President Chiang Ching-kuo of Taiwan was so unlike his famous father that he hardly resembled him at all. While Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was wiry, aloof and dictatorial, his son was rotund, jovial and pragmatic. The elder Chiang fielded armies against both the Japanese and Mao Zedong's Communists. The younger, though bearing the nominal rank of general, never saw action on the battlefield. Yet after the Nationalists fled the mainland, it was the son who helped transform the father's defeat into victory. Chiang Ching-kuo's inheritance was the loss of China; when he died last week of heart failure at 77, he left...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
