For some months John Van Antwerp MacMurray, U.S. Minister to China at Peking, has been consistently chagrined to discover that the Chinese political and military situation is in such a state of perpetual flux that whatever news he cables to Washington stands about one chance in ten of being pertinent* when received.
Last week, Mr. MacMurray, genuinely bewildered but frank and honest, despatched a long cable to Washington in which he indicated that it was impossible for him to say with certainty that either phase of the following several alternatives represented the truth, even...