John Paton Davies Jr. Quotes

The Kuomintang nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek tried to stay in power in China, but their corruption and incompetency at government lost them the support of most of the Chinese. The Chinese communists took over the government. The Nationalists then invaded the offshore island of Taiwan but claimed to be the rightful government of all of China. For many years they controlled the Chinese seat in the UN and they refused to recognize the fact that they had failed to gain the loyalty of the Chinese people.

With the successful Chinese Communist Revolution, the Nationalists were driven off the mainland of China and occupied the island of Formosa (Taiwan) and had a small garrison of soldier on two tiny islands off the Chinese Coast, Quemoy and Matsu. The communist Chinese government wanted control of all three of the Nationalist held islands. It became a campaign issue or whether or not the United States should go to war to protect the two tiny islands from the communists even though there were no civilians on them and they had virtually no value other than symbolic. Nixon, took the position that the Chinese Communists must be stopped as they had world conquest as their objective. Philosophically, many Communists of the time, following Marxist theory, actually believed that Capitalism would crumble and communism would take its place. In that sense many felt that the world would be communist. China, as we now know, was more concerned with counterrevolution by the nationalists, expansionism and growth of Vietnam (her ancient enemy), the rise of Japan, border wars with India, and constant threats from Russia and China had no military plans for world conquest.

This was just a month after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Anyone at that time, who promised to attack Japan would get a serious hearing, and Chiang Kai-shek and the China Lobby were making extraordinary promises. FDR wanted to give Chiang’s Nationalist government an extraordinary $½ Billion in aid. One interesting aspect of this quotation is the wording. Note that the President used the word “invent”. He realized that there was no existing mechanism whereby they could simply send such a huge block of money to a foreign country on the promise that they would use it for fighting the Japanese. If there were, he would have had the War Department or the State Department to do it. So he asked his most trusted and creative cabinet member to “invent” a way to do it. Morgenthau came through with a very complicated, elaborate scheme that Congress approved the following week. The money was sent, but Chiang Kai-shek did not spend it all for fighting the Japanese—his idea was to let the Chinese Communists under Mao wear themselves down fighting the Japanese, and Chiang could use the American military assets to then wipe out the communists, his only political opponents. See {641676}.

Before American entry into the War with Japan, Chiang Kai-shek and the Soongs maintained that they were fighting the Japanese but it was not generally true. They were fighting Mao and his Communists while Mao was fighting the Japanese. By 1942, under pressure from the United States and Russia, the Nationalists and Communists agreed to a truce so that they could both fight against Japan. Based on the promises made to President Roosevelt by Madam Chiang, the Soongs, and Chiang himself, there was an expectation of extensive military attacks against the Japanese. The U. S. then sent a large amount of military aid to Chiang Kai-shek, but there did not appear to be any significant attacks against the Japanese other than those mounted by the Communists. Magruder, General Marshall’s emissary to Chiang Kai-shek was instructed to investigate. When the war ended, Chiang Kai-shek used the assets he was saving in to attack Mao and his communists just as he had done before the truce. Magruder had been right. However, just as Chiang could not defeat the militarily inferior Communists before the truce, he could not do so after. Soon Mao turned the tables and drove Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalists out of Mainland China. President Roosevelt had brilliantly judged the ability of England, Russia, and Yugoslavia to fight the Germans, but as this quotation and {641677} shows, he listened to the wrong people. He had been sold a “bill of goods” by the China Lobby, the Soongs and Chiang Kai-shek.

He was referring to the Early Cold War. The American official position and propaganda called for Russian military and political control of Eastern Europe to end and supported uprising and revolution, but the U. S. did not have the power to dislodge Russia without risking a nuclear war.

Agree resigned from the CIA in protest to its political positions.

In World War II, all the Chinese political organizations united to fight the Japanese invaders. The Communists however did most of the fighting and took the heaviest casualties. He proposed turning on their weakened allies and that was accepted by Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist leader. They attacked the Communists under Mao and Cho En Lai and forced them to flee across the country in the “Long March”. The Nationalists and their warlords were hated by the majority of the Chinese, especially the peasants who provided help and support to the Communists while they made their escape. They then regrouped and attacked the Nationalists in the Chinese Revolution and this time Chiang Kai-shek, Bai Chongxi and the other Chinese Leaders fled. With few people to help them, they had to flee to Taiwan, and the Communists took over China. Some historians believe that it was Chiang Kai-shek’s strategy all along to hold his soldiers back and let the Communists bear the casualties with the intention of turning on then when the Japanese were expelled. Others claim that Chiang’s relatively unaggressive military action against the Japanese reflected his typical conservatism and avoidance of risk and there was no intention to attack the Communists after the war and the alliance was made in good faith. Note that the leading Muslims in China (where they are a significant minority) were allied with the Chinese Christians against the Communists. Bai Chongxi had a special Muslim newspaper which regularly published religious quoted from the Koran and the Hadith purporting to support and justify Chiang Kai-shek, a Christian, as the rightful leader of China. This was another example of Islam being hijacked for a narrow political purpose. Also, note his use of the word “bandits”. This is a huge insult in the Chinese language culture. So of course the Nationalists used it to refer to the Communists—See {613286} .

King had just publicly advocated the UN seating of Red China. The negative reaction from politicians who were friends of the Civil Rights Movement was just what Levison was worried about – see {637661}.

who worked with the Communists. The Communists were to Flip-flop again when Russia needed arms and assistance to fight Hitler when the pact broke down. See {595773}

The 40 Committee was a secret committee of officials to deal with major national security covert operations possibilities. Chile had democratically elected Salvador Allende, a strong socialist, as President. He then, as he had promised in his campaign, begun to nationalize mining and other heavy industry and nationalized the very large farms. Kissinger and some others thought that Allende might probably transform Chile to communist state. The committee was discussing whether or not the United States should, via covert operations, try and destabilize or overthrow the Allende government. There was a strong minority aristocracy of the wealthy who would definitely support such an activity. Kissinger argued for intervention and some others observed that Allende had been fairly elected as a leftist by the people. Kissinger made this famous statement, and America covertly though the CIA worked with the Chilean right wing and fascists to overthrow Allende. The military, having been given the “green light” started attacking the Presidential Palace. Allende made a radio speech to the nation. A few hours later, the military seized the palace and reported that Allende had committed suicide.

Kissinger stating that the US should “correct” the election “mistakes” of other countries was of course Top Secret and the official US position was to support the right of any people to elect their preferred leaders. Normally, the public would never have seen the transcript of the meeting until many decades had passed but part of the transcript found their way to a manuscript of a book about the CIA. That agency went to the courts to block the publication and Kissinger’s statement. However, although the quote was removed from the book, enough people had now seen it, and the quote was leaked.

The quote is historically important for the real story of what really happened in Chile as General Pinochet who seized power turned out to be guilty of Crimes Against Humanity and Allende is today a national hero and martyr. In addition, it is a wonderful example of “overclassification”. After the action was completed, why should the American Public not know that its Secretary of State did not believe in democratic elections if the people would elect communists? --especially when the official stated policy he was presenting was just the opposite. The argument faded when the Watergate Scandal broke and consumed America’s attention.