in the Consulate’s courtyards, and played tennis at the tiny Cercle Sportif Français.
Shortly after my arrival at Kunming a circular came from the Legation at Peking asking if any officers wished to apply for the two-year course in Chinese studies at the Legation. Graduates in this course were considered as specialists, serving most of their career in China. I applied, believing that as a China specialist my opportunities for advancement would be improved. My replacement at the Consulate was my boyhood friend Jack Service.
Most of my time during the two years (1933–35) at the Legation was spent with Chinese tutors, ceremonious gentlemen after the style of classical scholars, and in prescribed readings about ancient and modern China. Then there were diverse associations. Among them were a number of writers and scholars who were to influence foreign attitudes toward China: an unknown reporter named Edgar Snow, before he made his way into Communist territory and wrote Red Star over China; John K. Fairbank, then a graduate student and destined to become the dean of Chinese studies in the United States; Harold Isaacs, who was soon to produce his scathing Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution; Allan Priest, the curator of Chinese art at the Metropolitan Museum acquiring Chinese antiquities; and Owen Lattimore, writing about Mongols and Manchuria.
It was in Peking at this time that I also met the Jesuit paleontologist and theologian Père Teilhard de Chardin, a man of craggy radiance. Likewise, in 1933–35 I first encountered Chiang Monlin, the urbane and gentle chancellor of Peking National University, and Hu Shih, the eminent scholar who had led the revolt against the archaic cast of Chinese literature, and the movement to use the vernacular in writing.
The American Minister to China was a gregarious, roly-poly Oklahoman named Nelson Trusler Johnson. His instincts and behavior were those of a folksy, shrewd, small-town politician. But being a China specialist, he had acquired a repertoire of Chinese ritualistic platitudes that he took pleasure in rendering as the occasion required. As he had, at a mature age, recently married and promptly sired a son, he was occupied with the novelty of family life. He left the administration of the Legation to the Counselor, Clarence E. Gauss, who in Washington had been so faintly impressed with my qualities.
Round-shouldered from a life spent bending over a desk, with an underexposed complexion, a thin-lipped mouth down-turned at the corners, and pale eyes refracted through thick lenses, Gauss was a chilling spectacle at first encounter. He had begun his career as a clerk in the old Consular Service and through outstanding ability advanced close to the top of the Foreign Service. His subordinates respected his professional competence, his wary, analytical mind, and his stern integrity. Behind his defensive shyness, Gauss was a complicated personality, ready to castigate what he considered to be error, and at the same time yearning for appreciation and awkwardly warm-hearted with those who he thought did not depreciate him.
In Peking I came to know American military officers, especially those who were my counterparts in Chinese studies. One of them was Captain Frank Dorn, called Pinky, a nickname given him as a cadet because of his complexion. The Military Attaché at the end of my Peking tour was Colonel Joseph W. Stilwell. Dorn and Stilwell would later play an important part in my life. In command of the Marine Corps detachment assigned to protect the Legation was Colonel A. A. Vandegrift, who later was Commandant of the Marine Corps. One of the lieutenants of the guard was [Lewis Burwell] “Chesty” Puller, now a legendary hero of the Marine Corps. A phenomenally high proportion of the Army and Marine Corps officers stationed at Peking became generals in World War II and the Korean War. This was in part because of their special knowledge of northeast Asia. Also, it seemed to me, they were more talented than the average military officer.
Peking was blessed with many beautiful and bright young women, from the Turgout princess, Nirjidma, to bevies of visiting American and English maidens whose mamas or aunties were exposing them to the glories of old Peking. My three bachelor colleagues and I were consequently fortunate in the range of companionship available. While we gratefully embraced these opportunities, none of us married during our Peking tour of duty. In my case, I felt insufficiently established in my profession to take on so considerable a responsibility.
I left Peking with regret, not only because of fond associations, but also because this ancient, mellow, and noble city was a delight to live in. The symmetries of the great gates and walls, the squares and long vistas, the vermilion, emerald, cobalt, and imperial yellow of gates, pillars. and tiles, but most of all the casual, tranquil cadence of the old capital created an atmosphere of comfortable, well-worn elegance.
Mukden was my next post. It was the economic and transportation center of Manchuria, a coarse and important city. Manchuria was occupied by the Japanese Army, which had set up a puppet government over the region. The American government did not recognize the legitimacy of the Japanese conquest or the puppet regime of Manchukuo. Although the Japanese Army did not overtly treat us as enemies, it was evident that it so regarded us. Our position in the American Consulate General was therefore a delicate one.
Mukden was primarily a political reporting post, informing Washington of developments inside Manchuria, Chinese guerrilla movements along the Korean border, and recurrent clashes between Japanese and Soviet forces along the Mongolian and Soviet frontiers. I found this work much to my taste and at times exciting. It and a handful of American and British friends compensated for the harsh environment.
American journalists occasionally visited Manchuria. Frustrated in their efforts to get the truth from secretive Japanese officials, they called at the Consulate General for information. J. P. McEvoy of the Reader’s Digest was one. William Henry Chamberlin of the Christian Science Monitor and John Gunther were others. The Consul General, Joseph W. Ballantine, made a practice of briefing the visiting journalist orally. Then, if he judged the writer to be reputable and discreet, Ballantine would pile on a conference table a collection of our reports to Washington about Manchuria and invite the visitor to draw on their contents for the enlightenment of the American public. Ballantine cautioned the journalists not to reveal where they got this information and, if asked, to say that they found it in the gutter. John Gunther spent two days with our files; much of his Inside Asia section on Manchukuo was a rewrite of material he had gotten from us.
Most of the documents that Ballantine and I showed to journalists were classified. There were only two grades in those days: “Confidential” and, rather sweetly, “Strictly Confidential.” The latter was then regarded as “Eyes Only” in the subsequent runaway inflation of security. At any rate, we “violated security,” on our own initiative and for reasons that we considered to be in the national interest. We suffered no pangs of conscience over what we did. Quite to the contrary, we felt rather virtuous over making available, through journalists, classified information that we thought the American people had a right and need to know.
Home leave came during the spring of 1937. I traveled in the company of Colonel and Mrs. Vandegrift across the trans-Siberian, this time “soft” class. I stopped off for a couple of days in Moscow where I met several members of the American Embassy staff, including George F. Kennan. Stalin’s great purge was in mid-passage and the atmosphere of Moscow was tense and withdrawn. Kennan had attended the contrived “trials” as an observer and recounted to me in detail the incredible accusations against and self-incrimination of the old revolutionaries. It was a chilling story, one which stayed with me.
CHAPTER IV
HANKOW, THE FAR EAST DESK,
AND PEARL HARBOR
On my way from the United States back to Mukden in 1937 word came of the July 7 encounter between Japanese and Chinese troops near Peking that sparked the beginning of Japan’s attempt to conquer China south of the Great Wall. As Manchuria was already under Japanese control, I had no difficulty in returning to my post through Japan and Korea. But I was not to remain long. In less than a year I was transferred to Hankow, doomed to be overrun and captured by the invading armies.
