long, with rope slats for a spring, rough unbleached sheets, and a pillow filled with bird seed, or millet. It later became the property of the American Military Commander and was always greatly admired and coveted by the Chinese visitors.

During these years, although life in Yenan was primitive and often carefree, the Hierarchy never lost sight of the responsibilities that lay ahead of them, and for these they tried to prepare themselves, within the limits of their knowledge and capabilities. In 1946, contrary to all Chinese Communist teachings, several American soldiers were questioned extensively by the Communist leaders on matters of capitalist etiquette and protocol. The Americans, amused at their roles of male Emily Posts, accepted the challenge in the finest American tradition. With grave faces and dressed in their best, they gave cocktail parties, movie suppers, and even formal sit-down dinners for the education of the distinguished members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Table manners and light conversation were stressed. The pupils were most appreciative of these examples of Western culture and refinement and strove in every way to learn their lessons and to act accordingly.

Hugely enjoying this fascinating taste of the foreign, they put together a so-called Jazz Band and held Saturday night dances that were entirely Western in every respect, even to a crude rendition of “The Saint Louis Blues.” Eager to have everything done in proper Western style, the Red leaders provided their teachers with a list of Central Committee Communist Party Members, arranged according to rank, and insisted that the best State Department protocol be observed and practiced rigidly. They were shrewd enough to realize, even then, that in conquering new countries, they would have to have more than one front man. At that time, Chou En-lai was their only polished negotiator. He alone was able to meet foreigners on an equal footing and was therefore obliged to be their Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The Communists in Yenan, as in all countries in the beginning of their transition to slavery, adopted the term “New Democracy” and made a great display of its outward form by allowing the non-Communist peasants to “vote.” The outcome, of course, was previously agreed upon. The balloting was merely a matter of form and a means of convincing the people that they still were privileged to make their own choice. The literate cast their vote by burning a hole in the ballot with a lighted stick of punk, or incense, at the point where the name of their candidate appeared. The illiterate dropped a pea into a bowl or pitcher, placed in front of a picture of their candidate. After the voting was over and the successful candidate announced, a huge rally was held and the voter was constrained to forget his choice, if unsuccessful, in a frenzy of dancing, shouting and singing. After a few hours of this, the tired voter would wend his way slowly homeward to his mud cave, or if he were a country man, to his ancestral mud hut, often many miles away.

The roads that lead into the Walled City of Yenan are two-thousand-year-old trails used by the descendants, both man and beast, of those earliest travellers. Both inside and out of the city, little has changed. The men driving the camel caravans pad softly through the dust, their animals heavily laden with burdens of fur and other wares to be marketed in the city. They still practice the age-old custom of putting a mask on the lead animal’s head, to drive away the evil spirits. Water carriers, after dragging great buckets of the muddy liquid from the river, chant their endless “water! water!” as they go from cave to cave in the time-honored manner. Food vendors, squatting in the dusty lanes cooking bits of lamb and pork, roots and herbs over tiny charcoal braziers, cry out shrilly to the passers-by, eating occasionally from the pot with their grimy fingers. Half-naked babies crawl nearby, whimpering to their mothers, who pacify them by giving them sweetened tree bark on which to chew. Donkeys, heavily laden, and round Mongolian ponies jostle dog carts and belabored oxen. Everywhere, cotton clad coolies, bowed beneath huge bales of firewood, coal and charcoal, shuffle along the dusty streets. For, alas, although the rickshaw and pedicab or bicycle rickshaw has been banned as an occupation beneath the dignity of man, the older use of man as a beast of burden has to be accepted. For the very poor, there is nothing else to take his place.

This, then, was Yenan in 1946. Now that the Communists have won China and moved from the mud caves to the glamorous palaces of Peking, it will be interesting to watch their actions.

Will they be able to carry out their plan of communizing the entire country? And how long will this take? Will China remain China for the Chinese or, for the first time in nearly five thousand years, will the once free peoples of this basically democratic country be hopelessly enthralled by the yoke of tyranny?

The Chinese have a quality that has distinguished them. This quality is patience. The Communists too have patience, but only up to a point. Beyond that they use force to accomplish their ends.

There are literally hundreds of languages spoken in China—each province speaks a different dialect. Moreover, aside from travel between major cities, there is relatively little transportation and practically no communication between smaller cities in the interior. In view of these facts, is it not possible that the Russians will find their progress slow?

Will the Chinese absorb the Soviets as they did the Huns, the Mongols and the Tartars? Time alone will give us the answers to these questions. Time alone will prove the importance of the incubation period spent in Yenan, and whether or not it was worth the sacrifices made by the Reds. The die is cast. From it we shall learn what the future holds for Asia, for Europe, and perhaps for ourselves as well.

Chapter III — Communist Personalities

Chapter IV — Communism’s Forebears

Who are these people who have conquered most of Europe and Asia and openly flaunt their determination to conquer the world? Where did they come from? How have they been able to enslave approximately nine hundred million people? Do they really have the secrets of the A and H bombs? Will they use them to fulfill their diabolical schemes? And when?

The answers to these questions are vital to all people—to every American, man, woman and child. Not even in the days of Genghis Khan was there such a tremendous upheaval over so vast an area of the earth’s surface, as the one we are witnessing, as we pass the half-way mark of the Twentieth Century.

Long before Moses was found in the bullrushes, the people who lived in the Northern steppe lands sucked hardship from their mothers’ breasts and grew into sturdy savages, mortally feared by their neighbors. They were Asiatics, that is, they belonged to the Yellow Race, the best known tribes of which are the Huns, the Mongols and the Tartars. Today, “Mongol” is the common name given to people comprising nearly all of Central Asia. Destiny gave a strange role to these fearless nomads. Blood-thirsty and aggressive, time and again they burst the seams of their homelands and overran most of Europe and Asia. Each time they rose to world conquest, the pattern followed was the same. Guided by the genius of a merciless and brilliant individual, the dominant tribe or clan ran the full gamut from tribal communism, necessary in the early days for self-preservation and mutual benefit, to communistic imperialism. As the tribes grew larger and more powerful, and the value of the spoils increased enormously, several leaders struggled for complete control. This struggle ended in a period of despotic dictatorship, when one man gained supreme power and wielded it ruthlessly. The period of oppression lasted, at various times in the past, anywhere from a few years to a few hundred years, depending upon the foresight and strategy of the rulers. Invariably, the dictatorship disintegrated, and the empires fell into dissolution and decline, followed by desolation and chaos. The method by which each nomad chieftain rose to power was strikingly similar. He would consistently strengthen his armies and trap his victims by guile, trickery, infiltration, and every known deceit.

Succession to the leadership of the clan, tribe or nation was not necessarily hereditary. It could pass from father to son or outside the family, just as in the Soviet Hierarchy today succession passes from Party member to Party member. Then, as now, it was the strongest physically, and the cunningest mentally, who always assumed leadership.

These primitive conquerors had several great advantages over their more civilized neighbors. One was their extraordinary physical stamina. The weeding out of the weak began practically at birth. Children, weaned from mother’s milk, were fed on mare’s milk for a few years and then were left to care for themselves as best they could.

As clans gathered around the open fires, where all the food was cooked in huge pots, the strongest men ate first; the aged and women next; and the children were left to fight over the bones and scraps. Food was abundant in the spring when mutton, game and fish were available. In the early winter the hordes lived largely on millet, and fermented mare’s milk. The latter had a high alcoholic content and was quite “heady” for the younger children. By the end of the winter, the clansmen were reduced to foraging and making raids on the herds of other tribes. The old and weak were left to perish. Only the hardiest survived.

Another great advantage of the militant nomads over their victims was their ability to ride the horse. Everywhere else in the ancient world, this animal was used only to draw the heavy war chariots. The Mongols, fearing nothing, mastered the horse and became expert cavalrymen. The resulting mobility was a tremendous asset in warfare. Without the horse, the Mongols would never have been able to conquer such vast territories. Learning to ride as children of three or four, they were superb horsemen in their early manhood and hunted with consummate skill. When they appeared upon the horizon in a cloud of dust and with a clatter of hooves, it was only a matter of minutes before each dropped down like an eagle upon his prey.

Of even more strategic importance was their conception of the fifth column. Poor always, in comparison with their neighbors, whose lands and goods they coveted, they—like their Russian descendants—developed a technique of boring from within. Ahead of them were sent humble-looking barterers or beggars, who easily bribed and cajoled their way inside the walls of a city. At the critical moment, the unfortunate citizens would find their gates open and hordes of wild tribesmen bursting in upon them with bloodcurdling yells.

Whether at home or in the field, these nomads lived in yurts, or domelike tents, made of felt and mounted on wooden carts, drawn by oxen. They spent most of their days on horseback, hunting, fishing and constantly fighting among themselves and with neighboring clans. Often they remained in the saddle for days, eating little or no food.

Between each major conquest, there were long periods when fighting was confined to the steppe lands. It was only when an outstanding genius appeared that they attempted the invasion of the more civilized countries—Europe, China or the Near East—which, throughout the ages, were constantly on the defensive against them.

One of the first of these tribes that grew to world power was led by Attila the Hun, in the Fifth Century. Slashing and murdering his way through Europe, he terrorized the entire continent and captured the greatest city of antiquity, Rome. Earlier, when Rome fell to the Goths, the citizens though that surely the end of the world had come. It was not until the Huns attacked, however, that they felt the full fury of Asiatic destruction and torture.

Attila was a typical Mongol of his day. Shaggy-headed, dirty and disheveled, his gorilla-like appearance evoked as much terror as if he had been a wild animal. With as little regard for human suffering as for the priceless treasures of Rome, he was lustful only for power, wine and women. He is said to have kept a huge harem, and, like his followers, to have left countless children by captured slaves all over Europe and Asia. Because of his merciless brutality, plundering and rape, he was called by his victims, “The Scourge of God.”

In 451 A. D., Attila was finally defeated, and while celebrating the addition of a new beauty to his harem, he died. He had taken from the world, by force, everything he wanted, because he knew no other way to get it. His vast and powerful empire collapsed like a house of cards and fell into utter ruin.

Approximately seven hundred years later came the most brilliant, the most destructive, and the most incredible of all the forerunners of Communism, Genghis Khan. He conquered not only the major part of Europe and almost all of Northern Asia, but also established powerful dynasties in Persia and China.

Born in 1162 A. D., Genghis Khan, at thirteen, succeeded his father as Chief of the Yakka Mongols. A robust lad, he was tall and broad-shouldered. His eyes set far apart, unlike those of the Mongols, did not slant and were a curious shade of green. He had high cheekbones and a sloping forehead beneath abundant red hair, which he wore in long braids down his back. His was a striking personality. He was as different from the other members of his horde in appearance as he was in mentality.

In his early years, Genghis wore the simple clothing of his tribesmen, consisting of skins sewn together with sinews. Frequently he greased his body to keep out the cold and moisture when it was necessary to sleep in the snow. He ate raw meat, and drank mare’s milk and sometimes blood which he let from the veins of his horses’ legs. Mentally the equal of any Caucasian, he undoubtedly had European blood in his veins. Perhaps that of a Princess, who knows?

Although this despot had an ungovernable temper and a wrath that could terrorize the strongest, he also had the capacity to make firm and lasting friends and loyal followers. He spoke thoughtfully and deliberately and is said to have remarked many times, “Monasteries and Temples breed mildness of character, but it is only the fierce and warlike who dominate mankind.” His eloquence could spellbind the masses.

He was an expert with the bow and arrow. His physical strength made him the leader of the wrestlers. He had been known to pick up an opponent, hold him high above his head, then break his back as though it were a bamboo reed! He enjoyed wrestling matches only when they rivaled the Roman gladiators, when the bones of the weaker adversaries were broken and crushed. He despised weakness of any kind, for he himself was a match for any man, and he had never been bested at any sport. Born of a race unwashed and illiterate, he raised his tribe of unknown barbarians to a position of world renown. Believing firmly that the Mongols were the natural masters of the world, he also was convinced that he had been chosen by Destiny to lead and control them. Thus impelled, this amazing barbarian, starting with only a tribe of wild nomads, finally conquered everything from Armenia to Korea, and from Tibet to the Volga River.

After Genghis Khan had subdued all of China, he settled down and developed into a typical oriental potentate. He lived in splendor on the present site of Peking, a far cry from his earlier primitive tent on the Gobi desert. Just so, in 1949, Mao Tse-tung sprang from the mud caves of Yenan to the palaces of Peking as China’s Number One dictator. Here, in this ancient city, Genghis, as Emperor, surrounded himself with courtiers and officials, as well as with wives, concubines and slaves.

He held high court and worked on affairs of state in a high pavilion of white felt, lined with treasured silk. Here also he entertained his friends and kept a silver table on which sat vessels of fermented mare’s milk and bowls of meat and fruit for their pleasure. Dressed in a lavishly embroidered robe and wearing a long and flaming beard, he sat at state functions on a dais at the far end of the pavilion. With him on a low bench sat Bourtai, his favorite wife. She was the real love of his life, and he claimed only the children born by her as his own. The Empress was small and dainty, with beautiful features and long hair braided with jewels and heavy coins. She was the mother of three sons who were destined to rule at a later period a domain larger than Rome’s. Other wives and concubines grouped themselves at his left, on lower platforms. His nobles sat on benches around the walls of the building, wearing long coats, bound around with enormous bright-colored silken girdles, and large, uptilted felt hats. In the center of the pavilion glowed a great fire made of thorns and dung. There was utter silence when Genghis spoke. His word was absolute law. It is said, “Any who disobeyed his word was like a stone dropped into deep water, or as an arrow among the reeds.”

Genghis Khan was almost as superstitious as he was brilliant. Believing that the character of every animal was in its heart, he hunted lions and tigers with great zest, preferring to capture them alive. He tore them open with his bare hands, pulled out the heart, and ate it while it was still throbbing. Convinced that this gave him the courage of a savage beast, he compelled his men to follow his example.

A military genius, he is known as the greatest guerilla fighter in history, but his real life work was the molding together of his vast hordes into a disciplined, well equipped, highly trained, and completely organized army. He used the forced labor of subjugated people—a significant parallel to the present day methods of Stalin, who, in order to increase the efficiency of his armies, drafted into them German scientists, artisans and technicians, as well as thousands of humbler laborers.

Genghis acquired, ultimately, over four hundred thousand warriors, countless elephant and camel trains loaded with the wealth of Croesus, and multitudes of armed slaves. “Unmatched in human valor,” it is said, “his hordes overcame the terrors of barren wastes, of mountains and seas, the severities of climate and the ravages of famine and pestilence. No dangers could appall them, no prayer for mercy could move them.”

Genghis Khan was the symbol of a new power in history. The ability of one man to alter human civilization began with him and ended with his grandson Kublai Khan, when the Mongol empires began to crack. It did not reappear again until the rise of Stalin to power.

The vast empires that Genghis established, with their accompanying devastation, was not all that he achieved. Had this been so, he would have been merely another Attila destroying with little or no definite purpose. His genius for organization and his clever statesmanship made him the model of kings, although he could not read or write when he drew up the incomparable “Yassa,” or code of conduct. This curious document, not unlike the dictates of Stalin, had three main purposes: to ensure absolute obedience to Genghis Khan; to bind together all the nomad clans for the purpose of making war; and to punish swiftly and mercilessly, anyone who violated the law, civil, military or political. With the “Yassa,” he and his heirs ruled their empires for three generations. The lash of its ruthless authority held it together.

Genghis died in 1227 A. D., leaving the greatest empires and the most destructive armies the world had ever known to that day. Not until the advent of the Tartars, a few centuries later, did another Asiatic tribe rise to world power. Led by fearless Tamerlane, they also laid waste everything in their path, in the savage manner of their predecessors. Once again the pattern was repeated. It is characteristic of the empires built by the steppe nomads that they were not the result of gradual development and expansion, but the product of a rapid growth under the leadership of a single powerful man. These men all seem to have had an evil genius for political intrigue, for exacting fanatical loyalty among their followers, and for devising ways to conquer many times their own numbers.

The aim of each of these Asiatic conquerors was to control the vast area of the world from the Pacific Ocean to Central Europe. They planned the overthrow, by force and violence, if need be, of all other governments and peoples in their path. Czarist Russia, in 1905, achieved the geographical empires of Genghis Khan, actually peopled by descendants of the same racial elements. Had they not been defeated subsequently by the Japanese, the Czars and their successors probably would have controlled all of China. In this new grouping of mankind, however, it was the half-Tartar Russians and not the Mongols, who were the dominant military factor. Today, the ruling power comes from Moscow, and not from the Mongolian East, except for the infusion of Chinese blood that has resulted from seven hundred years of constant conflict with the Celestial Empire.

With the discovery of America and her tremendous natural resources, the lust for world dominion has increased. Today, Stalin has ambitions for global mastery. His first tools of conquest are the Communists in every country. In February, 1947, as the Communist Convention in London, delegates from thirty-two countries met to reaffirm their pledges to support the Communist Party. These Communists are not members of a political party in the American sense; they are sinister and potentially powerful weapons of the Soviet Government.

Everywhere today, the “New Democracy,” or early Communism, has followed the pattern of the rise of each Asiatic despot. It repeated itself in Moscow in the early Twenties at the death of Lenin, when Stalin and Trotsky struggled for power. China, today, is passing from the first stage, the period of self-denial, of sharing the wealth, of submitting to rigid discipline and purification for “The Cause”—the Sackcloth and Ashes stage. The Chinese Communists are beginning to experience the progressive steps of disillusionment, apprehension and abject terror, as was the lot of millions of Russian peasants during the infamous Thirties.

The great and overpowering tragedy of Communism is that at no stage or time has it ever been the shining Utopia that hypnotizes the credulous common man and woman and some of the dreamers in high places in our own government. It would appear that neither Marx nor Engels understood human psychology or analyzed intelligently the lessons of history, for Socialism, in suppressing individual initiative, inevitably leads to I-Don’t-Care-ism. An economy based on share-and-share-alike, without regard to individual effort, failed in Russia because it put a premium on mediocrity and deprived man of the fruits of his own labor. It had to be replaced with “Stakhanovitism,” or piece work, which the American labor unions have fought constantly in their march toward Socialism. The Russians found that the only way to make men exert themselves without the incentive of reward was through fear of punishment. Thus Socialism has to be enforced by police methods to be at all effective. What is this but dictatorship? Socialism, Communism, Stateism—these can no more be separated from each other than can the component parts of homogenized milk.

Communist leaders, motivated by the promise of power, insist that world revolution is inevitable. The Chinese Communists, for many years, repeated an ancient legend. They said: “The Mongols still are waiting in their felt tents, for the issue to be decided. They are gathering around their yurt fires and chanting together: ‘When that which is harder than rock and stronger than the storm winds shall fail, the Empires of the North Court and the Empires of the South Court shall cease to be; when the White Tsar is no more, and the Son of Heaven has vanished, then the campfires of Genghis Khan will be seen again, and his empire shall stretch over all the earth’.” That prophesy is being fulfilled.

Chapter V — Communist Propaganda

Propaganda, thanks to a better understanding of mass psychology, has become in the past few years almost an exact science as well as an art In the hands of the Communists it is a powerful weapon, so subtle that, as in shadow boxing, one cannot judge the exact position of the enemy. With wily cleverness, it has perverted the meanings of cherished words, so that great national masses of people are no longer aware of their rightful connotations.

We, in the United States, for instance, think of Democracy as the dictionary defines it: “Government in which the supreme power is retained by the people.” The Communists have distorted this by adopting the term “New Democracy,” to represent a Communist controlled state, that is, a dictatorship.

Freedom, a beautiful word, has also been distorted. In a Western democracy, it means “liberation from slavery,” that is, the opportunity to work, live and play where, when and how one chooses, in open competition. In a Communist State, none of these things is possible. There can be no freedom where full regimentation is required. The Soviet’s claim of freeing the peasants from onerous landlords and the workers from grasping capitalists is only a blind. Any poor Chinese on the street soon sadly learns that these are being replaced by more oppressive masters, the Soviet Commissars.

Security is another wonderful word, and the Communists have been quick to realize its universal appeal. However, they use it in a purely economic sense, deliberately ignoring any but material values. Their type of security can be promised only at the price of personal freedom. It is already in operation in all penitentiaries, where the life-term convict is fed, clothed, cared for when ill, sheltered, entertained and protected from the harsh conditions of economic competition. He need not worry about any of these things. Yet it is a generally accepted fact that he would gladly and immediately trade all of the benefits he receives from his prison incarceration for the one little matter of Freedom.

The Chinese Commissar, in the footsteps of his Russian counterpart, reads to his military unit the daily propaganda bulletin.

Communist Propaganda Poster captions: Happy Are Those Who Work for the People!

Draw Water Against the Drought! Another propaganda poster.

Non-Communists looking at bulletin reporting expected visit of General Marshall to Yenan. Bulletin is put out by Communist Cultural Committee for Mass Education.

Communist propaganda poster: Produce for the People!

Communist propaganda picture showing how to Rescue the Wounded!

Besides twisting the meaning of words, the Communists have subtly changed long accepted human values and relationships. By distortion of Truth, and constant repetition of the Party Line, they gradually paralyze all individual thinking and destroy the will to resist. Russian propaganda is far more effective than was the German, and their Chinese henchmen have had to modify it slightly to adapt it for use in their country. By false promises, intimidation and persuasion, the Communists lulled the weakened opposition and made the conquest of China easier. When necessary, they never hesitated to use terror and brutality. By these two means they have established a vast web of control over the entire land of nearly five hundred million people.

The Chinese Communists have found it expedient to have two types of propaganda: one which is directed at foreigners and follows strictly the Moscow line; the other maintained for domestic consumption. The home propaganda concentrates on Chinese affairs and plays down the foreign and international angles. Slogans, or catch phrases, are evident everywhere, on billboards, in handbills, on posters, in the press and on the air channels. In this way, the slogans are repeated over and over again, until everyone becomes thoroughly familiar with them. Throughout China are heard the shouts of the victors—SERVE THE PEOPLE! PRODUCE FOR THE PEOPLE! RESCUE THE WOUNDED! BEAR SONS FOR THE PEOPLE! The latter is one of the most surprising in a land that has an annual death rate of a million from starvation and is presently suffering from the worst famine in years!

The slogans are often illustrated and used as picture posters. Gay and colorful, they frequently show a prosperous looking group standing or sitting before an enormous basket overflowing with luscious fruits and vegetables. The caption: HAPPY ARE THOSE WHO WORK FOR THE PEOPLE! Billboards and handbills in villages and towns are, of necessity, simple and elementary, while in Shanghai and other large cities they are more elaborate and sometimes quite sophisticated.

As in Germany before the war, and in Russia today, the Chinese concentrate on the children. These are often separated from their families when they are very young and sent to special schools away from their homes. The Chinese Communists, like the Soviets, are making every effort to destroy family life and ties, since family loyalty competes with their training program. The first and only loyalty must be to the State. In some schools, youngsters have been given new textbooks which begin with the verse:

“I do not love my Mama. I do not love my Papa. I love only my Country and Mao Tse-tung.” Other books show pictures of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and other Nationalist leaders and characterize them as enemies of the State who are “to be killed on sight.”

Children, otherwise well brought up and, prior to the new schooling, devoted to their families, return to their homes and face their parents with: “We don’t love you any more. We are leaving home and will fight the Nationalists ourselves, wherever we find them!”

Some of the propaganda is directed against foreigners, especially Americans. The children are taught to repeat little songs in which Americans are called “greedy and vicious capitalists,” and they are shown cartoons depicting Americans as two-headed pigs being kicked out of China.

The effect of such systematic mind-poisoning is shown in an incident that happened in North China just before the Communists took over. An American on a business trip watched a Chinese woman, carrying a baby and a large bundle, attempt to cross a narrow bridge over a little river. A tiny girl, barely old enough to walk, clung to the mother’s skirts. The planking of the bridge was wobbly and narrow. Realizing they could not all cross at once, the woman loosened the child’s hands and told her: “Wait there and I’ll come back for you.” Then, with the bundle and baby, she crossed the poorly constructed span. The American, trying to be a good Samaritan, went toward the stranded little girl to offer to take her across. At his approach she screamed in terror and ran from him. Catching up with her, he talked to her in a quiet voice for some minutes. Soon the youngster dried her tears, accepted the man’s arms, and was carried to safety. The mother turning to go back for the child, cried out in alarm at seeing her in the arms of the American. With the realization that the man meant no harm, she appeared amazed at his courtesy.

Among the near illiterate, speeches are the most effective means of propaganda, and the Chinese Red Armies have large doses of these inflicted upon them. The soldiers, following the example of their Russian comrades, are briefed on when to clap and when to cheer. Like any college football crowd, they dutifully follow the cheer leaders.

The Communists are especially proud of their so-called “Educational Program” for soldiers, and they claim that thirty per cent of the time allotted to military training is devoted to “cultural” and political work. As a result of attendance at daily classes, over eighty per cent of the troops are reported able to read elementary Chinese characters, giving them enough background to understand simplified Communist newspapers. These “newspapers” are filled with news strictly censored by the leaders, and the characters learned in school are those that enable them to read only what the posters and textbooks say. No effort is wasted on superfluous, non-political knowledge.

Bestowing tides as a reward is another Moscow-inspired incentive for the soldiers, as well as for the illiterate populace. This device is also used to encourage labor production and to throw a smoke screen over exploitation. Labor “Heroes” and “Heroines” are greatly admired in all Red-blighted areas, and any Communist who studies and works hard has a chance to be thus honored and to obtain the coveted material reward or special privilege that accompanies the title.

Russian propaganda, when modified for the Chinese, is slanted so that it may not offend them too greatly while they are still being taken over, that is, during the transition period of persuasion and deception. Shortly after the capture of Tientsin, an enormous picture of Stalin appeared beside that of Mao Tse-tung in Min Yuan Park. The people milling around in great throngs stared up at it, some in wonderment. One of them finally remarked, “Who is that other man? He is not Chinese, he is a foreigner.” In order to keep the surface smooth at first and to cause no undue alarm or suspicion among the people, the next day Mao hung alone.

The capture of Tientsin and Peking was accomplished with comparatively little fighting except on the outskirts of both cities. The plans for taking Peking had been well thought out. Secret agents, for years, had been “persuading” the people and softening up the Nationalist troops. The actual capture was cunningly timed. The Chinese New Year was chosen, with due respect to superstition, by the incoming lords of the land. They allowed the people to spend three days making their customary friendly calls upon each other, in the ancient manner, and settling up their bills and accounts. Farmers poured into the cities with supplies of meat and vegetables, and the Communists bided their time while the citizenry, ate, drank and made merry. In the Chinese calendar 1949 was the Year of the Rat, and 1950 ushered in the Year of the Cow. Time-honored superstition has it that when, in the passage of years, the tail of the Rat touches the horn of the Cow, times will be good, luck will change and the future will be successful. The Chinese were all congratulating themselves over their coming good year when the Communists, after waiting for the psychological moment, marched their armies in and took over the ancient capital.

The new masters gave the populace various choices of “surrender” terms, although they did not use the expression “surrendering.” First, the vanquished were politely invited to “Come out and join us, for we are all brothers now.” This invitation was called the “Peking way.” When anyone showed reluctance to accept, the “Tientsin way” was tried. This method involved pressure, first psychological, then if that failed, material, and finally if there was still any hesitation, physical, in the form of more or less severe beatings. In other words, the same old formula was at work—persuasion and then force.

The Chinese Communists, after the fall of the entire country, copied from their Soviet comrades the trick of inviting all the industrialists, financiers and scientists who had fled to Canton, Hong Kong and elsewhere to return to their Northern homes, where they could continue to operate their businesses as before. So in 1946 Stalin invited all the White Russians living in China to return to the USSR. The old birdie in the cage trick! Persuaded that they were going to receive fair treatment, many of the expatriate Russians gladly gave up their jobs and homes in Shanghai and Tientsin and spent their last dollars on passage to Siberia. No word was ever heard from many of them, but gradually a few letters appeared, smuggled in through Chinese friends, which told of great suffering. A few of the hardiest escaped and returned, all with the same story—Siberia, the salt mines, death. What happened to their Chinese counterparts who heeded the siren song of the victors of Peking we do not know, but we can guess.

Communist propaganda is apparent in practically every aspect of Chinese life. Only the Opera and the Russian Ballet appear to have remained relatively free from taint. The Reds are tremendously proud of both of these world renowned examples of creative art and make a great show of claiming that they are always performed in the “original.” However, when put on before strictly indoctrinated audiences, propaganda appears in the shape of Party line interpretations of dances, songs and long curtain speeches. The audience is never allowed to forget for a moment that it is there to be instructed as well as entertained.

The basic purpose of Communist propaganda, of course, is to make conquest as easy as possible. The Party line is fed to the people like opium, and it dulls their senses and makes them docile. When persuasion proves inadequate, threats and brutality are resorted to, for in a Totalitarian State no one can remain on the fence. Only through complete unity, voluntary or forced, can such a state survive. It is impossible for anyone to remain non-political.

Should both persuasion and force fail, the Communists then resort to a method which represents an all time low in evil—the use of poisonous drugs to draw out false confessions from their victims. This is called the “biodynamic” treatment. The drugs, “actedon” and “mescaline” are used to paralyze the brain, then to cause its disintegration. The doses are administered in coffee, and the victim, with nothing else to eat or drink, consumes large quantities, which are generously supplied, unaware of the effect being produced on his mind and body. When the personality has been sufficiently disintegrated or “split” by these drugs—when the sufferer has been driven crazy—a skilled psychiatrist can put the pieces together at his will and gradually evolve a completely new personality. In other words, when the physical breakdown of the individual has been accomplished, his mental collapse is brought about by the use of these fiendish drugs.

The Communists say, “The average person can be made to give in through brutality and fear, but in complicated cases the combination of neurology, or brain study, chemistry and psychiatry must be used.” Preparing the victim valuable enough for this process often takes as long as three or four months, during which time he is jailed and kept in solitary confinement. Frequently dozens of doctors, scientists, and assistants are worn out in the process of treatment. It is so diabolical that the Communists say they use it only in exceptional cases where they feel that the results warrant a demonstration to the public at large of their complete mastery over man.

The world now knows that this was the treatment administered in 1949 to Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, Primate of the Catholic church, Budapest; to Michael Shipkov, Bulgarian Translator for the U. S. Legation in Sofia; and again in 1950 to Robert A. Vogeler, American business executive in Hungary. This same heinous method has been repeated in Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Eastern Germany and undoubtedly elsewhere throughout the world, though actual reports of every case have not, as yet, come into print.

The use of hypnotism as a propaganda weapon and as a device for manipulating victims also has not been overlooked by the Communists. Dr. G. H. Estabrooks, Chairman of the Department of Psychology at Colgate University, who has pioneered in developing hypnotism’s wartime uses, says:

“With the Twentieth Century’s revived interest in psychology, hypnotism has been brought to the status of a full-fledged science.”

“A person,” continues Estabrooks, “can be hypnotized against his will or without his knowledge.”

“A foreign agent working in a hospital or a doctor in his own office could,” he avers, “over a period of time, place thousands of people under his power by means of fake physical examinations.”

For instance, he explains how in wartime this masked manoeuver could enable a junior medical officer to take over the reins of the U. S. Army and lead it into total defeat.

Hypnotism, we now know, was used in addition to drugs by the Nazis to obtain a “confession” from Van der Lubbe at the Reichstag Trial and also by the Soviet Union to demoralize Cardinal Mindszenty, Robert Vogeler and others.

Mao Tse-tung, like all Moscow-trained speakers and others of their ilk, is fully aware of the power of hypnosis over large audiences. In the early days of victory, he spellbound his listeners not alone by words but also by the strength of his mesmeric will.

“Make up your minds! We abhor fence straddlers. There is no middle of the road! Not in all China, not in all the universe,” he continued. “One must be either on the side of Imperialism or on the side of Communism!”

In a speech commemorating the 28th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao, addressing a mass meeting early in 1950, said:

“Internationally, China belongs to the anti-imperialist front. To Russia we proudly look for genuine, friendly aid, and to no other country. The second world war, with the Soviet Union as the principle fighting force, defeated the great Imperialist powers, Germany and Japan. It weakened England and France, and left only one Imperialist country in the world—the United States of America! Even she suffered great losses. Her economy was smashed and her domestic crisis is acute! There is great unrest in the country, and the people have no leader. They are fighting among themselves. And yet she thinks she can enslave the world! She is nothing but a weakling! By aiding Chiang Kai-shek, she is responsible for the slaughter of millions of Chinese!”

An outburst of applause and cries of “Ding How!” (Good! Good!) greeted his words.

Mao continued, waving his arms: “In China, some Imperialism still exists in our ‘New Democracy,’ but we will work steadfastly for a complete Communist Society. Our tools are the People’s Army, Police and Communist Court. Under the leadership of the working class, we will unite to form our own dictatorship over the lackeys of foreign Imperialism. We will drive them out like dogs, howling through the streets! Let us establish a People’s Dictatorship over the reactionaries, to be known throughout the world as the People’s Democratic Dictatorship. Let us raise China from an agricultural country by eliminating all classes, and realizing the state of universal fraternity!”

Another storm of applause from the duped audience followed these closing words, along with shrill cries of “Long live our People’s Dictatorship! Long live our Chairman Mao! Long live our Comrade Stalin!”

Chapter VI — Manchuria, the Prize

Manchuria is the home of the Manchus who conquered China and ruled it until 1911. It is the Prize, the bone of contention over which the bloodiest battles have been fought, and the one area in all Asia without which neither the Communists nor the Nationalists could hope to become a world power.

Studded with Japanese industrial plants, Manchuria is known as the Pittsburgh of China, due to the fact that here both coal and iron are mined close together. Here, also, is contained seventy per cent of the industrial potential of all China. A rugged, windy land, much like our American prairie states, it is one of the few places in Asia that has a food surplus and serves as the granary of that vast region. Farmers, using shaggy Mongol ponies, till broad fields of soybeans, millet, corn, wheat and opium poppies. With the great abundance of grain, the people are able to produce beef and mutton for export.

Even before the Japanese occupation, Manchuria was a thriving center, and the conquerors, with characteristic efficiency, speeded its industrial and agricultural development during the fourteen years of their occupation. They developed the largest coal, iron and gold mines in Eastern Asia. From Manchuria alone they obtained more gold than from any other source, in addition to five million tons of iron and steel and thirty million tons of coal every year.

The great cities in Manchuria, of which Mukden is the capital, were modernized. New railroad lines were built into the outlying districts, and thousands of workers, heretofore purely agricultural, were taught to work in factories. For the first time, modern hotels and apartments covered city blocks, and Mukden undoubtedly boasted more bathtubs, per capita, than any other city in Asia, with the possible exception of Shanghai.

The Generalissimo had believed that Manchuria, when it was liberated, would become a part of the Nationalist Government. He had sent occupation troops there, had incorporated it into his rightful territory, and at the end of the war had already started repairing the damage caused by the final phase of the fighting. He was unaware of the fact that Roosevelt had promised Manchuria to Russia as her price for entering the war against Japan. He still firmly believed in Roosevelt’s friendship, because Roosevelt had promised that all Chinese territory liberated from the Japanese would be returned to China.

Although Russia kept a tight rein on the Prize, she did everything she could to help and encourage the Chinese Communists. Immediately upon entering the war, she began to supply them with arms and ammunition captured from the Japanese. At first this was done stealthily by the simple ruse of allowing the Chinese Communists to “find” these supplies themselves. After V-J Day Russia made no attempt to hide from the world her interest in, and her support of, the Chinese Communist regime. Besides supplying arms and propaganda material, she assisted her lusty child by hampering, in every way, the liberation of the Nationalist troops held by the Japanese. Since then she has continued to work closely with the Chinese Reds. Li Li San, the Kremlin’s Chinese agent, is in command. Russia, therefore, takes everything she desires for herself, first.

Russian Armies in the East are composed of Asiatics, closely related geographically, racially and politically to the Chinese Communists. In behavior they are as clumsy and vindicative as their forebears under Genghis Khan. Many peace-loving Chinese, after experiencing Red domination, cried out, “Six months under the Communists are worse than fourteen years under the Japs.”

As an example of what happens when these people overrun a country, let us examine Manchuria at close range. Russian troops taking over the country from the Japanese stripped nearly all the factories of machinery, but with characteristic inefficiency. When a machine to be sent to Russia was dismantled, no effort was made to keep the pieces together in numbered crates so they could be reassembled in another location. On the contrary, the machines were broken down in mass and the jumbled parts loaded into trucks or freight cars with no regard whatever to system. Where a machine could not be brought out through doors or windows, the whole side of a wall was pushed out and the rubble left where it fell. Completely ignorant of the delicate mechanism of precision instruments, they permitted them to be left out in the rain and snow to rust into utter uselessness. Somewhere east of the Urals, the Russians must have a tremendous pile of scrap, if it is not scattered along the line of the Trans-Siberian Railway. This inability to appreciate and handle machinery may throw some light on Russia’s frantic desire to acquire machine tools, at almost any cost. Incidentally, the same wanton disregard of everything technical applies to the looting of Eastern Europe.

Not only were Manchuria’s factories moved out bodily, piled onto freight cars and, in a desultory manner, slowly moved into Siberia, but what the troops were unable to take with them, they maliciously destroyed. Aside from the Kremlin-activated seizure of the factories, the primitive soldiers of the occupying forces, as well as just common bandits, stripped Manchuria’s cities of everything that could, by any remote chance, be useful to them. Both Chinese and Russians followed the age old Mongolian custom and gleefully stole or destroyed all personal property that they could get their hands on. Even fixtures fastened to the walls were pulled out, and door knobs, pipes and plumbing appliances were removed and turned over to the government to be made into ammunition.

The Nationalist troops that the Generalissimo had moved in right after V-J Day found it well-nigh impossible to defend Manchurian property. The Chinese Communists used guerrilla warfare almost exclusively against the villagers, their tactics being to terrorize, kill and destroy before help could come from the Nationalist troops. “Sack and pillage” kept the people in constant panic. In an endeavor to isolate and defeat the Nationalists, the Communists tore up all the railroads. Peasants were conscripted to dig up hundreds of miles of railway track. They burned the ties, levelled the roadbeds, hid or carried away the rails, and demolished the drainage structures. Practically all the bridges were destroyed by explosives, all signal towers and sidetrack mechanisms were wrecked, and every other wanton damage that fiendish ingenuity could conceive or devise was inflicted. As a final gesture of brutality, captured locomotive engineers who were known to have Nationalist sympathies had their hands cut off.

This kind of fighting completely destroyed the economy of Manchuria. From being a food and industrial surplus area, she became poverty-stricken. The people, living in barren houses without furniture or utensils of any kind, were reduced to the level of their primitive ancestors. Water became the scarcest of commodities and, with the reservoirs destroyed, had to be brought up from the dirty rivers in buckets. City transportation was at a premium. It ranged from the luxury of a pedicab, to ancient carriage bodies or automobile chassis, hauled by men, tiny ponies and dogs. A few families found a new use for the bathtub which they had been able to salvage. Mounted on rickety wheels, it was used as a public conveyance, and men, women and children sat huddled together in it. Sometimes a huge umbrella, Chinese or foreign, protected them from a scorching sun or a driving rain. It made a grotesque picture indeed!

With the disruption of transportation and the commandeering of much of the foodstuffs for the troops, obtaining food became the major problem of the people of Manchuria. Starvation stalked the cities. Mukden families were reduced to eating dung. So precious was this commodity that every horse wore a contraption under his tail resembling a large, crude dust pan to preserve even minute droppings. The very poor mixed mud with the dung, and after baking the concoction in the sun used it as food. Hawkers sold it on the streets.

Just as the Mongols under Genghis Khan burned, looted and tortured when they invaded Cathay, so the modern Mongols have behaved in like manner. Some of the more decent among them were so outraged by these tactics that they deserted and joined the Nationalists. One, a Colonel, told how he had been ordered to round up bandits and drive them at bayonet point into villages. Here they were allowed to pillage, burn and rape to their hearts’ content. While this was being done, the Communists would remain hidden a short distance away. After the terror had subsided somewhat, when the village was reduced to a shambles and the inhabitants were all but insane, the Communists soldiers would rush in and shoot the bandits, ostensibly to rescue the villagers. This technique seldom failed to swell the Communist ranks. All who resisted conversion were, of course, subjected to more drastic treatment.

Another ex-Communist told of teaching little boys of ten and twelve to use knives and pistols to murder members of their own families who refused to cooperate with the Reds. The child criminals became fugitives and were forced to join the guerrillas in the hills.

Many of the well-to-do managed to get away, where, no one knew, but the poor, aged and helpless were not exempt from the senseless fury of the Mongol hordes. They were used at times as object lessons to demonstrate the pitiless power of the Red Terror. According to an eye witness, the hands of women and children were sometimes smashed with mallets and left dangling like raw hamburgers. These utterly miserable creatures wandered insanely through the streets, moaning pitifully and gradually dying from loss of blood, infection and unendurable pain.

At other times, the Communists tied bombs around the bodies of men and women, carted them to thickly populated areas, lighted the fuses and left them to explode. This invariably happened at night, when the effect was more terrifying. These human torches were supposed to be the unreliable Quislings. The method of their disposal by the Reds shows how the latter are running true to form. In the days of Genghis Khan a Quisling was despised. When he had served his purpose, he was taken out and his throat was slit. As an example, there is the story of the Battle of Samarkand, when thirty thousand Kankali Turks, seeing that the victory was going against them, and hoping to save their lives, deserted to the Mongols. They were received in a friendly manner and shown every courtesy. Equipped with Mongol military dress and weapons, they felt welcome and honored. But, alas, after being royally wined and dined, they were massacred to a man. Like Stalin, the Mongols had utter contempt for such people.

Conquering armies, however, sometimes get a dose of their own medicine, and, when they do, it is apt to be fatal. At least it proved so in the case of the forty Russian soldiers who looted a Japanese hospital near Mukden. Finding a large vat of alcohol in the basement, they spent a riotous night, drinking and carousing. The next morning an officer found all forty of them dead. Evidently they had never heard of “rubbing” alcohol.

Today, in Manchuria, the Chinese Communists, aided by Russian technicians and advisors, are rebuilding the country for their own advantage. It is said that Stalin will use Manchuria as an experimental training station for Communism. He now controls the reconstructed railways in and out of this highly strategic area and requires banks to give them fifty to sixty per cent of their loans for industrial developments. Some private businesses were told that they would not be molested, provided they would do all they could to boost production under Communist supervision. During the last three years of civil war in China, the Manchurian farmers turned over 4,500,000 tons of grain to the Communists. In spite of this, they are being urged to PRODUCE FOR THE PEOPLE!—to raise more and more grain to be exported to Siberia. In Russia’s grandiose scheme of developing Siberia with Chinese slave labor, the wealth of Manchuria is her greatest industrial asset.

In contrast to Stalin’s close personal supervision of Manchuria, experts seem agreed that he will leave China pretty much alone, for the time being, and let Mao and other leaders of the moment believe that they are solidifying their positions. Sometime within the next one, two or three years, he may “liquidate” or “retire” them all and replace them with the out-and-out Russian Commissars. How soon Stalin will be able to accomplish this, time alone will tell.

Chapter VII — The Tragedy of the Generalissimo

Any account of conditions in China today would be incomplete without mentioning the Nationalist Government and what it attempted to achieve.

The political and social revolution inside China has been in progress many years, and these years have been turbulent ones. The Chinese, largely illiterate, were for a long time completely isolated. Many believed that China was the entire world and that a “foreigner” was a Chinese from another province. Patriotism was felt by them only where the home and family were concerned.

In 1911, Dr. Sun Yet-sen led a successful revolution and overthrew the Manchu Dynasty. Desiring to make China a modern republic, he proclaimed as his aim: “To dedicate the few score perishable years of our life to the laying of an imperishable foundation for our Nation.” To this end he gave his life.

The educated Chinese then began the creation of a modern, unified and democratic country. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, co-founder of the revolution of 1911, became its second leader in 1925, on the death of Dr. Sun. China knew no other leader until 1949.

In the beginning, the Chinese Communist and Nationalist Parties were one and the same. They were the Revolutionary Party. An admirer of the United States and Great Britain, Dr. Sun first requested their help in reorganizing and revitalizing his country, but they refused. With no alternative, he was forced to accept the aid of Russian revolutionaries who jumped at the chance to tie China up with their own impending revolution. Working with the famous Communist, Adolph Joffe, Dr. Sun drew up the policy of the new government. However, not all the Chinese revolutionaries were radical. Some were moderate liberals, and many were wealthy conservatives who desired only a more modern setup than the Manchus had. Among the latter the Soong family is certainly the best known. This family cleverly safeguarded its future by marrying one of its charming daughters, Chingling, to Dr. Sun Yat-sen; another, Meiling, to Chiang Kai-shek; and a third, Eiling, to Dr. H. H. Kung, a 75th lineal descendant of Confucius. This last was of definite psychological significance, as it united the mighty Soong family with that of China’s most revered Saint.

When Chiang Kai-shek inherited the mantle of Sun Yat-sen, he determined to carry out the policy of the revolution. His actions followed his words. Enormous progress was made during the so-called “Golden Decade,” between 1927 and 1937. China made a beginning toward industrialization and economic stability and improved her educational facilities.

This was the age of enormous industrial expansion. Railroads were constructed, telephone lines built, and even radio was introduced. Electricity and power plants were created, and merchants did a flourishing business. Tourist trade was at its height, and Chinese and American importers were cooperating harmoniously. Everyone seemed to be better off than before, the poor as well as the rich.

Chart showing origins of the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party, or Koumintang (KMT), as the latter frequently was called

Thousands of Chinese enthusiastically took part in helping to build this New China, and every effort was made to instill a real spirit of Nationalism in the hearts of the people. To quote the Generalissimo, “If the National Revolution should fail, China, as a nation, would have nothing to rely upon. Should this happen, not only would China cease to rank as one of the Four Powers of the world, but she would be at the mercy of other countries.”

The period of progress, unhappily, was short lived. It had become obvious to the Japanese war lords that a patriotic, united China might, on the one hand, prove an insurmountable obstacle to their own plan to conquer and control all of Asia. On the other hand, it would be too sweet a plum to pass up! Twice during the Thirties they shelled Shanghai and in 1939 launched a full scale war of aggression. All of the cities along the coast were captured, and the Chinese were forced to move far inland.

Led by the Generalissimo, thousands of Chinese moved whole libraries, printing presses, government records and valuables laboriously up the Yangtse River to the city of Chungking. Every kind of river craft was used from a few modern boats to small sampans, junks and home-made rafts pushed by hand. All had to be either lifted out of the water and carried around the rapids in the river or be abandoned. Many families travelled on foot, each member carrying a bundle on his back. Even children of four and five had their small belongings wrapped in a large scarf and tied to the end of a stick slung over their shoulders. The road along the river valley became lined with food vendors and shoemakers who did a big business in woven straw sandals. Professors, surrounded by their students carrying modern books or ancient Chinese written scrolls, conducted classes during their periods of rest. United with their leader against a foreign enemy, the people of China revered and respected the Generalissimo.

At last the long procession of uprooted patriots reached its destination, Chungking, and here Chiang set up his military headquarters and conducted his affairs of State. The Japanese, unable to reach the city by land, attacked almost nightly by air. Without anti-aircraft guns or planes of their own, the Chinese suffered terrible civilian casualties. A great part of the city was burned by incendiary bombs.

On the ruins of the old city, Madame Chiang Kai-shek proceeded to build a model village, with schools, nurseries, libraries and churches such as she had known in America. The project proved a wonderful morale builder. Everybody for miles around took part in the construction of the unique little city, and it became the center of a broader undertaking known as “The New Life Movement.”

In this new village, personal habits of cleanliness and sanitation were taught and ways of being mutually helpful suggested. Concerts and community singing were held almost nightly. The Generalissimo, wishing to emphasize unselfish cooperation, expressed the philosophy of the movement in four simple words: “Honesty, Industry, Sincerity and Justice.” There developed, among these people at least, a feeling of pride and unity that was well on the way to becoming national patriotism. This new spirit of oneness in the face of common danger was greater than at any time since Emperor Chin caused the Great Wall to be built in 214 B. C. to keep the Huns from invading his Empire.

The Generalissimo’s gallant stand against the modern war machines and trappings of the Japanese added shining pages to the history of China. History will record a full realization of the importance of his contributions to the United States in World War II. After Pearl Harbor, while the Japanese won many military successes against the Americans and the British, Chiang’s determination to stay in the fight saved countless American lives. The Japanese were forced to keep a million and a half of their best troops in China, although these were needed desperately in the East Indies and the Islands of the Pacific, where they were trying to stop the Allied advance under General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz. We in the United States, for the first time, became dimly aware of what a capable and relentless foe the Japanese could be and of the tremendous battle the Chinese had long been fighting.

The Chinese have never been a warlike nation. Their industrial development was comparable to that of Europe in the Middle Ages. Therefore, their political and economic structures were totally unable to meet the demands of a modern military struggle with Japan. Regardless of how little they had, however, they fought doggedly against increasing odds. When all surface communication with the outside world was cut off, their resistance forces burrowed underground.

Several times the Japanese offered the Generalissimo very attractive peace terms, but he resolutely declined them. He had promised to stick with his Allies to the end, to give them his full assistance to achieve a decisive victory. His confidence in Roosevelt was complete, and, like a great many Americans, British and others, Chiang believed Roosevelt incapable of injustice. He was undoubtedly familiar with the discussions at the Cairo Conference when Roosevelt, in mock seriousness, said to Churchill:

“I think all of the Chinese territory liberated from the Japanese during the war should be returned to China, including Hong Kong.”

Churchill, jumping to his feet, said emphatically, “I will never permit the return of Hong Kong to the Chinese!”

“Then I will take the matter up, personally, with your King!” said Roosevelt.

“The King of England has no authority to give away Imperial Territory,” shouted Churchill. “I alone hold that power!”

Roosevelt laughed heartily. He always enjoyed baiting Churchill, because the latter was so hot tempered and quick to jump whenever he was goaded.

Chiang took Roosevelt seriously.

During the years of the Japanese war, the Generalissimo also had to contend with the Communists. The Chinese Red Armies, while giving lip service to anti-Japanese activity, were in fact so placed militarily as to be facing the Nationalist troops, rather than the Japanese! It is true that the Communists made a number of raids on isolated Japanese posts, but this they did with the purpose of capturing soldiers whom they could then indoctrinate with Communist propaganda. Naturally the Japanese resented these raids and retaliated. Consequently, there were skirmishes now and then, but they were of little importance. The fact still remains that the Japanese fought their major war against the Generalissimo’s Armies. Wherever and whenever possible, the Chinese Communist Armies helped the enemy by attacking Nationalist-held towns and lines of communication.

The Japanese surrender, when it finally came, was received with great jubilation throughout China and the world. It was indeed a triumphant hour for the Generalissimo. Now, at long last, he was in a position to undertake a peaceful rehabilitation of his country and to pick up where he had left off when the Japanese struck. He could go forward with his program of political and social reforms and establish, first of all, a sound economy. The stage was set for his dreams to become a reality—the dream that China would take her rightful place in the world of democratic nations.

Although the American Ambassador, General Patrick J. Hurley, had told Chiang of the decision at Yalta to give Manchuria to Russia as her price for entering the war against Japan, the Generalissimo believed so firmly in the good will and friendship of Roosevelt that he was sure he would be supported in his effort to regain this important Northern province. Therefore, as soon after the Japanese surrender as possible, he sent troops to occupy and try to hold Manchuria. There his army found itself confronted by the Russian Mongolian Army bent on the same mission.

At home, likewise, the Generalissimo was faced with ever-increasing problems. The Allied and Japanese bombing had caused great destruction, not unlike that in Europe. Villages had to be rebuilt, factories and lines of communication restored. Millions of displaced Chinese were waiting patiently to be returned to their homes. Approximately three and a half million Japanese soldiers and civilians were ready for repatriation.

With great courage, inexhaustible patience and amazing wisdom, Chiang Kai-shek began his program of reconstruction and rehabilitation. He little realized that his three great Allies—Russia, England and the United States—had plotted behind his back to snatch from his hands, in his moment of victory, the one area that could change China from a backward agricultural country into a modern and powerful nation. Without Manchuria Chiang was lost. This was the juicy bone that first the Japanese, then the Communists or the Generalissimo had to have to complete their growth as a modern power. Without it each would be rendered impotent.

Chiang Kai-shek had fought for eight years to prevent the spread of Japanese totalitarianism in China. Now he was confronted with a much more vicious brand, Communist totalitarianism. He commented, “The Japanese were a disease of the skin. The Communists are a disease of the bone.”

Many people wonder why the Nationalist Armies were so ineffective and why so many of them went over to the Communists without even putting up a fight. Certainly the bulk of the Chinese are not disposed to Communism. They just want an opportunity to feed, clothe and shelter their families. Most of them do not understand Communism or any other political philosophy. Some accepted the new leadership through sheer inertia. Some of them leaned toward it in protest against stupid and oppressive government police measures, corrupt practices and bad administration. Squeeze, or graft as we call it, was never a crime in China. The Chinese people have no sense of political right or wrong, no convictions about political truths as the Western world recognizes them. As one Chinese General put it, “To take from the government is no crime.” Indeed the principal weakness of the Generalissimo was the very fact that he surrounded himself with men who did not hesitate to take all they could get from the government.

Chiang showed the same loyalty to those who surrounded him and supported him, including members of his own and his wife’s families, as President Truman, for instance, has demonstrated in his loyalty to the Pendergast machine and others who have done his bidding. The Generalissimo’s honesty and personal integrity have never been questioned by those who know him best, and who were in constant association with him during the Japanese war. General Wedemeyer has attested to this statement and he was the American Chief of Staff to Chiang Kai-shek and knew him intimately. For us to say his Nationalist Government was corrupt and deserved to fall, amounts to the pot calling the kettle black. Such a situation exists today in Washington, D. C.

Feeding the armies was Chiang’s greatest problem. The government at first gave a lump sum to the army commanders, but many of these were unscrupulous rascals who kept most of it for themselves, allocating a small remainder to subordinates, who passed a still smaller proportion on down through the lower levels to the unprotected soldier. This was a century-old practice in China, and the hungry soldier was reduced to stealing or appropriating his food from the peasant merchants. Naturally there was always trouble between the soldiers and the merchants, with no love lost between the two. The latter lost their profits, and the soldiers reasoned that they were at least entitled to food from the people they were fighting to protect. It became increasingly easy for the Chinese Communists to win converts. They went with those who offered them food.

In spite of this tragic situation, the Generalissimo, with the same patience and strength that had made his war leadership outstanding, continued to hold the loyalty of a great number of his people. Long after his flight to Formosa, rich and poor, officer and soldier continued to fight for his principles. For example, as the Communists entered Peking, there was desperate street fighting. The commander of a battalion told his men, “We are greatly outnumbered. I cannot keep you from going over to the other side, but I have fought the Communists for eight years and I will not give up now!” Inspired by his brave stand, most of his men remained with him and formed an obstacle to the Communist advance. Finally, after an hour of hopeless fighting, and when all his men had been killed, the battalion commander manned the last machine gun himself and turned it full force on the solid front of Communist troops advancing toward him.

The Generalissimo had many such brave soldiers who fought to the death in his armies. Not all those loyal to Chiang were soldiers. In Canton, after the Communists took over, they held a great celebration featuring a long victory parade. This stopped every few miles and put on a little skit which showed the Generalissimo on his knees, with his hands tied behind his back, confessing his sins to the Communist leaders who laughed uproariously! The actor who impersonated Chiang received numerous threatening letters. When he reported this to his Soviet boss, he was told to disregard the threats and was ordered to continue his role. A few days later the actor was shot. Even behind the Red Curtain there are still snipers about. In fact there is every reason to believe that active guerrilla bands are on the prowl.

In Kwangsi Province, the Southern Province of General Li Tsun-jen, pronounced “Lee Tzun-ren,” the villagers found that if they did not cooperate with the Communists, they would be shot. On the other hand, if they did, they took the chance of meeting a similar fate at the hands of Nationalist guerrillas for collaborating with the enemy. Undoubtedly this situation existed in many other places.

Many of those who knew the Generalissimo best believed that despite the corruption that surrounded him he would go down in history as a man of integrity and high purpose. Tribute is paid him by General Wedemeyer when he says, “There are few people who can speak more authoritatively than I can concerning the sincerity and Christian humility of the Generalissimo. I had frequent, almost daily, contacts with him for nearly a year. I can vouch for his unselfish devotion to the Chinese people and for his earnest desire to provide a democratic way of life within China. Surely his loyalty and his faithful cooperation during the war fully merit our lasting friendship.”

Our assistance was denied to Chiang, and the outcome of our most grievous mistakes will be judged by future historians. Not only the United States, but some of the Chinese themselves, selfishly withheld the aid they could have given their leader and their country. In 1946, fifty of the wealthiest Chinese were called in and asked if they would each donate a large portion of their enormous fortunes, which together ran into the billions, to their government. Bowing and nodding their heads, they listened politely, but not one of them was willing to sacrifice his future security or even to jeopardize it against such stupendous odds.

Support of the State still is a secondary consideration to the Chinese. Their principal loyalty—financial, filial, and political—is to their own family. As in the ancient days, the poor, the sick and the destitute can claim the protection of their nearest relative. No matter how distant the relationship, they are given food and shelter. Be it said to their credit, there are very few asylums or orphanages in China. The family takes care of its own.

Perhaps this idea was in Chiang’s mind when he refused the enticing peace terms offered him by the Japanese at Hankow. A devout scholar, he quoted Confucius: “The men of old, when they wished their virtues to shine throughout the land, first had to govern their states well. To govern their states well, they had to establish harmony in their families. To establish harmony in their families, they had to discipline themselves and set their minds in order. To set their minds in order, they had to make their purpose sincere. To make their purpose sincere, they had to extend their knowledge to the utmost. Such knowledge is acquired through a careful investigation of things. For, with things investigated, knowledge becomes complete. With knowledge complete, the purpose becomes sincere. With the purpose sincere, the mind is set in order, and there is real self-discipline. With self-discipline, the family achieves harmony. With harmony in the family, the state becomes well governed. With the state well governed, there is peace throughout the land.”

With due respect for what the Generalissimo attempted to do in China and what he has accomplished on Formosa, I would like to quote one paragraph from a scholarly article entitled: “What Americans Don’t Know About Asia,” appearing in the June 4, 1951, issue of Life Magazine, written by James Michener, Pulitzer Prize author of “Tales of the South Pacific”:

Let us, in the United States, so act in the moments left of the immediate and perilous hours of this half-way-mark of the Twentieth Century to preclude a similar “chastisement of defeat.” May it never be said, by some lone survivor of an atomic attack, tossed upon a distant isle, the beauty, dignity and grandeur of which is strangely familiar, yet defies Paradise itself: “This might have been America.”

Chapter VIII — Behind the Red Curtain

Immediately after the Communists gained control of China and occupied it from North to South, Russian technicians and advisors poured into the country. Everyone was asking: “What are the Russians doing in China?”

From a few foreigners and Chinese, who had made an early escape from behind the Red Curtain, and from letters later smuggled out of the country, came the revealing truth. Some of the informants had lived under the Communist yoke for as long as eight and nine months, and among these was a United Press correspondent, Chang Kuo Sin.

“The Russians,” he said “began at once to fit China into the political-military bloc of Soviet dominated States which, by the end of 1949, extended from the Danube River to the Pacific Ocean. Their organization was beyond anything China had ever seen, and it certainly proved that they had been planning it for a long time. I was frankly shocked by the influence they seemed to have on the Chinese, from the very beginning.

“The ‘Big Noses,’ as the Chinese called the Russians,” he continued, “took over as fast as they could. They tried to make a good impression on the Chinese by moving right in with them. They ate Chinese food and fumbled with chopsticks, and even wore Chinese Communist uniforms made for them in Russia. They had already learned to speak Chinese and to write a certain number of characters before they arrived. Also, they had been taught some of the old Chinese customs, such as raising the rice bowl as a gesture of friendly greeting.

“The Russians brought in about seventy railroad engineers to supervise the rebuilding of the railroads and bridges damaged by the war. They were especially interested in everything military and sent movie units around to make films of Chinese strategic areas. A friend of mine, who saw them taking pictures, told me that Chinese officers, who had been trained in Russia, were showing them all of the defenses of the country.”

The original plan, in 1950, was to attack Formosa before the typhoon season began in June. The Russians knew then what the world knows now from the 1951 release of Dean Acheson’s diplomatic report of December 23, 1949, that we had written off Formosa as of no importance to our Pacific defenses. Acheson tried, in vain, to involve Lieutenant General Wedemeyer in this act of treachery. Acheson testified, June 1, 1951, that the State Department prepared the report after Wedemeyer, then Assistant Chief of Staff, suggested to the State Department that it use the Voice of America to “minimize” any damage that might result from the fall of Formosa. But we know from the complete Wedemeyer Report that the General advocated unequivocal defense of Formosa as being of definite strategic importance in our chain of defenses in the Pacific. MacArthur and Wedemeyer both had warned that the fall of Formosa would leave Japan, Okinawa and the Philippines outflanked. The following is an account of how the enemy planned to take Formosa with an offensive beginning June, 1950.

Chang Kuo Sin reported: “We are given to understand that the island will be taken by the biggest land, sea and air force that has yet been launched against any place within the Russian orbit. They will muster hundreds of fighting planes and thirty warships, plus thousands of troops for this invasion. The warships, of course, include many that went over to the Communists from the Nationalist forces.”

The Chinese correspondent was not the only one who watched with alarm the preparations for the invasion of Formosa. From every side came evidence of the size and strength of the forces assembling for the attack. The British, after recognition of the Communist Government, and in order to protect their investments, were forced into the distasteful position of giving them, by court order, ninety airplanes. Worth twenty million dollars, these planes belonged to the airline companies owned by the picturesque American flyer Claire L. Chennault, whose famous “Flying Tiger” raids on the Japanese added brilliant pages to American military history. This high-handed transfer of American-made planes, probably the best in the world outside those in use by the U. S. Air Force, to the Communists by the British was cause for alarm in official circles. The planes will undoubtedly wind up under the direct control of the Kremlin, whether or not they are used for the initial air assault on Formosa.

The ground forces were nominally to be under the command of the Mayor of Shanghai, who was said to have marshalled a picked force of one hundred and eighty thousand troops for the invasion. Their training in beach landings and personal combat was supervised by the Russians, and many of their special weapons are said to have been of Soviet make. The Mayor, a pawn of the Russians, was content to leave the military strategy entirely in the hands of his more than helpful allies.

Russian engineers were busy at every port from which the invasion might be launched. After forcing those already on the job to resign, they hired shipbuilders and began work on the dockyards, repairing the damage caused by Nationalist bombings. They assembled ships of different sizes and made them ready for invasion day. So we see that the Russians were well occupied in Shanghai.

The fact that American troops were withdrawn by the State Department from occupation in South Korea a few months earlier, left that country a more logical target of opportunity to begin their aggressive action. This explains why the Formosa attack was not made as originally scheduled in 1950.

In Canton the Russians were busy moving complete factories to Siberia, just as they had done earlier in Manchuria. This, they said, was to save them from Nationalist bombs. The real reason was that they needed them to build up Siberia industrially. Most of the Southern factories produced cement, cotton cloth or chemicals, vitally needed to support the large Siberian populace. It mattered little to the Russians that China needed these same commodities for herself. When workers complained that they could not live without their jobs, the Communist bosses said: “Well, then, come along with your plant and bring your family.” When the workers, usually encumbered with large families, would ask hopefully about transportation, they would always receive the same reply: “Can’t you walk? We did on the ‘Long March.’ You can, too.”

The Chinese are always desperately in need of doctors, and the Communists, right after taking over the country, allowed the physicians to go about their business unmolested, provided they did not discuss politics. So great was the demand for medical services that outrageous fees were charged. The Communists permitted this situation to continue, as it kept the doctors happy. With a flood raging in China and plague beginning to show itself, doctors were a priceless commodity. Even Russian doctors and scientists were brought in and added to the Ministry of Health in China.

Although the flood of 1950 was the worst one in years, it did not stop the Russians from sending food out of the country and into Siberia. The Chinese granaries were empty, and everyone was hungry. In Shanghai alone there were reported at least a hundred and twenty thousand foodless and homeless refugees, and no agency was able to do anything for them. It became dangerous for the average citizen, poor though he might be, to go out in the streets at night. Every morning a number of dead bodies were found piled up against the walls of buildings.

Mao Tse-tung, his slogans still promising “Abundance for All,” ordered a part of the army to work on the cooperative farms and offered handsome rewards for boosting food production. In Peking the worried Chinese Communists admitted that there were some nine million people dead or dying in those areas, but that they were unable to halt the shipments out of the country. Starving beggars in filthy rags, a not unusual sight in China during the famine and flood seasons, died by the score on the streets of Nanking and Shanghai, where they had come with the faint hope of finding work. These were the stronger ones; the weaker were never able to leave their villages, or else they fell along the way.

“Food is the one vital concern here,” said a letter from Peking. “Any kind of food. Even if you have money there is very little to buy, and everybody is poor down to the bone. We are thoroughly sick of the whole situation, but what can we do? Our friends are sent to jail if they complain about anything, sometimes even if they voice an opinion about the Communists that is not flattering.

“The beautiful lawns and gardens in the public parks and surrounding the homes of wealthy families have been plowed up and planted with vegetables. When this is not done within a reasonable length of time, soldiers enter, armed with guns, and ask politely: ‘You would like to have your gardens Produce for the People, would you not?’ In any case, the owner is lucky if he is permitted to keep a small share of what he is able to raise. After the gardens are taken over, it is a matter of the Camel in the Arab’s tent. Next, the valuables in the house are removed, to be sent out of the country in return for dollars and pounds. Then the troops or Party officers quarter themselves comfortably in the house, and if there is the slightest difficulty, the owners are forced out.”

Another letter said, “It is considered very bad taste, if not dangerous, to appear well off, and when I go to market I wear my oldest clothes to avoid being conspicuous. Only the Communist Hierarchy go about dressed in furs and finery, and they never go out except in shiny limousines.”

Adding to the difficulty of obtaining food and other necessities, Communists, for propaganda reasons, had put the pedicabs and rickshaws off some of the streets in the larger cities. The price of gasoline went up so high that no one could use his car, even if he still had one. Thus transportation became another severe problem. Only a few crowded, rickety busses still operated, and these were almost impossible to board. They were so packed that people clung tightly to each other at the doors, somewhat reminiscent of rush-hour in the New York subway. Those not able to get on the vehicles dog-trotted along behind. The busses never ran on any schedule, and the driver, if given a large enough bribe, would even change the route at a moment’s notice.

From a Chinese refugee now living in San Francisco, I learned that Peking families, as well as others in the Northern area, were sending their children out of the country on the pretext of aiding their fathers in business. “We try to make the Communists feel that we are cooperating with them wholeheartedly. Then, when we are sure that we have their confidence and that it is safe, we ask them if we may send our son or daughter to Hong Kong for business reasons or, better still, on work for the Party. If they are lucky enough to get away, they may have to stay in Hong Kong three or four months before they can book passage on a ship. When we hear, via the grapevine, that they are safe on board, we do not care what becomes of us.”

A tragic letter from a former military attaché in Washington during the war told of the fall of Shanghai and the stampede of hundreds of people trying to get away from the Communists. “The conquerors closed the gates of the city during most of the day and night to prevent crowds from trying to reach the railway stations or river banks and wharves. Steamships anchored in mid-stream to protect themselves from the mobs that tried to board them. Had everyone been successful in the attempt, the ships would have capsized. It was necessary to go out in small sampans and junks. Ropes with knots tied at intervals, to which people could cling, were thrown over the sides of the ships. I saw one father fasten a rope to his three children, and then the family tried to scale the ship’s side. Suddenly, when they were all about half-way up, the child at the top slipped or let go, pushing the other children with him as he fell. The parents screamed wildly and jumped into the churning, muddy water after them. Their cries were heart rending.”

In talking to Americans and Chinese who have returned to the United States, I caught many interesting and authoritative glimpses of life behind the Red Curtain. For instance, as with Stalin in Moscow, no one in China seemed to know where in Peking Chairman Mao lived. Some said he had taken over the Wagon Lits Hotel, others that he had a place in the country. Some said he appeared on the streets rarely, although he was seen at official gatherings now and then. At one such affair, Mao displayed a batch of letters, supposed to have been received from non-Communists, telling how pleased they were at the way the Communists had taken over and how courteous they had been. The tone of all these letters was flattering and to the effect that the non-Communists were impressed with their new masters. What Mao did not know, or did not mention, of course, was that the letters had been written and signed under duress and that, later, the writers had pleaded with friends going out of the country to tell those to whom the letters were addressed that nothing could be further from the truth.

The Communists strictly censored all mail coming into China, especially from the United States. Many letters were confiscated when they contained names and information about people the Reds wished to add to their files, and almost always when there was money in them.

Mao and Chou En-lai were said to be on very good terms with a number of Russian advisors. All called each other by their first names. The Chinese also were copying Russian ways with surprising alacrity. I learned that one of the most popular of the adopted Moscow customs was wife-swapping, or free love. In the New Democracy marriage was performed and terminated merely by mutual consent, Russian style. There was no exchange of vows when mating was done for the Cause, no priest or magistrate to pronounce the pair man and wife or to separate them later. Mrs. Chou En-lai told me very frankly in 1946 that she had never been legally married to her well-known husband. “The New Democracy did away with all that,” she said. “We did away with ceremonies. They are foolish and we don’t need them. Such things are for you Imperialists!”

Such laxity in marital affairs has long been the accepted custom in Russia, and indeed the Russian official often finds himself going even further, sometimes involuntarily. A Soviet army officer arriving at the Shanghai Airport not long ago looked around for his wife. She was nowhere in sight. A good looking blonde walked up to him and asked, “Are you Colonel Kovicov?” “I am,” he replied, a little taken aback. He had never seen her before and felt a faint chill when she said, “I am your wife now, on Party orders.” He knew then that he was under suspicion.

Another high official in Russia returned home from an arduous day in the Politburo and found that his “wife” had been replaced by a new and not so pretty one. “Who are you?” he asked rather sadly, and she replied, “You know who I am. I am the wife assigned to go with you to China.” It developed that this woman spoke Chinese fluently, a talent not possessed by the deposed mate. One may also infer that she was more adept at spying.

Furs, silks, cosmetics and some jewelry were said to have been brought into China at times by the Russians as rewards for faithful service, and many a smart Party woman already had a neat nest egg laid away in clothes and other commodities, such as the Communist “unmentionable” one, money.

Americans who admire China and the Chinese will be disheartened by a letter written by a retired colonel in the United States Army and an old China hand. “The campaign of hatred stirred up against the United States is impossible to realize unless you are right here on the spot,” he wrote. “We are constantly branded as the worst enemies China ever had. All the people who spent their lives here working for China and the Chinese are called spies or tools of Imperialism. At first they were polite and assured us that we could do business as usual. Later we felt that we were being eased out, and finally we were kicked out. We are all suspected of being agents of the American Government and can never go out on the street without being jostled, jeered at and spat upon. Many of us in Shanghai have been beaten, jailed and fined huge sums before being released. Two men I know have been taken out of their houses at night and beaten up. I don’t know how much longer we will be able to stay here, but you can expect us as soon as we can get away. I have plenty to tell when I do get home! It is difficult to leave, as everyone has to have a Chinese vouch for his good behavior before he can go. This Chinese friend actually becomes a hostage, and any criticism of the Communist Government on the part of the American may endanger his life.”

A correspondent in Shanghai was one of the Americans who was sure that it would be possible to “do business” with the Communists. He wrote a letter to the effect that “things really are not going to be as bad as people are inclined to believe. They have assured me that my office will not be molested and that they are very anxious to do business with the foreigners.” A few days after the Reds took Shanghai, they locked him up in that same office and confiscated his business. He was allowed to return to the States, but, like everyone else, had to leave his Chinese hostage behind him. When his American ship stopped at Hong Kong, he talked to the press. A few days later, when his ship was in mid-ocean, he received a radio message saying in effect: “Make no statements about China. Authorities holding me responsible.”

American missionaries fared no better than the businessmen. Many churches were sealed officially as they were considered “private organizations” which, under Communism, cannot exist. Christian pastors of all faiths were made to register with the police and were questioned for hours as to their attitudes toward the Russians and the Chinese Communists. They were told plainly that although the Communists “guaranteed” them freedom of religious belief—that is, a man could believe anything he wished if he did not talk about it—they intended to eliminate all freedom of religious action—that is, no gathering together for the purpose of worship would be tolerated. And this was in late 1948 and early 1949!

So much for the Americans. How did the British fare after recognizing the Communist Government? Once feared and respected throughout the Orient and now huddled together on their little island of Hong Kong, they were forced to eat humble pie from the hands of the Communists sitting on the front steps of their one-time imperial domain. At stake was their one billion, two hundred million dollar investment, the key to what was left of their Empire in the Far East.

A correspondent from Hong Kong wrote, “The city is packed with refugees, Chinese, British and Americans. It is terribly expensive. As much as three thousand Hong Kong dollars down payment is required before you can rent a room, and everything else is sky high. It is dreadfully hot, there are few parks or out-of-door places to sit, and almost nowhere to eat. The Communists are everywhere. They have closed most of the bookstores except those run by the Communists, and these carry nothing, of course, except books and magazines about Communism. Even the British bookstores are forced to carry Party literature. It was impossible to get a doctor when my wife was sick, as the Communists will not issue licenses to practice to any but British doctors, and they are so busy with the care of both Chinese and foreigners that they are worn out. With such overcrowding, many are sick, as you can imagine. I wish I could send my family home, but it is impossible. It takes many weeks or months to get reservations. We are just trapped!”

Thus the Lion’s mighty roar, that once thundered throughout the world, was reduced to a whimpering sniffle. Everywhere the British, especially in the foreign office in London, were embarrassed at the turn of events. Dr. Cheng Tien-shi, the Chinese Nationalist Government’s ambassador to Great Britain, was called in and told that England had recognized the Chinese Communist Government and that his office must be vacated. With Confucian calm the elderly Chinese gentleman faced the youthful Minister of State, Hector McNeil. The latter fingered his tie, cleared his throat and, shifting his feet uneasily, read the announcement in a strained voice. Sitting down with McNeil, Cheng recalled the days when it was fashionable to praise Chiang Kai-shek for his magnificent stand against the Japanese. He quoted Mark Anthony’s speech over the dead body of Caesar:

Several times McNeil referred deferentially to Cheng, who is one of the greatest living Chinese philosophers, as “Mr. Ambassador.” At length, the gentle old man asked politely, “How can you still call me ‘Mr. Ambassador?’” McNeil replied, “Once an Ambassador, always an Ambassador.” The Chinese scholar hesitated a moment and then said, “In my country, we have a similar saying, ‘Once a friend, always a friend.’ Homage to force and violence is a dangerous thing. If you worship Caesar, you will die by Caesar. Why must you bury us while we are still very much alive? One day you will need us again.”

Chapter IX — Quo Vadis? — EPILOGUE

The dangers facing the United States and the countries friendly to us are becoming increasingly serious. We must recognize the fact that, as individuals, we are as responsible for what is happening today as were the people living peacefully at one time under Hitler, Hirohito and Stalin, and whom we heartily condemn for having allowed disastrous conditions to develop and get beyond their control.

Concerning the forces building up around us and the world today, we are still far too apathetic and complacent. Much of the responsibility for this must, of necessity, be placed upon our leadership. We know that America is the one bastion of freedom left in the world today, and that continued strength in it reflects the hope of the world—that is, of the free peoples of the world as well as those behind iron curtains everywhere who now know the true meaning of slavery which was sold to them in the guise of “security.”

Remaining strong entails a price. What is it? To me, above all, it requires faith in God, faith in our fellow man and faith in ourselves and other individuals of personal integrity. Meanwhile, we must first keep strong our foundations of initiative, self-reliance and individual responsibility for our actions with respect to our duties to our own country.

Unfortunately many people in America have believed the Henry Wallace theory that it was an “over-abundance” or “excessive production” which brought on the depression of the Thirties, or that has or ever could, cause any depression. But this is not true. Economists tell us today that “misdirected production, plus misdirected and over-stimulated consumption” aided our previous downfall, and that it was an abuse of our credit, both at home and abroad. But what does this mean? Was part of our trouble then, as now, caused by too many loans to foreign countries for goods bought here, and an abuse of credit to consumers (you and me) here at home? This did bring on the boom of the late Twenties and also the terrific maladjustment which the depression of the Thirties should have corrected, but which it could not, under the circumstances existing then. The “over-abundance” or “excess savings” theory—that we had so much that we could well afford to give it away—is dangerously misleading. It was invented to justify unwise, if not calculated, giving to foreign countries with the resultant weakening of our own country to a point where Social Security and many other “social laws,” including the limitation of productive effort were adopted as expediencies here at home. Outright charity to people has, throughout history, tended to destroy their moral fiber. Proud people will not, moreover, accept charity and will be determined to work out their own salvation. Finland is just such an example. Contrast that country’s attitude with France today, and even with England.

Our country, America, has always been a philanthropic one. No one, in his right mind, could or ever has, questioned the humanitarian feelings of the American body politic, but unless our assistance is selective and well timed, it cannot bring permanent relief, nor can it accomplish worthwhile objectives.

There are some who say that America has always had a hit-or-miss approach to most of her problems, and that Lady Luck has been on our side. This also is not quite so. In the 19th Century, we had a relatively free competitive society—not perfect, of course, but the best we’d ever had. The laws which govern human nature under a government of limited powers, such as we had under the Constitution before we began changing it, operated then. During that period these laws governing human nature were patterned on a system of checks and balances, remarkably similar to those dictated by God to Moses at Mount Sinai. The hit-or-miss approach became apparent only when we began to turn to government “to relieve us from our mistakes under freedom.”

We know that this nation came into being after the victory of the War of Independence. At this time, a Constitution was drawn up and ratified by the states. But there is more to it than that. A confusion in terms always has led to a misunderstanding in definition. There are some who feel quite strongly that “democracy” is a principle, and was never intended to become a form of government. The word “democracy” does not appear once in our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence. In our Salute to the Flag, known by every school boy and girl in America, it is the “Republic” for which we stand—not a “Democracy.” Of course the words are used almost interchangeably in the encyclopedia, and we know that the purest form of democracy envisions the realistic participation in the government on the part of all the governed. Town meetings were typical of this in the past, but as our society became more complex, it was found impractical to hold these, and as a result, representatives were selected, and a Republic evolved. It all boiled down to what might be called a practicing democracy, because people do have the opportunity today to make their desires known as to how and by whom they will be governed—that is, however, on condition that they express themselves at the voting polls.

The framers of our Constitution sought to give each department of government its due share of power, and to prevent any one of them from making itself supreme. In his “Back to the Republic,” Harry E. Atwood comments: “Almost daily Russia is spoken of as ‘the new republic.’ That phrase is as inaccurate as it would be to speak of a drunken man as a new example of temperance. To speak of Mexico as a ‘republic’ is as inaccurate as it would be to speak of fanaticism as a new form of reverence. To call Communist China a ‘republic’ is as far-fetched as it would be to speak of insomnia as a new form of rest ... for at the present time, these are all types of democracy, they are not republics....”

In the “Federalist,” James Madison said of our government: “The true distinction between these forms (democracy and republic) is that in a democracy the people meet and exercise the government in person. In a republic they assemble and administer it by their representative agents.... The first question that offers itself is whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican? It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the American people.”

We know from the experiences of other nations that perfection in government never has been found via the route of mob rule. If we think otherwise we play right into the hands of the Communists and all others who oppose our government. Unethical procedure in any established order is brought about little by little. The theory of lesser concessions is always active. In our trend toward paternalism in government we must constantly guard against the ogre of an established bureaucracy, a denying to the individual those “inalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” so definitely vouchsafed to him in the Republican form of government which was established in this country “under God.” With any impairment of our system of checks and balances, all power to protect every man’s God-given rights is rendered impotent.

Everywhere people are expressing the thought that, “Things just can’t go on like this,” and “What is going to happen?” Is there then, a sense of impending judgment in the very atmosphere itself? Let me illustrate the theory of lesser concessions mentioned above. Back in September, 1932, during a campaign speech at Sioux City, President Roosevelt accused the Hoover administration of being the greatest spendthrift in U. S. history; that bureaus and bureaucrats had been retained at the taxpayers’ expense, and then he proceeded to out-Hoover Hoover with alphabetical agencies to the point where cartoonists branded us “alphabetical goofs.”

The Foundation for Economic Education at Irvington-on-Hudson, has compiled some interesting statistics:

With constantly rising taxes and increased government spending, the dollar bill soon will be worthless, as will be the paper on which it is printed. A mathematician figuring hurriedly on his cuff, comments: “We’ll be back to where the South was in 1865, with its worthless Confederate money.” Why? Little by little our executive branch has usurped the functions of Congress, under the flimsy guise of a so-called “mandate” from us, the people. Unless we become aware of what we have permitted to happen in our midst, and elect people to Congress who will make the government their servant and not their master, we will soon be where the Germans were under Hitler, the Italians under Mussolini, and where the Russians are today, under Stalin—and the British to a lesser degree, under their socialist regime.

For the first time in global history, the forces are drawn between two distinct ways of life—Christianity and Barbarism. Through the cobwebs of confusion and the roadblocks of distortion we now know that our one enemy is Stalin and his particular brand of thuggery. Modern, civilized peoples throughout the universe, including those behind the iron curtain, have but one common enemy—Communism. If we do indeed believe what we profess, as Christians, to believe, “Man cannot serve God and Mammon,” how can we expect a United Nations to succeed in anything so long as the head of the Communist Governments, the world over, is represented in its midst?

All doubt and uncertainty has been dispelled as to who, where and how our enemy operates. In China we have seen the Communist system operate to the complete disintegration of human rights. Here in the United States we do not know precisely how many Communists are among us, or exactly where and how they connive. We are told on good authority (J. Edgar Hoover) that they are growing in strength and numbers as well as going underground, but we are unable to put our fingers on enough of them. Communism operates and succeeds by deception here as in the early phases of China’s recent history. It bores from within. Frequently its voice is soft and seductive, like the voice of Delilah, and equally treacherous. As we have seen though, once it has the situation in hand, it does not hesitate to use brute force.

In contrast, what we call Democracy makes its mistakes openly for all to see and endeavor to correct. Democracy, to us, means complete personal liberty, the right to live, work and play how, when and where one chooses, in open competition, and is maintained by a process of checks and balances or trial and error. We who live in this atmosphere of free enterprise, take these things for granted, while treason catches us off guard. Until we recognize this, we will continue to be at the mercy of organized political traitors both foreign and domestic. We can no longer afford to assume a casual attitude, even though history reveals that the Communism of Stalin, like other world shaking movements in the past, if given sufficient time, will fall of its own weight.

“Well,” you may ask: “If Communism is going to fall anyway, (or be pushed), why bother to do anything about it now?” The answer is simple. We must do something about it now because generations, even centuries, may elapse before it collapses without help other than human intervention. In the meantime, what will happen to us and to our children? Do we realize the long period of humiliation and degradation, with increasing controls by the Communists, that this means?

War, a global holocaust, in the not too distant future seems a much more likely turn of events. We know that Russia is expanding and improving her military force, including long range submarines and airplanes as well as ultra-destructive weapons. She has more planes than the United States and other democracies put together. We are told that Russia is making A bombs and has already had at least one atomic explosion behind the Iron Curtain. The H bomb is a logical sequel. She is capable, we understand, of delivering a surprise atomic attack against any part of the United States, while we have no sure defense against such an attack. Her submarine fleet rapidly is being patterned after Germany’s and this, with her other combat ships will make her the third greatest Naval Power. She has an army of two and one-half million uniformed troops and thousands of undercover agents to act as spies or scouts. We know that she is on a complete war footing, just as England was during the latter days of World War II and as we made an attempt to be.

This is grave food for thought. If our most responsible leaders are assured that Russia is intending to attack us within a short time, then should we not prepare and attack first, trying with the initial blow, so to paralyze the enemy that she will be unable to retaliate. This would be a terrible decision to have to make, and we may not have the chance, but we must give it serious thought.

As long as Russia feels that she is winning the cold war, however, she would be a fool to start a hot one she might lose. I do not believe that she would even let herself be goaded into it. When she is ready to strike, she will strike, of that we may be sure. It may be possible that the men in the Kremlin are hesitant about upsetting their present position, fearing counter-revolution at home and abroad. Perhaps the mighty armada is for propaganda purposes and to hold the Red Empire together. If this is so, we must never relax our own efforts behind the Iron Curtains everywhere in order to enlist the support of the unhappy 90 per cent of the enslaved people, without whose help we cannot hope to defeat the Soviet Union. Our most powerful secret weapon is not the A or the H bomb, but this same overwhelming majority of victims who fought and won a revolution only to find that they had been sold down the river at the moment of their victory.

These terrorized victims in every country are our most powerful potential allies, and we must do all in our power to make them understand that we are in sympathy with them—with their hopes and prayers for liberation—and that the only thing we reject is Communist despotism. All peoples who are denied the basic freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly—immediately become enormous whispering galleries. There is greater “lure” in suppressed facts and ideas than there is in political propaganda. Even the threat of death will not keep people from reading forbidden material when they are hungry for news from those who may be sympathetic to their plight. But all this would take well-trained counter espionage, and it would cost money.

It would make sense to me if, first of all, we saw to it that our homeland was protected—but not by an armed camp or maintained by a disproportionate amount of military might that would hamstring our economy or deprive us of too many of our liberties. Our military forces should be trained and equipped to provide a reasonable degree of military security for the United States. Then, bring about this same type of coordination in Canada and the Latin American countries, thereby creating a modicum of safety throughout the Western Hemisphere.

In doing the above, we’d be licked before we started unless we made assurance doubly sure that we, the people, knew beyond all possibility of doubt, what was going on and why. Once we are possessed of complete understanding, and support the purpose for which we may be called upon to make the greatest sacrifices of our lives—even including our lives if need be—our objectives will thus be constantly in view. We know this would require a rebirth or a resurgence of courageous leadership, honesty and integrity—and an old fashioned “patriotism” too long lacking in our leaders. But are not these qualities still inherent within us? They were, certainly, until clever and sinister propaganda infiltrated our very marrow.

To go a step further. We know that we cannot stop with our own Western Hemisphere. Our thinking and our responsibility is now global. There’s “no hidin’ place” anywhere. Therefore we must improve our position, militarily, economically and psychologically throughout Europe and Asia by helping nations and peoples there to help themselves to keep their few remaining freedoms. Of course we have to protect certain sea and air routes to and from our best sources of raw materials.

To me, it is sheer nonsense to give, indiscriminately, whether it be money or military aid, without stipulating that we get something for it. To do otherwise is contrary to individual human nature, and yet as a nation, we have given billions in money and material—not to mention thousands of lives in Korea—without demanding anything in return. To keep on throwing good money, things and men into the hopper will bring no permanent relief, nor will it accomplish any outright objective.

We need oil from the Middle East, uranium from the Belgian Congo, or anywhere else we can get it, and we need tin and rubber from southeast Asia, plus other important things. But if we are cut off and cannot get them, then we can use our almost unprecedented ingenuity in the department of synthetics. Germany demonstrated what can be accomplished with ersatz.

I agree heartily with Generals MacArthur and Wedemeyer, and others, who have not expressed their views openly, or who have so indicated and been severely reprimanded for it, that we must have areas of operation such as the British Isles, Formosa, the African coast, Philippines, Japan, the Scandinavian Peninsula, Denmark, Iberian Peninsula and Saudi Arabia. These could be held or taken, if need be, with a minimum of manpower, for we know our weapons are far superior to those of our enemy, both in mechanics and quality, while their manpower is far in excess of anything that we can muster. From these so-called “islands” it would be possible for the allied forces to rain ultimate death and destruction on the enemy, and without them we are powerless to strike except from long range.

To those who, like General Marshall, insist that we must have an enormous land army, or armies, to go in and occupy conquered territory so as to be able to control the people, I give this answer, or make this suggestion. Why not establish colonies of people of all nationalities, who would be charged with responsibilities of teaching people how to produce or earn a living and to study forms of government suitable for creating small civil communities that could be transplanted into any conquered territory after organized resistance had been broken by the military? This would be entirely within the realm of possibility, and it would definitely conserve our most precious potential—manpower.

It has been said that: “Every despotism has an especially known and hostile instinct for whatever keeps up human dignity and independence. Materialism is the sister doctrine of every tyranny, whether of the one or of the many. To crush what is spiritual, moral, human in a man by specializing him; to form more wheels of the great social machine, instead of perfecting individuals ... is the dominant drift of our epoch.... The test of every religious, political or educational system, is what it does to man. If it injures his intelligence, it is bad. If it injures his character, it is vicious. If it injures his conscience, it is criminal.”

Expediency is the voice of danger. We must do away with the false idea that immediate and temporary gain is a substitute for moral principle. We can recognize, as did Thomas Jefferson, that: “Whenever a man casts a longing eye on office, a rottenness begins in his conduct.” We must become aware that slavery develops in direct proportion as government control becomes a substitute for self-control and responsibility. Search for the solution at the spiritual instead of the material level.

Aristotle, the philosopher, has told us: “There are a million ways to be wrong, but only one way to be right.” A principle is a very tangible “element” that we treasure as an active force of life or nature or—God. If we know, in our hearts, that a thing is right, even though the results of such thought or action may not become evident within the span of our own lifetime, and we go ahead and sacrifice the principle for expediency, ours is a crime far greater than that which was committed by the hand that “all the perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten!”

This is the day of the individual. Only you and I, as independent units, can right the wrongs that have beset our nation and the world. This is encouraging, isn’t it? Dean Russell tells us: “Fortunately for the cause of freedom, it is only as an individual that you or I can do anything at all. This is the voluntary way of accomplishing a desired objective. It is the only method that is in accord with freedom.” The opposite side of the coin is that people who have agreed to accept a bad idea band themselves together to force—by vote or otherwise—their ideas upon other people. It may all be perfectly legal, but it is dishonest. We are at perfect liberty to vote ourselves into serfdom. But it is very dangerous to believe that freedom automatically is safe because the individual vote has become so popular in America, where the “democratic” way prevails. When we vote money into our pockets, old age pensions, farm subsidies, price parities and a million other “props” to lean on, we are voting paralysis to our brains and slavery to our physical beings.

It is a dangerous thing to do, but I would like to make one prediction. Each day we live we draw nearer to a climax in human history. The immediate future is dark. Bitter conflicts at home and abroad are on the horizon. I believe that the armies of all nations will, during the next two years, be drawn inevitably toward the countries in and around the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The crisis precipitated in Iran over the nationalization of her oil industry, makes this highly probable, in my opinion. Let me substantiate further.

Toward the end of 1949, England received warning from Iran on this impending move, for she believed that only a violent act on her part could meet this extreme emergency. London correspondent Kenneth de Courcy, cabling to Intelligence Digest on April 1, 1951, stated:

De Courcy concluded:

On Saturday morning, June 2, 1951, the following headline appeared in The Los Angeles Times:

A member of Iran’s Senate who declined to reveal his name, was quoted by The Los Angeles Times article as saying:

“Why should Truman belittle himself by sending such a message?”

In my humble opinion, therefore, World War III began on June 25, 1950. Our entry into it was two days later. There will be no peace, of any importance, as I see it, until 1953 or thereabouts. I say this with a heavy heart. This war that is so pointless and was so unnecessary, had its birth in our Administration’s betrayal of China. It will have its death on a bloody battlefield in Palestine.

What a heritage we have, on the one hand, and what means for destruction on the other! How far we are today from Chaos, no man knows. It may be far later than we think. Until the time of greater enlightenment we know that a strong and forceful public opinion can be the result only of strong and forceful individual opinions. We are not, as yet, God-like creatures, but by making a supreme and prayerful effort we might become more nearly creatures like God. One small voice crying in the wilderness can be doubled and quadrupled into millions until, finally, it becomes the deafening roar of all freedom-loving peoples the world over.

“The journey of a thousand miles,” the Chinese say, “begins with just one step.” If each of us will take that one step now, toward a better understanding of how to protect our country from its enemies, both within and without, America will remain the light to which the whole world turns in the blackness of its oppression. And let us each remember that, as individuals, “it is better to light one candle, than to curse the darkness.”

In the words of our own beloved National Anthem:

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

Appendix — Part I—General Statement

The Wedemeyer Report on China and Korea

Submitted to
The President of the United States
September 9, 1947

by
Albert C. Wedemeyer
Lieutenant General, United States Army

Paragraphs which have been deleted for security reasons
are indicated by asterisks.

China’s history is replete with examples of encroachment, arbitrary action, special privilege, exploitation, and usurpation of territory on the part of foreign powers. Continued foreign infiltration, penetration or efforts to obtain spheres of influence in China, including Manchuria and Taiwan (Formosa), could be interpreted only as a direct infringement and violation of China’s sovereignty and a contravention of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. It is mandatory that the United States and those other nations subscribing to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations should combine their efforts to insure the unimpeded march of all peoples toward goals that recognize the dignity of man and his civil rights and, further, definitely provide the opportunity to express freely how and by whom they will be governed.

Those goals and the lofty aims of freedom-loving peoples are jeopardized today by forces as sinister as those that operated in Europe and Asia during the ten years leading to World War II. The pattern is familiar—employment of subversive agents; infiltration tactics; incitement of disorder and chaos to disrupt normal economy and thereby to undermine popular confidence in government and leaders; seizure of authority without reference to the will of the people—all the techniques skillfully designed and ruthlessly implemented in order to create favorable conditions for the imposition of totalitarian ideologies. This pattern is present in the Far East, particularly in the areas contiguous to Siberia.

If the United Nations is to have real effect in establishing economic stability and in maintaining world peace, these developments merit high priority on the United Nations’ agenda for study and action. Events of the past two years demonstrate the futility of appeasement based on the hope that the strongly consolidated forces of the Soviet Union will adopt either a conciliatory or a cooperative attitude, except as tactical expedients. Soviet practice in the countries already occupied or dominated completes the mosaic of aggressive expansion through ruthless secret police methods and through an increasing political and economic enslavement of peoples. Soviet literature, confirmed repeatedly by Communist leaders, reveals a definite plan for expansion far exceeding that of Nazism in its ambitious scope and dangerous implications. Therefore in attempting a solution to the problem presented in the Far East, as well as in other troubled areas of the world, every possible opportunity must be used to seize the initiative in order to create and maintain bulwarks of freedom.

Notwithstanding all the corruption and incompetence that one notes in China, it is a certainty that the bulk of the people are not disposed to a Communist political and economic structure. Some have become affiliated with Communism in indignant protest against oppressive police measures, corrupt practices, and maladministration of National Government officials. Some have lost all hope for China under existing leadership and turn to the Communists in despair. Some accept a new leadership by mere inertia.

Indirectly, the United States facilitated the Soviet program in the Far East by agreeing at the Yalta Conference to Russian re-entry into Manchuria, and later by withholding aid from the National Government. There were justifiable reasons for these policies. In the one case we were concentrating maximum Allied strength against the Japanese in order to accelerate crushing defeat and thus save Allied lives. In the other, we were withholding unqualified support from a government within which corruption and incompetence were so prevalent that it was losing the support of its own people. Further, the United States had not yet realized that the Soviet Union would fail to cooperate in the accomplishment of world-wide plans for postwar rehabilitation. Our own participation in those plans has already afforded assistance to other nations and peoples, friends and former foes alike, to a degree unparalleled in humanitarian history.

Gradually it has become apparent that the World War II objectives for which we and others made tremendous sacrifices are not being fully attained, and that there remains in the world a force presenting even greater dangers to world peace than did the Nazi militarists and the Japanese jingoists. Consequently the United States made the decision in the Spring of 1947 to assist Greece and Turkey with a view to protecting their sovereignties, which were threatened by the direct or inspired activities of the Soviet Union. Charges of unilateral action and circumvention of the United Nations were made by members of that organization. In the light of its purposes and principles such criticism seemed plausible. The United States promptly declared its intention of referring the matter to the United Nations when that organization would be ready to assume responsibility.

It follows that the United Nations should be informed of contemplated action with regard to China. If the recommendations of this report are approved, the United States should suggest to China that she inform the United Nations officially of her request to the United States for material assistance and advisory aid in order to facilitate China’s postwar rehabilitation and economic recovery.

This will demonstrate that the United Nations is not being circumvented, and that the United States is not infringing upon China’s sovereignty, but contrary-wise is cooperating constructively in the interest of peace and stability in the Far East, concomitantly in the world.

The situation in Manchuria has deteriorated to such a degree that prompt action is necessary to prevent that area from becoming a Soviet satellite. The Chinese Communists may soon gain military control of Manchuria and announce the establishment of a government. Outer Mongolia, already a Soviet satellite, may then recognize Manchuria and conclude a “mutual support agreement” with a de facto Manchurian government of the Chinese Communists. In that event, the Soviet Union might accomplish a mutual support agreement with Communist-dominated Manchuria, because of her current similar agreement with Outer Mongolia. This would create a difficult situation for China, the United States and the United Nations. Ultimately it could lead to a Communist-dominated China.

The United Nations might take immediate action to bring about cessation of hostilities in Manchuria as a prelude to the establishment of a Guardianship or Trusteeship. The Guardianship might consist of China, Soviet Russia, the United States, Great Britain and France. This should be attempted promptly and could be initiated only by China. Should one of the nations refuse to participate in Manchurian Guardianship, China might then request the General Assembly of the United Nations to establish a Trusteeship, under the provisions of the Charter.

Initially China might interpret Guardianship or Trusteeship as an infringement upon her sovereignty. But the urgency of the matter should encourage a realistic view of the situation. If these steps are not taken by China, Manchuria may be drawn into the Soviet orbit, despite United States aid, and lost, perhaps permanently, to China.

The economic deterioration and the incompetence and corruption in the political and military organizations in China should be considered against an all-inclusive background lest there be disproportionate emphasis upon defects. Comity requires that cognizance be taken of the following.

I was assured by the Generalissimo that China would support to the limit of her ability an American program for the stabilization of the Far East. He stated categorically that, regardless of moral encouragement or material aid received from the United States, he is determined to oppose Communism and to create a democratic form of government in consonance with Doctor Sun Yat-sen’s principles. He stated further that he plans to make sweeping reforms in the government including the removal of incompetent and corrupt officials. He stated that some progress has been made along these lines but, with spiraling inflation, economic distress, and civil war, it has been difficult to accomplish fully these objectives. He emphasized that, when the Communist problem is solved, he could drastically reduce the Army and concentrate upon political and economic reforms. I retain the conviction that the Generalissimo is sincere in his desire to attain these objectives. I am not certain that he has today sufficient determination to do so if this requires absolute overruling of the political and military cliques surrounding him. Yet, if realistic United States aid is to prove effective in stabilizing the situation in China and in coping with the dangerous expansion of Communism, that determination must be established.

Adoption by the United States of a policy motivated solely toward stopping the expansion of Communism without regard to the continued existence of an unpopular repressive government would render any aid ineffective. Further, United States prestige in the Far East would suffer heavily, and wavering elements might turn away from the existing government to Communism.

In China and Korea, the political, economic, and psychological problems are inextricably mingled. All of them are complex and are becoming increasingly difficult of solution. Each has been studied assiduously in compliance with your directive. Each will be discussed in the course of this report. However, it is recognized that a continued global appraisal is mandatory in order to preclude disproportionate or untimely assistance to any specific area.

The following three postulates of United States foreign policy are pertinent to indicate the background of my investigations, analyses, and report:

Part II—China — Part III—Korea — Part IV—Conclusions — Part V—Recommendations — Appendix E to Part III—Korea — Appendix F to Part III—Korea — Appendix G to Part III—Korea — Appendix H to Part III—Korea

Bibliography

A

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

L

M

O

P

R

S

T

W

Index

• A

• Acheson, 19, 26, 118.
• American Mercury, 23.
• Atwood, Harry E., 134.
• Anti-Imperialist League, 67
• Aristotle, 144.
• Attila, the Hun, 73, 74.
• Attlee, Prime Minister, 146.

• B

• “Ballentine Beer Patches,” 16.
• “Big Noses,” 117.
• Bleucher, General, 59.
• Borodin, Michael, 59.
• Bourtai, 76.
• (See also Genghis Khan, favorite wife of)
• Browder, Earl, 50, 53, 59, 60.
• Byrnes, Secretary of State, 19, 24.

• C

• Cairo Conference, 108.
• Canton, Russians in, 113, 120, 121.
• Chang Kuo Sin, 117, 119.
• Checfoo, 9.
• Cheng Tien-shi, Dr., 129, 130.
• Chennault, Claire L., 119.
• Chiang Kai-shek, Madame, 64, 104, 106;
• building of model village by, 106, (See also Soong, Sisters).
• Chiang Kai-shek, 7, 8, 27, 59, 62, 67, 85, 92, 93, 103-116,
• contributions of, to the U. S., 103;
• “Golden Decade” of, 104;
• mistakes of, 10;
• tragedy of, 103-116.
• Chinese Communist Party, 45;
• Central Committee of, 32;
• Central People’s Government, 45;
• Personalities, 45-68;
• young intelligentsia of, 57.
• Chinese New Year, 87.
• Chingwangtao, 7.
• Chou En-lai, 8, 13, 28, 42, 56-61, 125;
• family of, 59;
• wife of, 60, 126;
• “Executioner,” 59.
• Chungking, 45, 105, 106;
• destruction of, by Japanese, 106;
• model village in, 106.
• Churchill, 26, 33, 108.
• Chu Teh, 13, 38, 40, 50-56;
• as a movie “fan,” 40;
• family of, 51;
• hunting prowess of, 40;
• wives of, 51, 54.
• Comintern, 49.
• Communism, the “lure” of, 1;
• forebears of, 70-81.
• Communist, flag; propaganda, 82-93;
• (See also Propaganda, Communist)
• Confucius, 50, 115.
• Courcy, Kenneth de, 145.
• “Cumshaw,” 36.

• D

• Dairen, 9.
• Daniels, Jonathan, 25.
• Drugs, “actedon,” 90;
• “mescaline,” 90;
• use of, 90, 91;
• on Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, 91;
• (See also Hypnotism, use of)
• on Michael Shipkov, 91;
• on Robert A. Vogeler, 91, 92;
• (See also Hypnotism, use of).
• Democracy, as a principle, 133.

• E

• England, 139.
• Estabrooks, Dr. G. H., 91;
• (See also Hypnotism, use of).
• Eurasia, 7.

• F

• Fifth Column, conception of, 72.
• Finland, 132.
• Foundation for Economic Education, 136.
• Formosa, 112, 115, 118;
• invasion of, 118-120.
• France, 132.
• Free love, 125.

• G

• Gallen, 59.
• Genghis Khan, 17, 22, 53, 68, 70, 74-78, 79, 81, 96, 99, 100, 105, 106, 108, 109;
• favorite wife of, 76;
• “Scourge of God,” 74;
• superstitions of, 77;
• Yassa of, 1, 78.
• Generalissimo, 7, 10, 17, 28, 33, 45.

• H

• Hankow, 115.
• Hatem, Dr., 63, 64;
• family of, 63, 64. (See also Ma Hia-teh).
• Hiss, 26.
• Hirohito, 131.
• Hitler, 46, 131, 136.
• Hong Kong, 108, 124, 128, 129;
• treatment of British in, 129.
• Hoover administration, 135, 136.
• Hoover, J. Edgar, 137.
• Huns, 70, 73.
• Hutton, Betty, 40.
• Hurley, Ambassador, 10, 41, 45, 109.
• Hypnotism, use of, 91, 92;
• (See also Estabrooks, Dr. G. H.);
• on Cardinal Mindszenty, 91, 92;
• on Robert Vogeler, 91, 92;
• (See also Drugs, use of);
• on Van der Lubbe, 92;
• (See also Drugs, use of).

• I

• International News Service, 18.
• International Hospital, 30, 37.
• (See also Yenan).

• J

• Japanese, peace terms offered, 108, 115.
• Jefferson, Thomas, 142.
• Jenner, William E., 20, 22.
• Jessup, 26.
• Joffe, Adolph, 104.
• Judd, Walter H., 17.

• K

• Kalgan Pass, 9.
• Kung, H. H., Madame, 64.
• (See also Soong, Sisters).
• Kung, H. H., Dr., 104.
• Kwangsi Province, 113.

• L

• Lamb, Harold, 22.
• Lattimore, 26.
• Lehey, William D., 25.
• Lesser concessions, theory of, 135.
• Li Li San, 61, 96;
• wife of, 61.
• Life Magazine, 115.
• Lin Piao, 62.
• Li Tsun-jen, General, 113.
• “Long March,” the, 47, 48, 54, 121.
• Lu Hsun Art Academy, 34, 64.

• M

• MacArthur, General Douglas, 22, 23, 25, 107.
• Madison, James, 134.
• Ma Hai-teh, 63, 64.
• (See also Hatem, Dr.).
• Malinovsky, Marshall, 61.
• Mao Tse-tung, 13, 14, 15, 29, 33, 45-50, 54, 57, 61, 62, 63, 68, 76, 92, 102, 121, 125;
• daughter of, 30;
• son of, 46;
• wives of, 48;
• heroine of “Long March,” 48, 49;
• Lang Ping, 48, 49;
• Myth, 49;
• propaganda speech by, 92, 93.
• Manchuria, 9, 10, 11, 15, 17, 61, 94-102;
• as granary of Asia, 94;
• occupation of, by Japanese, 94;
• stripping of, by Communists, 96.
• Manchus, 94, 104.
• Marriage, New Democracy, 125-126.
• Marshall, General George C., 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 24, 28, 56;
• at a Chinese opera, 14;
• at a Communist banquet, 14;
• in conference with Mao, 15;
• preference for Mao, 16;
• visit of, to Yenan, 12, 14, 15.
• McNeil, Hector, 130.
• Michener, James, 115.
• Mindszenty, Joseph Cardinal, 91;
• (See also Drugs, use; Hypnotism, use of).
• Ming Bing, 13.
• Min Yuan Park, 87.
• Missionaries, Catholic, 34;
• Protestants, 35.
• Mongol, 38, 70, 72, 73, 74, 81, 100, 101.
• Mongolia, 9.
• Mossadegh, Mohammed, 146.
• Moses, 70, 133.
• Mud caves, of Yenan, 29, 44.
• Mukden, 95, 99.

• N

• Nanking, 16, 56, 58.
• Nan Yuan, 8.
• Nationalist, 9, 11;
• (See also Chiang Kai-shek, tragedy of).
• “New Democracy,” 82;
• marriage under the, 125-126.
• New Life Movement, 61, 106.
• Nimitz, Admiral Chester, 107.

• O

• Open Door Policy, 9.
• Opera, Chinese, 14;
• Shanghai, 68.

• P

• Peace terms, Japanese, 108.
• Pei Yuan, 8.
• Peking, 7, 8, 57, 87, 122;
• capture of, 87, 122;
• famine in, 122.
• Personalities, Communist, 45-69.
• Plato, 50
• Politburo, 15.
• Port Arthur, 9.
• “Prisoners of War School,” 32;
• (See also Yenan).
• Propaganda, Communist, 82-93;
• against Americans, 85;
• basic purpose of, 82;
• distortion of terms in, 82, 83;
• Democracy, 82;
• Freedom, 82, 83;
• Security, 83;
• Truth, 83;
• for children, 84, 85;
• newspapers as, 86;
• opera as, 89;
• posters as, 84;
• slogans as, 84;
• speeches as, 86;
• by Mao Tse-tung, 12, 93;
• titles as reward, 87;
• types of, two, 83.

• Q

• Quislings, 100.
• Quo Vadis, 131-148.

• R

• Red Curtain, Behind the, 117-130.
• Republic, discussion of, 133, 134.
• Rosenberg, Anna, 27.
• Roosevelt, 21, 26, 33, 108, 135.
• “Rosamond,” 65.
• Russell, Dean, 143.
• Russia, war potential, 138, 139.
• Russian advisors, 117.

• S

• Samarkand, Battle of, 100.
• Sanzo Nosako, 33.
• Shanghai, fall of, 119, 120, 124;
• Mayor of, 119;
• Russians in, 120;
• treatment of Americans in, 127.
• Shensi Province, 29.
• Shipkov, Michael, 91;
• (See also Drugs, use of).
• Soong, Charlie, 65;
• family, 65, 104;
• Sisters, 64, 104.
• “Stakhanovitism,” 80.
• Stalin, 3, 28, 49, 50, 131.
• State Department, 7, 9, 27, 42.
• Stuart, J. Leighton, Ambassador, 24, 56.
• Sun Fo, 66.
• Sun Yat-sen, Madame, 31, 45, 64-69;
• (See also Soong, Sisters).
• Sun Yat-sen, 47, 103;
• revolution of, 51.

• T

• Tamerlane, 53, 78.
• Tang Shan, 8.
• Tartars, 63, 70, 78.
• Tientsin, 7, 87, 88.
• Tipping, prohibition against, 36;
• “cumshaw,” 36.
• Trans-Siberian Railway, 97.
• Trohan, Walter, 23, 25.
• Trotsky, 2.
• Truce teams, 16.
• Truman, President, 7, 10, 15, 19, 22, 108, 111.

• U

• United States, 7, 8, 16, 117.
• Urals, 96, 97.

• V

• Vogeler, Robert A., 91;
• (See also Drugs, use of; Hypnotism, use of).
• V-J Day, 95, 97.
• Voice of America, 118.

• W

• Wallace, Henry, 131.
• Wedemeyer, Lieutenant General Albert C., 9, 24, 111, 114, 118, 142.
• Wei Tao-ming, Madame, 68, 69.
• Wesleyan College, 65.
• Wife swapping, 125.
• Worton, Major General William Arthur, 7, 8.

• Y

• Yalta, 10, 12, 13, 22.
• Yangtse River, 60, 105.
• “Yassa,” 1, 78.
• Yeaton, Colonel Ivan D., 31.
• Yenan, 12, 15, 29, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 42, 43, 48, 57, 64;
• International Hospital in, 30;
• Market place in, 35;
• “Prisoner of War School,” 32.
• Yenching University, 24, 56, 57.

• Z

• Zukov, 62.

About the Author... — A Note on KOREA ...

MARY LAMAR KNIGHT, famed foreign correspondent and lecturer, graduated into the ranks of foreign correspondents while she was on a two-month “tour” of Europe in 1930. The tour lasted for five full years with only brief vacations and assignments at home. At that time Miss Knight was the only woman employed on a full-time basis in the Paris Bureau of the United Press Associations. In this capacity she covered the European continent as a feature writer in the varied fields of women’s fashions, crime and politics.

She reported on the outstanding fashions of the Parisian designers as they paraded their creations into pages of history; she was the first woman since the days of the French Revolution to witness the guillotining of a famous convict in Paris; she interviewed royalty of many nationalities; and, most important of all, she saw and studied the beginnings of World War II: the propaganda build-up, the international deceit and intrigue, the in-human characters of the men who promoted the war and prepared the nations of Europe for their own destruction.

During her varied career, Miss Knight, who is the daughter of the late Dr. Lucian Lamar and Edith Nelson Knight, of Atlanta, Georgia, has worked as a nurse at Bellevue Hospital, New York, to report on a bitter campaign to regulate working conditions for doctors and nurses; she was assigned to the New York Women’s House of Detention to pose as a prostitute, going to jail with Lucky Luciano’s “girls” and latter covered his vice trial in the courtroom; at one time she was assigned the role of a taxi-dance girl, and at another time to join the chorus line of the world-famous “Rockettes” at the lavish Music Hall theater; she was the first woman reporter allowed to invade the training camps of Joe Louis and Max Schmeling prior to their title fight which she covered at ringside. In 1935, the author embarked for China on a Norwegian freighter.

Remaining in China for two years she travelled to most of the principal cities in China, Korea and Manchuria. At the borders of Mongolia she witnessed the beginnings of her RED BLIGHT of today. The Communists were then in the process of developing the tactics, the brutality, the deceit and the methods which they have so far so successfully employed against their homeland and the neighboring countries of Tibet and Korea. In China, 1935-36, Mary Lamar Knight had a 15-year advance in preview of the tragic days that are now immediately ahead for all civilized nations. She returned to China again in 1946, independently covering the Pauley and the Marshall Missions. She met and became personally acquainted with most of the men who dominate today’s great human conflict—Marshall, Wedemeyer, Ambassador Hurley, Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang, Chou En-lai and many others. Herein she was able to objectively view the entire American-Chinese crisis, make a personal analysis of the appalling international situation and draw the conclusions which she presents in RED BLIGHT.

In recent months Miss Knight has spent her time in bringing this vitally enlightening book up-to-the-minute and appearing before many outstanding political, civic and patriotic clubs and organizations as a featured speaker on Communism and its avowed principles of ruling or ruining the earth.

Among Miss Knight’s published works are: On My Own, an autobiography, (MacMillan, 1938); Spies versus Censors (Reader’s Digest, May, 1946) and Red Realm in China (Reader’s Digest, February, 1947). The author was the only woman contributor to We Cover the World, the first symposium of foreign correspondents (Prentice-Hall).

The author is available for personal appearances and speaking engagements. (Fees are variable.)

By Mary Lamar Knight

Books already have been written about the Korean situation. Although it is one spoke in the great Asiatic wheel, Korea is very important, but China still remains in the hub of the wheel. One of the greatest tragedies of this whole chain of events is that General Douglas MacArthur had the difficult—the impossible—task of trying to rescue the Korean chestnut from the fire—a fire which might not have ignited had his counsel and advice, along with that of Lieutenant General Albert C. Wedemeyer and others, been heeded in the first place.

The Communist-inspired invasion of South Korea by the North Korean Communists was a trial balloon let loose by the Soviet and Chinese Communists to determine how far the United States and the United Nations would go before buying an all-out Asiatic war. It was a trick from the start, to draw U. S. and UN forces foremost into the area from which the U. S. had withdrawn in 1949. Once committed, and once having dispatched American—and a trickle of UN soldiers into South Korea, the chances were that they could be kept there indefinitely. We were permitted, early in the conflict, to cross the arbitrary 38th parallel, and to proceed at great difficulty and even greater loss of life, to the borders of Manchuria. Then, in typical Communist fashion, they struck back in the evening, almost, of our declaration of all but total victory. One need only to glance at a map of Korea to realize that the Communists, Soviet and Chinese, are in a position to pour millions of men into North Korea, dressed as Koreans or otherwise, at their will. How could we hope to do anything of a permanent nature in unifying Korea against the Communists? The Korean patriot Kim Koo, shortly before his assassination and replying to a question put to him by Representative Walter Judd said: “It doesn’t make any difference what you (the U. S.) do now. There just isn’t any way to get Korea so that she can be independent and secure and self-sustaining, until you solve the Communist problem across the border in Manchuria.” We solved that problem by giving that prize to the Soviets. It was Russia’s price for entering the war, the last six days of it, as an ally, even though it was rather generally known that Japan was ready to surrender.

For every life that may have been spared by the signing of the questionable Yalta agreement, thousands of American and Korean GI’s, and Korean civilians are now dead, dying and maimed. This little Florida-shaped country of Korea, cut up by outsiders, is a tragic example of failure to think beyond military objectives. We cannot defend Korea from Russian attack without an all-out war. We can only prolong the agony. If it was right for us to leave Korea in 1949, can we, honestly, justify our re-entry there in 1950—at the price we have paid?

There yet remain other fates to be decided—Formosa, the Philippines and numerous islands of the Pacific, whether we occupy them or not. Have we not already proven that, “It is fantastic to imagine that we can convert our enemies into our friends by treating our friends as if they were our enemies”?

But to understand the overall picture, one must begin with a knowledge of the background that has made China and the United States the estranged bed-fellow nations which they have become. The historic removal of Douglas MacArthur from all of his commands in the Far East, by President Truman at 1 a. m. on April 11, 1951, will have far-reaching effects. Due to this move, disaster looms before us larger than ever, especially for the United States and Great Britain. Nearly a month before the news of the impending MacArthur dismissal by the President “leaked” to the American press, headlines had appeared in Danish newspapers saying: “British Say ‘MacArthur Must go’.”

The average reader, in all probability, sees only a difference of opinion in the policies of the political and military leadership on the conduct of World War III, but the facts go deeper than this. There appears to be a determination on the part of those who are playing international politics, to obtain and control world power. MacArthur, definitely, was the greatest single stumbling block in their path. To be in a position, militarily, to bomb enemy supply sources, and yet forbidden, by political directives from Washington, to do this, put greater handicaps on MacArthur than he was willing to take. With the MacArthur removal, Truman will bend every effort toward silencing all who remain opposed to his Acheson-approved manifesto.

On April 1, 1951, correspondent Kenneth de Courcy (Intelligence Digest—A Review of World Affairs) cabled from London:

To follow the MacArthur program has been called a “colossal gamble,” but what greater gamble can there be than sitting back and waiting for the enemy to come and destroy us? Was England able to stop Hitler by appeasement? Nor will the present British Labor Government be able to silence the Chinese Communists by promising them Formosa and a hand in the Japanese peace treaty if, indeed, the Japanese accept such a treaty.

Those who still believe that a “deal” can be made with Stalin or Communists anywhere, just do not know the history of Communism or of Communism’s forbears. MacArthur’s removal from the scene at this time is cause for jubilation among the radically inclined the world over, for this particular American hero was Stalin’s Enemy Number One.

Another great boon to the Chinese and Korean Reds is that Truman has virtually promised them that their Manchurian bases will not be bombed by us, unless of course, they step out of line and bomb us first. Thus, they can continue to kill and maim our boys without fear of too much retaliation on our part. We won two great victories on the battlefields of World Wars I and II, but we lost them both at conference tables. Political double-talk always gives the enemy a far greater victory than could be won on the battlefield.

The political moves made by the powers that be in Washington serve only to cancel out our military victories. On November 16, 1950, when Russia vetoed the Security Council’s resolution demanding that China clear out of Korea, she put the blame for the Korean war squarely in her own lap. But as long as Stalin and the Kremlin remain within the United Nations, this international body politic will remain hamstrung, for it will be used as an instrument to give aid and comfort to Communists everywhere in achieving military aggression against the Western Hemisphere. For Russia, as a member of the United Nations, with veto power, has sent no troops to Korea to fight the aggression. But why should she be exempt when others are not? A United Nations operating in opposite directions cannot be very united. With one side of the UN fighting aggression and another faction pushing it, defeat can be the only outcome. When the Korean war first burst into actual flame, and we discovered that Russia was openly, as well as secretly, supporting the North Koreans, why did we not then expel her from the UN and declare her an enemy of the peace? Had we had the courage to do so, the story would be different today. Now, with our hands tied behind our backs, we wait for the enemy to make the next move in the most tragic game of chess ever played with flesh and blood pawns.

It is difficult to understand why General MacArthur was prevented from arming some 400,000 unarmed South Koreans. On April 6, 1951, he stated that political decisions beyond his authority prevented him from doing this, but why were they deprived of fighting for their own land? And why were American fathers and sons to be butchered in battle to free those who would gladly fight for themselves, but for political interference? No short term good ever derived from a long term evil, nor can any amount of political expediency replace military emergency.

Terrible sabotage in this country is not unlikely. On April 7, 1951, J. Edgar Hoover stood before the Senate Committee and said: “A hard core of Communists trained in sabotage is ready to strike at vital industries ...” and he added that this would be one of the most effective weapons that Stalin could use against the United States.

Despite denials from the White House and State Department, we know that Russia has a solid network of spies and undercover agents operating in every department of our national life, operating to destroy us from within, circumventing the need for any long-range attack.

To those who stubbornly maintain that the blood of more than sixty thousand American boys killed or wounded in Korea, in addition to an almost equal number of what are called non-battle casualties, still constitutes merely a “police action,” I say in all reverence, may God forgive you. We are at war now. No amount of waiting or appeasement will put off World War III. We are in it up to our necks.

Your First Step.... — Transcriber’s Notes

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step ...” says a Chinese proverb.

Millions of Americans today know that we have to take that “one step” individually, if order is to be restored to the national house in which we live.

You have read in this volume of the many wrong steps in the wrong direction that have been taken by our national planners. These have resulted in the human turmoil, the domestic unrest, and in undeclared war against Communism. Our battlefield casualties have already passed the seventy thousand mark.

Every American must act NOW to preserve our Constitutional Way of Life. But before concerted political action can be taken the facts must be known. RED BLIGHT tells these facts!

Now you can take your first step in the right direction by helping to disseminate the truth about the RED BLIGHT that is engulfing the earth. You can do this by placing RED BLIGHT into the hands of as many people as possible.

RED BLIGHT is bound in two editions: Paper bound, $1.50 per copy; Cloth Bound, $2.50 per copy. Please use the coupon below for placing your order.

Lorrin L. Morrison, Publisher,
1915 South Western Avenue,
Los Angeles 18, California.

Enclosed please find remittance in the amount of $.......... for which please send .... copy/ies of the .......... Bound Edition of RED BLIGHT, by Mary Lamar Knight, as indicated in Remittance Advice column below.