(5 of 6)
The wisdom of the American Founding Father, spoken at a time of life which in itself commands veneration in China, so impressed all readers that copies were soon circulated throughout Chungking.
"Terror of the Evildoers." Nineteen days after George Marshall's arrival in Chungking, the Government and the Communists signed a truce. Six weeks later they signed a formal agreement to reduce and merge their armies (from 300 divisions to 60, within 18 months). But no man understood better than the Special Envoy that agreement, in principle, on a high political level would mean nothing unless kept, in practice, at a low political level. He had promoted the idea of an Executive Headquarters, set up at Peiping, which sent out Government-Communist-U.S. field teams to enforce the truce terms.
The field teams were a key ingredient in Marshall's experiment. They soon found their task rugged; local commanders were still skirmishing, blocking communications, endangering the whole program. On March 1. the Special Envoy, accompanied by Generals Chou En-lai and Chang Chih-chung, left Happiness Gardens for 3,500 miles of wicked winter flying over north China. In less than a week he visited ten cities and towns, whirled through inspections, receptions and 15-course banquets, heard himself extolled by banner-waving greeters as "Terror of the Evildoers. . . . First Lord of the Warlords. . . . Most Fairly [sic] Friend of China." He also rubbed out most of the trouble spots.
To recalcitrant generals, whether of diehard Kuomintang or diehard Communist persuasion, he talked with the firmness of a Dutch uncle and the adroitness of a donkey driver who knows the value of both stick and carrot. One burly commander, who said that he could not control his troops, was trapped by the steely Marshall eye. "I have only to look at you," said the Special Envoy, "to know that your people will do just what you tell them. Trouble is, you haven't told them, have you?" The commander beamed with confusion and pleasure, admitted that maybe he hadn't spoken loud enough, promised to make amends.
On March 11 after a final conference with Generalissimo Chiang and Lieut. General Albert C. Wedemeyer, U.S. commander in the China Theater, the Special Envoy emplaned for the U.S. At the very last moment, he scored another success. Government and Communist negotiators agreed to extend the truce machinery to Manchuria. There the slowly evacuating Russians have left behind a situation which George Marshall openly Calls "critical." Meanwhile in Chungking this week, Communist General Chou kept the pot simmering by accusing the Kuomintang of seeking to continue "one-party dictatorship."
Plans & Needs. The Special Envoy reported his views on Chungking and Manchuria to President Truman and Secretary of State Byrnes. But his prime reason for returning to the U.S. was to get rapid action on credits to China.
"The economic emergency," China's Premier T. V. Soong has reported, "is no less serious than the war itself." Most urgently, China needs food; in the drought-scorched central provinces, millions are facing famine. T. V. has said that imports of wheat, wheat flour and rice can solve a third of his nation's most pressing economic problems.