The China Mission: George Marshall's Unfinished War, 1945-1947

by Daniel Kurtz-Phelan

Overview

An Economist Best Book of 2018
New York Times Book Review Editor’s Pick

“Gripping [and] splendid.… An enormous contribution to our understanding of Marshall.”—Washington Post

At the end of World War II, General George Marshall took on what he thought was a final mission—this time not to win a war, but to stop one. In China, conflict between Communists and Nationalists threatened to suck in the United States and escalate into revolution. Marshall’s charge was to cross the Pacific, broker a peace, and prevent a Communist takeover, all while staving off World War III. At first, the results seemed miraculous. But as they started to come apart, Marshall was faced with a wrenching choice—one that would alter the course of the Cold War, define the US-China relationship, and spark one of the darkest-ever turns in American political life.

The China Mission offers a gripping, close-up view of the central figures of the time—from Marshall, Mao, and Chiang Kai-shek to Eisenhower, Truman, and MacArthur—as they stood face-to-face and struggled to make history, with consequences and lessons that echo today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393356861
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/16/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Daniel Kurtz-Phelan is the executive editor of Foreign Affairs. He previously served in the US State Department as a member of the secretary of state’s Policy Planning Staff. His reportage and analysis have appeared in publications including the New York Times and The New Yorker.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Oh! General Marshall, We Communists Honor You 1

I Winning the Peace

1 Peace Is Hell 9

2 Horrid Dilemmas 32

3 Marshall Is Too Big 50

4 The Committee of Three 73

5 Unity Out of Chaos 99

6 First Lord of the Warlords 127

II Seek Truth from Facts

7 If the World Wants Peace 149

8 Balance of Mistrusts 164

9 Fighting While Talking 183

10 Umpire on a Battlefield 205

11 Sisyphus in China 224

12 George Marshall Can't Walk on Water 245

III Limits of Power

13 The Rock and the Whirlpool 265

14 At the Point of a Gun 282

15 All of" Chiang's Horses and All of Chiang's Men 302

16 Into the Fire 322

Epilogue: Losing China 335

Postscript: Substitutes for Victory? 358

A Note on Names and Quotations 365

Acknowledgments 367

Notes 369

Sources 447

Index 461

Editorial Reviews

"The China Mission has much to teach us about both the past and future of American leadership—and about what individual leadership means in the face of hard choices. I have rarely read such a vivid account of how diplomacy really works."

Madeleine Albright

"Was America’s greatest statesman to blame for America’s greatest diplomatic failure? In this wonderfully written book, Daniel Kurtz-Phelan sheds a bright light on a crucial but dimly understood chapter in U.S. foreign policy. His portrait of General George Marshall is a model of empathetic but clear-eyed biography and a memorable lesson in the limits of power."

Evan Thomas

"The story Kurtz-Phelan tells is a gripping one [and] does a splendid job of delineating Marshall’s evolving relationships. … [A]n enormous contribution to our understanding of Marshall."

John Pomfret

Thoroughly researched and compellingly written, [The China Mission] is at once a revealing study of character and leadership, a vivid reconstruction of a critical episode in the history of the early Cold War and an insightful meditation on the limits of American power even at its peak.

The New York Times Book Review - Aaron L. Friedberg

"America has always sought to convert rather than understand China, whether to Christianity or capitalism. In this brilliant historical study, Daniel Kurtz-Phelan focuses on the pivotal moment of misunderstanding between these two very different countries. As a bonus, he provides a beautifully written portrait of George Marshall, a statesman of such integrity that he seems as far removed from Washington, D.C., today as would an ancient Roman."

Fareed Zakaria

"Kurtz-Phelan has written a marvelous narrative about General George Marshall’s valiant effort to bring Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong together at the end of WW II. But apart from the engrossing China saga, what makes this books so absorbing - and sometimes even even touching - is that it draws the reader into the life of a truly great American, reminding us of a different time in America’s odyssey when a sense of modesty, service to mankind, and duty to country were enthroned and esteemed."

Orville Schell

"[A] compelling portrait of a remarkable soldier and statesman, and an instructive lesson in the limits of American power, even at its zenith."

Economist

"In gripping, crystalline detail, Kurtz-Phelan has given us a vital new chapter on American statecraft. The lessons from what he calls the ‘unsettled world’ of the early Cold War are urgently relevant today. The China Mission will be read for years to come as a window on the origins of American power—and the limits of its reach."

Evan Osnos

"An outstanding book on a very important subject: how to use American power judiciously and effectively in a rapidly changing world."

Odd Arne Westad

"The best character study of Marshall I’ve yet seen. He comes alive here as in nothing else that’s been written about him. A major achievement."

John Lewis Gaddis

"Now [Marshall’s China mission] has been brilliantly described in the detail it deserves by Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, the executive editor of Foreign Affairs, who seems to have consulted all relevant primary and secondary sources. ... Kurtz-Phelan is particularly good at using his various sources to bring Marshall’s personality to life."

New York Review of Books - Roderick MacFarquhar

"Thoroughly researched and compellingly written, [The China Mission] is at once a revealing study of character and leadership, a vivid reconstruction of a critical episode in the history of the Cold War and an insightful meditation on the limits of American power even at its peak."

Aaron Friedberg

"Deeply researched and written with verve, [The China Mission] ought to be read by any U.S. foreign-policy maker practicing diplomacy in Asia. … Mr. Kurtz-Phelan has performed a service in reviving this important episode with such aplomb, rigor and pace."

Wall Street Journal

"[A] compelling portrait of a remarkable soldier and statesman, and an instructive lesson in the limits of American power, even at its zenith."

Economist

Malcolm Hillgartner’s bass pitch and stately American tone sound like the mid-twentieth century, and this is a very mid-twentieth-century story. In late 1945, immediately after engineering the Allied victories in WWII, Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall was directed by President Harry S. Truman to lead a special mission to China to negotiate a coalition government between the Nationalist Army, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communists, led by Mao Zedong. It was supposed to be a short, uncomplicated task, but as months of mediation failed and civil war loomed, the listener can hear in Hillgartner’s voice that the United States was headed for a major diplomatic setback and the first stages of the Cold War. B.P. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

JULY 2018 - AudioFile

2018-01-23
A comprehensive history of one of the United States government's greatest diplomatic failures, presided over by one of the country's greatest diplomats.In December 1945, with China dissolving into civil war between Mao Zedong's Communists and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, President Harry Truman sent retired Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall (1880-1959) to fix matters. Unfortunately, his efforts failed miserably, and "many Americans would give Marshall and his mission a bitter share of the blame" for "losing" China, writes journalist Kurtz-Phelan, executive editor of Foreign Affairs, in this astute and surprisingly entertaining account. Everyone believed that if anyone could succeed, it was Marshall, who had overseen the largest military expansion in U.S. history, emerging from World War II as perhaps America's most admired public figure. Most experts knew that Chiang's government was a mess, but no one wanted American troops to become involved. Furthermore, "regime change" did not become the preferred policy for another 60 years, so the administration hoped to persuade Chiang to reform and the Communists to join a coalition government. To universal amazement, within weeks of arriving, Marshall achieved a cease-fire, followed by Chiang agreeing to end one-party rule and the Communists agreeing to dissolve their army and integrate troops into a national military force. Then progress stopped. Chiang and his party refused to share power. At first, Stalin supported Marshall because he believed the Communists would lose a civil war. As East-West hostility grew throughout 1946, he changed his mind. Although Marshall remained for another frustrating year, on his departure in January 1947, civil war was underway. A superb researcher, Kurtz-Phelan ably narrates an exasperating story featuring a genuinely peerless hero doing his best in a no-win situation.The definitive history of a failure from which the U.S. seemingly learned nothing (civil war in Vietnam was already heating up).

Kirkus Reviews