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Editorial Summary of Meeting with John Leighton Stuart

October 2, 1946 Nanking, China

Ambassador Stuart reported on a meeting with Chiang Kai-shek that morning concerning Marshall’s October 1 memorandum to the Generalissimo. Chiang insisted that government control of Kalgan was essential to national welfare but that he would issue a cease-fire order as soon as his troops had taken the city, provided that the Communists agreed to certain stipulations. Marshall told Dr. Stuart that not only would he “not negotiate while a cold-blooded battle for Kalgan was going on,” but the Generalissimo’s stipulations had about convinced him that it was time to leave China. During the June negotiations, Marshall recalled, retention of Kalgan had been the one concession the Generalissimo had made to the Communists, and now he had completely reversed himself. (Foreign Relations, 1946, 10: 268-70.)