(7 of 10)
The national government has been progressively diminished as the provincial government of Formosa has increased its independence, until today there are only 12,000 employees in the national government v. 113,000 in the provincial government. Except for Foreign Affairs and the Defense Ministry, most of the national ministries, their functions duplicated by provincial departments, are only skeleton organizations with nothing to do but plan for the day of The Return.
Chiang has isolated himself from most day-to-day routine, and from direct contact with all but a selected few (some ministers concerned only with domestic affairs may see him once a year, if that). Daily, Chiang rises before 6. At that hour, the house on the lower slopes of Grass Mountain, just north of Taipei, is quiet; outside, the ever-present armed guards stand silently among the trees. Chiang's day begins with an hour of prayer and meditation. Often Madame Chiang joins him, and they may sit silently together for the whole hour.
"It is then that he gets his strength for the day," explains Madame Chiang. Comments a Westerner who knows him well: "He is a very spiritual person, almost a mystic. One of the reasons people sometimes find him stubborn is that he tries to find the answer not only in himself, but in the God he serves." Commented a Western-educated Chinese scholar more tartly: "He is a saintly man. But saintly men are also impossible men."
After breakfast and a careful scanning of Formosa papers and others flown in from Hong Kong, Chiang dons his khaki cape, enters his 1949 Cadillac, and makes the 25-minute drive to his office in the Ministry of National Defense in downtown Taipei (pop. 500,000). Soldiers of the security force appear as if by magic along the route, then as magically melt away after he has passed. Past a dark bronze bust of himself on the stair landing, he walks quickly and alone to his third-floor office, where the blue velvet curtains are always drawn for security.
His first caller is always portly, poised General Chang Chun, secretary-general of his 240-man secretariat, and a friend of 50 years. The previous secretary, Wang Shih-chieh, was fired by the Generalissimo in a fit of temper two years ago—some say for saying no too sharply and too often, some say because the Generalissimo thought he was hiding things from him. Chang avoids this accusation by passing along any problem that might conceivably interest his unpredictable boss.
At 1 p.m. Chiang returns home for lunch alone with his wife. Quite often, Fanina, the Russian wife of his son Chiang Ching-kuo, is there with his two younger grandchildren, with whom he romps delightedly. He naps briefly in the afternoon, works on papers, then summons favorite ministers in the late afternoon. After dinner Chiang often watches a movie or reads Chinese philosophers and poetry. A favorite is Confucian Wang Yang-ming, who taught that "to know and yet not to do is in fact not to know."