by George H. Kerr
Houghton, Mifflin Company, Boston,
1965, 486 pages, US$6.95
Reviewed by Geraldine Fitch
George Kerr is about 15 years too late to accomplish his purpose. His dire predictions already have failed to come true. The spectacular progress and prosperity of Taiwan refute his contentions.
The Taiwan influx of some two million mainlanders at the end of the 1940s is staggering, even in retrospect. Under such circumstances, some grasping and some greed were inevitable. But to picture all as carpetbaggers is to take leave of reality. In the success of today, some of the men he excoriates are holding important government posts, highly respected by the people of the island as of unimpeachable integrity. One such is C.K. Yen, now premier and formerly minister of finance and governor of Taiwan.
One of the author's weaknesses is that he believes the old myths about China's leaders—what Walter Judd called "an organized, coordinated, systematic campaign of propaganda against China", aimed at leading America to desert Chiang Kai-shek. This bias takes Kerr farther and farther from the truth. He believes that Madame Chiang and all her family are corrupt. Every reference to President Chiang is a slur.
The semblance of fact given by being specific at times with names, dates, and footnotes may lead astray so readers who have no first-hand information about these events. The author appears to be documenting his charges. But again and again his only proof is a mysterious informant, an unnamed commissioner who was "alleged to have a concubine on the payroll". This is material for a gossip columnist, not for a scholarly book.
Here is an example of Kerr's footnotes: "Thus in the Lucky Bar we had the forerunner of Madame Chiang's clubs... the Officers' Moral Endeavor Association, a series of hostelries which catered to foreign correspondents ... diplomatic service underlings... the Friends of China Club (FOCC), the Taipei Guest House and the Grand Hotel, all of them listening posts... Lucky Bars... on a grander scale."
Needless to say, Madame Chiang owned none of these. The government owned the Taipei Guest House and the Grand Hotel. The Grand Hotel Recreation Club and the FOCC were operated as clubs with a general membership and a board of governors. I was housed in the Grand Hotel on my first trip to Taiwan (1950) when it was still a stucco building with Japanese-style bathtubs. It is true, I believe, that its beautiful Chinese decor of today is due to the interest and inspiration of Madame Chiang.
Kerr condemns the moves to take delivery of military and civilian war-surplus property that the U.S. government sold to the Chinese government at the end of World War II for shipment to the mainland. Military equipment was ordered "demilitarized for combat use" by the U.S. government.
This was unfortunate, because the Chinese Communists had vast stores of Japanese arms and ammunition from Manchuria. I was in Shanghai in early 1947 when the planes sold to China were cut in two with blow torches. Breeches were blown off the guns on tanks. Naval vessels had all 3-inch guns removed and were still in that condition when our press party saw them in Taiwan in 1950. But every time Kerr refers to the loading of military or civilian war-surplus supplies onto trucks for shipment from Keelung, he calls it "looting" or "stealing".
The UNRRA-CNRRA program of relief and rehabilitation after the war is also badly distorted. Under the direction of Tingfu F. Tsiang, CNRRA was ably administered and harmonious relations were maintained with UNRRA. As deputy regional director for UNRRA in Honan at the site of the Yellow River diversion, my husband had far greater headaches and inexcusable delays on essential orders from America than trouble with CNRRA.
Of 10,000 wheelbarrows to be delivered from America by December, 1945, exactly 12 had arrived by April, 1946. Hundreds of navy tents (war-surplus) for housing workers arrived without tent poles. Of 200 trucks, a score had come by May. Two thousand tractors were ordered and 19 were there by June, 1946. Additionally, the Chinese Communists stole trucks and air-compressors, derailed and looted a supply train, blew up gasoline dumps, and shot up a compound, killing two of the Chinese staff.
Kerr labors under the illusion that China received a large share of Lend-Lease. Actually, the record shows $30 billion of lend-lease to Britain, $11 billion to Russia, and $1 ½ billion to China. General Stilwell was in charge of the distribution. General Chennault always wanted a larger share; Chiang Kai-shek had ample cause for complaint.
Kerr's friends were the handful of Taiwanese who opposed both the Japanese and the mainland Chinese, who wanted "Taiwan for the Taiwanese" without realizing that this would mean Taiwan for the Communists. He builds up the Liao brothers as the leaders of this plan, then has to defiate Thomas Liao as "indiscreet" and "naive". The reason, of course, is that Thomas Liao pledged loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek and the anti-Communist cause.
Dr. Robert A. Scalapino asks, in the Foreword, "How long can the Formosans be excluded from any effective voice in their government?" He apparently is unaware of the decade and a half of local elections. Most of mayors arc Taiwanese, including the chief executive of Taipei. Most members of the Provincial Assembly are islanders.
Dr. Scalapino's second question is: "How long can the estrangement between Formosan intellectuals and mainland refugees continue without serious political repercussions?" This schism is largely a thing of the past. A whole generation of children, islanders and mainlanders alike, have gone to school together without friction. The churches are well-integrated. So are the YW and YMCA, Rotary, 4-H Clubs, Junior Chambers of Commerce, and the armed forces.
Only Communism is left out—but Kerr and Scalapino haven't found that out yet.
KENNEDY
by Theodore C. Sorensen
Harper & Row, New York
783 page., US$10, 1965
A THOUSAND DAYS
by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Houghton & Mifflin Co., Boston, Moss.,
1,087 pages, US$9, 1965
Reviewed by Charles C. Clayton
It is now a little more than two years since John Fitzgerald Kennedy was struck down by an assassin's bullet in Dallas, Texas. The 35th president of the United States had been in office less than three years. Of the numerous books that have been written about him since his death, the two reviewed here are unquestionably the best. Sorensen was closely associated with Kennedy for 10 years and was in many ways the late president's most trusted adviser. Schlesinger did not join the Kennedy staff until shortly before the1960 presidential campaign, but it was his privilege to serve as a special adviser and speech writer. Like his father, Schlesinger is a historian of distinction. One cannot escape the feeling that during the four years of close association, he always kept in mind his lasting function as an historian.
Both books are of significance in Nationalist China - not only because they offer comments on the relations between the Republic of China and the United States, but also because they provide an accurate insight into how politics, democracy, and foreign policy operate in America.
It should be pointed out that the two authors do not always agree on details or interpretation of the events which helped shape world history during the Kennedy administration. This is natural. The two men did not always agree in the counsel they offered the president.
However, both are sincere. They obviously are telling the story as it looked to them. Both credit Kennedy with a high place in history. Schlesinger sums up his tribute in these words. "Above all he gave the world for an imperishable moment the vision of a leader who greatly understood the terror and the hope, the diversity and the possibility, of life on this planet and who made people look beyond nation and race to the future of humanity."
In the discussion of American policy in Asia, Sorensen offers the more explicit detail. Regrettably, the urgency of international tensions in Cuba and West Berlin prevented Kennedy from devoting the attention that might otherwise have been given to the confrontation with Communist China. Sorensen gives us some insight into the president's position as early as his meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna in June, 1961.
At that time, Sorensen writes, Khrushchev warned the United States "to beware of setting a precedent of intervening in the internal affairs of other countries". Khrushchev added that he was not authorized to speak for Red China, but he wanted to make it clear "that Red China belonged in the United Nations and on Formosa". President Kennedy replied that withdrawal of American forces and support from Formosa would impair our strategic position in Asia.
Sorensen says Kennedy always recognized America's obligation to the Republic of China. He writes: "Behind both the Laotian and Vietnamese crises loomed the larger menace of Communist China. That nation's unconcealed, unswerving ambition to impose upon the Asian continent a system bitterly hostile to our fundamental values and interests imposed in turn upon John Kennedy an obligation not to desert any independent government desiring our protection. There was nothing indirect about Red China's announced intention to take Formosa by force, or about Chiang Kai-shek's announced intention to reconquer the mainland from Formosa."
The author explains that Kennedy opposed an invasion of the mainland in 1962 because to him "it looked more like the Bay of Pigs allover again." The president, Sorensen says, did not give Chiang Kai-shek a flat rejection, but "informed him that the time was not ripe and that unlimited American backing would not be forthcoming. When tension mounted in the Taiwan Straits, Sorensen adds, the president in a news conference again made clear his determination to defend Taiwan and the Pescadores.
Schlesinger also discusses Kennedy's visit with Khrushchev and reports that the Russian leader told the president that "the realistic policy for the United States would be to recognize (Red) China and admit it to the United Nations. Of course, Khrushchev said, "this could not be done so long as Chiang Kai-shek held his position, whether in Taiwan or the UN. If he were in Mao's place, Khrushchev added, he would probably have attacked Taiwan long ago." Schlesinger writes that in reply Kennedy "made again the point about preserving the existing balance of power. The entry of additional nations into the Communist camp, the loss of Taiwan—such developments would alter the equilibrium."
While both books make it clear that Kennedy did not change his thinking on the importance of Taiwan, both suggest that his attention was by necessity concentrated on Red China's threat in Laos, Vietnam and on the borders of India. It is interesting to speculate whether Kennedy would have reacted as President Johnson has done to the growing menace of Communism in Vietnam and its relation to Red China's aggression in other parts of Asia.
Johnson visited Taiwan when he was vice president and has made other trips to this part of the world. It may be that he sees more clearly the problem and the seriousness of the threat Red China poses to the free world. Certainly Johnson has held the line against the admission of Red China to the United Nations and has emphasized America's determination to halt the spread of Communism in Asia.
Inevitably, Kennedy is compared with Franklin D. Roosevelt. Schesinger's comment is interesting. Roosevelt, he points out, was born in a different century and a different world. Like Churchill, he rallied "the certitudes of the nineteenth century to fight the duplicities of the twentieth. Kennedy, the child of a darker age, was more disciplined, more precise, more candid, more cautious, more sardonic, more pessimistic. His purpose was hardened and qualified by the world of ambiguities and perils."
"A Thousand Days" is essentially a personal memoir, written by a trained historian. Sorensen's book is primarily a biography. Both authors obviously have tried - but not succeeded - in avoiding their personal bias and affection for Kennedy. The definitive biography of John Fitzgerald Kennedy awaits the longer perspective of history. But both books deserve and are receiving attention. Both are of interest to Taiwan and to everyone concerned with the future of Asia.