Joe McCarthy, the junior Senator from Wisconsin,
lit up the nation's radio waves with his claim of
Communists working in the State Department.
Some were among the foreign officers America
sent to aid Chiang Kai-shek in China.
Instead, they threw their support to America's
enemy, Mao Zedong. The forces of freedom
had been betrayed.
And Truman was covering it up.
Chiang surrounded himself with American advisors
that adored him. The rest he had fired.
Roosevelt canned General Joe Stillwell in China
because Vinegar Joe was disrespectful to Chiang.
The General thought he was an idiot.
The Nationalist leader was playing out of his depth.
Meanwhile Mao was showing an interest in cooperating
with the U.S. Stalin was showing Mao no love and
the Communist leader needed economic help.
But Washington was of no mind to entertain a
Communist outreach. There was a war still to be won
in both Europe and the Pacific.
Eventually a truce was brokered between Chiang's
and Mao's forces but it turned out to be only a moment's
breather before the main event's inevitable clash
to determine who rules China.
There would be no peaceful settlement of differences
between Chiang's Kuomintang Nationalists
and Mao's army of peasant revolutionaries.
There was no middle ground for accommodation.
You had to win it all in order to rule.
The war turned against Chiang in Manchuria
where his army formed a number of isolated pockets,
trapped far from a timely rescue. Chiang had unwisely
overextended his forces. Here was Mao's tipping point.
Americans awoke one morning to the news Chiang
was fleeing to Formosa, today's Taiwan. Defeat was
stunning. China, America's best friend in Asia
went Communist. Congress was outraged.
Later Truman commented,
"We bet on the wrong horse."
Washington's focus remained fixed on Europe while
China replaced its old order with revolution.
Europe was clearly the priority for both Truman
and Stalin. Here was Western Civilization.
Here was the Mecca for global political power.
China was ancient glory with a Third World economy
and a billion people to feed. It's rewards were awaiting
somewhere in a far distant future. The West had enough
problems of its own. Truman could save China for later.
China denied the United States victory in Korea.
If only the Chinese had stayed on their side of the Yalu.
Instead, a million armed Chinese crossed over the
river into Korea and fought Uncle Sam to a stalemate.
Some in Congress suspected the war in Korea was
Stalin's ploy to force Washington to pull troops from
Europe in order to rescue Syngman Rhee. The U.S.
was being suckered into fighting the wrong war, leaving
Western Europe vulnerable to invasion by the Soviet
Red Army.
Washington quickly turned toward Japan to fulfill
the role Roosevelt had intended for China.
What had started simply as a military occupation
of defeated Japan developed into a lasting
political and economic partnership between the
two rival nations.
Japan in time became a leading global industrial
power only to be overtaken by the even more dynamic
Asian economy of China. At long last good fortune
arrived in the East with the beginning of the
Twenty-first Century.
* * * * *
OVER EASY
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