Standing Tall, Seeing Further
I am reading an article from Foreign Affairs sent to me by a friend: If Mao Had Come to Washington by Barbara W. Tuchman. In 1945 Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai requested a meeting with President Roosevelt, in hopes of convincing him that the Communists were a worthy ally, and that the Communist Party was the future of China. At the time, Japan was yet to be defeated, and our government backed the nationalist Chiang-Kai shek, thinking Generalissimo Chiang to be the better bet to defeat the Japanese forces that still controlled the south of China.
The overture by Mao and Chou never reached the upper echelons of power in Washington. Our ambassador in China and General Wedemeyer who was in Chungking gave a thumbs down to the offer. The request was never forwarded up the chain of command.
In the present I wonder how many other soon-to-be-losers appear as sure winners to us, because we Americans, believe our own PR releases.
