LATEST & LEAST ON CHIANG KAI-SHEK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200030003-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 26, 2004
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 23, 1977
• Content Type: NSPR

AR TlrlT THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER 01V ,0,1(3R 1-.L Ann roved For Rele2ke.1MMB*/1Ii97tGIA-RDP88-01350ROOn2Q0 3Db( 18 `
..But the man is missing. Chiang, a
cold, aloof man who had few per-
sonal friends, also appeared at times ,
in his career to have great charisma..1
That is Unexplained.-He was a revo-
lutionary whose conservatism. ru-
ined him, a womanizer in his youth 1
who -believed in strict Confucian
principles and later became ascetic
and puritanical.. Crozier never gets
to the -guts of these' traits. His
Chiang remains masked. We. never.
feel his presence or personality. .
Crozier, once a,China and Far East
specialist.. for The%-Economist,` the
British weekly, apparently could not.
?"open enough. doors to-get the infor-.:
ination that could have overcome
that deficiency. His 'collaborator
Eric : Chou, a Chinese scholar and
journalist, could not either. The gen
eralissimo's surviving colleagues in'
;.Taiwan are presumably still loathe
to disturb his. image. His enemies
and former colleagues on the main-
land are not accessible. Chiang kept
a' diary meticulously' all- his adult f
.life but only ,excerpts have,-been
published. -. Their presence is
-scarcely felt.
Crazier ends up relying on secon-
dary sources, including the only two
-previous biographies in English,
.both written.well before Chiang fled
the advancing Communist forces to
his island fortress of Taiwan and .;
both unstintly admiring of Chiang.
?In'.some.400 pages of Crozier; less
than .five illuminating' anecdotes,
'come to mind. Even the "morsels of
gossip"'are rare.
-The result is dry reading,'a plod-
'ding chronology in the tedious style
of a history textbook. And like many
textbook the narration is often su-
perficial, and serious discussion of
;motive often lacking
: Crazier argues that Chiang was an_
extraordinary man whose - faults,
bad luck and judgment---. over-
.whelmed his virtues. In particular
he cites Chiang's decision to horde.
his forces for eventual confronts--
3eviewed by
-imon Li
"The Man Who Lost China" is sub-'.
=_t1ed ,The first full 'bioo aphy of
-hiang Kai-shek."-It is-that, in the
imited sense that it covers the- Na-.
ionalist Chinese leader's life from.
is birth in 1887 to his death in 1975.
,But "full?" Theodore White and i.
innalee Jacoby In their compelling
yorld. War.11
ccount of Chinas.
-easThunder-. Out? of ~? Chin."
-fated unequivocally that "no .ade-
uate biography of Chiang Kai-shek-
-gill appear in our times." That was
m 1946.,-Thirty . years . later, Brian
rozier's: effort does little to dent
heir sweeping. prediction.
_?%Vhite ? and Jacoby said everyone
would- bs biased. People either saw -
ihiang as a near saint or as. a mon-
-ter. It. had been dangerous for so
ong to oppose Chiang-that existing
writings about his career were "ids
atrous." All that was left.were "mor-
:elsofgossip" ; ,,,. ,s~ ......: ;.
.; Bias is not Crozier's problem. His
nook seems scrupulously fair, per-. '
saps too much so. He blandly re-;
cords the extraordinary.`corruption,:
reacheries and atrocities of the pe-
-rod from the 1911 overthrow of the,
Manchu dynasty, to Chiang's final
3efeatr in 1949 as if .they'.were.. so,
many stock-market quotatiotzs,
., The second part of the White-Ja=
:aby prediction appears to - have.
been the insurmountable obstacle.
Ultimately, -lack of information un-.
:-ermines Crozier's efforts to'explain.
why the one man who appeared able
to unite post-imperial China failed
to do so..:
?r The"externals cif' Chiang's career
re-;almost complete: - a -welter-,of
games, dates, "incidents," battles, al-i
iiances,resignations, double-crosses,
edventnres and narrow escapes. one
has to admire anyone with the tour-
oge to try and put the labyrinthine-
politics. of China's warlord years---
factionalism; plot and counterplot--'
nto narrative order. .'- ,'-,:
"tion- with the .,Communists rather
fusel to free from prison the one-
-man who might have been able to
,rally Manchuria forhim after World.
War..II before the Soviet Union.
armed the Communists for: their.
yApproved F WF Iagivi1o01/1'3 ? b1A-R
Thy:MACWHO
}
LOST CHINA
Brian Crozier
Scribner. $12.95
That man, the warlord -Chang.
Hsuehliang, had kidnaped Chiang
in Sian.in 1936. Chiang never for-
-that he was still under,..... .. _; 4t.
in Taiwan. , .:, -
crozier also argues that Chiang's
outlook was narrowly. military. He
lacked .Mao. Tse-tung's, vision..of that a
d China-and an ideology
e
h
-
ang
c
Ile could. sell to the majority.: An in-,
,herent problem with a-book about'
.,the causes of Chiang's' failure- is a
f discussion about Mao's suc
k
o
t.lac
-cess. Yet what gave Mao victory is'
-.surely a'. Part -..of ..,what -defeated
Chiang. ::.
Still, the litany of Chiang s Nandi-
caps--personal- ones 'and'. those h_e
could not control-is s6.-staggering
that Crozier is not entirely convinc-
ing that China.was ever Chiang's to
"lose," that opportunity. was clearly
:present and let slip. w, 7
The wonder, perhaps, Is that sa
flawed a man was able to. lead for so
and - afterward .con so :.large a
;::l
ong
part of .the' world into recognizing
"
~,China
.
s
e
.
a
s
his;= small; provinc
. ,,.Twenty-one months after his passing
be is all but-forgotten, his_mark on
the world negligible
.4., .Ghiang's life was -indeed a tragedy,
as Crozier.says- in -his summation,
and.indeed an epic narrated without
passion, without life.: :.-
Crozier's previous biographies of
those other - generals-turned-politi
.Franco and 'France'-s Charles. d
=men, on their own term.s,.were suc
."cesses. Chiang,Ion.his, was a failure
.and Crozier cannot get at the bear'
-of why. He:found,.'in this one Clii
.nese at least, that the cliche if in
'scrutability is hard to dispel.
Simon Li is an Inquirer assistan
P88-013508000200030003=8