Did Madame Chiang Kai-shek conduct sexy and seductive diplomacy?

I was hoping to learn some modern Chinese history by reading Hannah Pakula’s The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the birth of modern China, but I was disappointed as I have my doubt about some of the material she used.  As the New York Times Book Review said of the book, “Pakula uses no source in Chinese and offers little evaluation of the ones she does use.”  Pakula is no historian; she may not have the professional training to evaluate the material she uses.

In the book Pakula was making a case that Mme. Chiang and Wendell Willkie had an affair and even a one-night stand when Willkie visited Chongqing in October 1942.

After losing to FDR in his Presidency bid in 1940, Willkie traveled the world representing FDR.  He was a very respectful and influential political figure, advocating Lend-Lease (a 1941 Act by Congress, empowering the president to send war supplies/money to the allied countries).

Madame Chiang understandably wanted to charm and woo such an important figure from USA, from whence their war supply and money came.  But the book portrays her as a seducer and that she wanted to come to USA with Willkie.  When Gardner Cowles (a publisher, who accompanied Willkie on the trip) told May-ling that she could not come to the States with Willkie.  May-ling scratched her long fingernails down Cowles’ cheeks, so deeply that the marks remained for a week.   Sensational story if it were true.

In Hannah Pakula’s The Last Empress, we read the following paragraph (at Cairo Conference),

May-ling, who was wearing a black satin sheath dotted with yellow chrysanthemums, continually arranged and rearranged her feet in order to give glimpse of what Brooke called “the most shapely of legs” via the long slits in her skirt. “This caused a rustle amongst those attending the conference,” he wrote, “and I even thought I heard a suppressed neigh come from a group of some of the younger members!”

The following paragraph is from William Manchester/Paul Reid’s The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm 1940-1965 Volume 3 (Churchill’s biography).  Paul Reid, using Manchester’s material after the latter was stricken by stroke, to complete the book.  Manchester was a respected historian, who apparently felt Alan Brooke’s diary (Churchill’s right hand man—Chief of Staff during WWII) was credible and trustworthy.

Madame Chiang, who spoke perfect English, translated for her husband, leaving Brooke with the impression that Madame “was the leading spirit of the two, and I would not trust her very far . . .The more I see of her the less I like her.”  Not so the other staff officers, whose collective breathing almost stopped when Madame’s “closely clinging dress of black satin with yellow chrysanthemums displayed a slit which extended to her hip bone and exposed one of the most shapely of legs.”

In the Volume V (Closing the Ring) of Churchill’s The Second World War, with which, I feel, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, Churchill wrote about his impression of Mme. Chiang during Cairo Conference (Nov. 1943).

I had a very pleasant conversation with Madame Chiang Kai-shek, and found her a most remarkable and charming personality.  I told her how much I had regretted that we could not fix an occasion for a meeting at the time when we had both been in America together, and we agree that no undue formalities should stand in the way of our talks in the future.  The President had us all photographed together at one of our meetings at his villa, and although both the Generalissimo and his wife are now regarded as wicked and corrupt reactionaries by many of their former admirers, I am glad to keep this as a souvenir.

In the Volume IV (The Hinge of Fate) of Churchill’s The Second World War, we read why Churchill and Mme. Chiang did see each other when they both were in America (also in 1943).

On this weekend was discussed the question of my meeting Madame Chiang Kai-shek, who was making and extensive tour of the United States.  She was at this time in New York, and intimated that she would be glad to receive me there.  Amid the pressure under which we were working and in the few days that remained before I must leave I did not feel able to make so long a journey.  The President therefore invited the lady to lunch with him to meet me at the White House.  The invitation was refused with some hauteur.  Madame was of the opinion that I should make the pilgrimage to New York.  The President was somewhat vexed that she had not adapted his plan.  It was my strong desire to preserve the unity in the Grand Alliance, and I offered to go half-way if she would do the same.  This offer was however considered facetious, so I never had the pleasure and advantage of meeting this lady until the Cairo Conference.

In Hannah Pakula’s The Last Empress, we read the following conversation between Churchill and Mme. Chiang, (so far I cannot verify this conversation indeed happened.)

Churchill: You think I’m a terrible old man, don’t you?
Mme. 
Chiang: I really don’t know.  You believe in colonialism and I don’t.
Churchill: Now tell me what do you think of me?
Mme. 
Chiang: I think your bark is worse than your bite.

The articulate Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-Shek)

This is how Churchill began his speech in the Joint Session of Congress on December 26, 1941.  The book of The Roar of the Lion is a gift from a lawyer friend of nearly 40 years.  It is about the stories of Churchill's wartime speeches.

“. . . I wish indeed that my mother, whose memory I cherish across the vale of years, could have been here to see.  By the way, I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way round, I might have got here on my own.”

Madame Chiang Kai-Shek made her famous speech in the Congress in February 1943.

She first told a story about an American pilot returning a bombing mission over Tokyo and bailed out in the interior of China.  The pilot, after seeing the Chinese people, felt like he had come home even though that was the first time he had ever been to China.   After explaining that she had been educated in the U.S. and felt that she had come home.

She and Churchill used the same technique telling their audience that the speaker was indeed one of you in your midst.

She brought the house down with her speech, “the chamber fairly shook with applause.”  You have to listen to part of her speech in the following YouTube before reading further.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlSMfF3hOJM

There is no better word than “articulate” to describe her speech in the Congress.  There are two meanings of articulate; one is “pronounce a word distinctly” (咬字清晰); the other meaning is “to express oneself clearly and effectively” (表達清楚). Soong Mei-ling was indeed “articulate” in the true sense of the word both ways.  She only stayed in the States about nine years (age 10 to 19).

I once said Churchill was not articulate and that brought forth the protest from my daughter, who didn’t realize I was using “articulate” as 咬字清晰.  If you watch and listen to the Godfather and you’ll agree with me that Marlon Brando was not articulate.

After reading Empress Dowager Tzu-Hsi (Cixi), I checked out The Last Empress (biography of Soong Mei-ling).  Nowadays I only checked out the print books when the Kindle ebook is not available. This book does have ebook version, which was not available at Carnegie Library.