#89

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We're talking about Stilwell and the American experience in China. The book which is
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of course about the late General Vinegar Joe Stillwell it's written by Barbara Tuchman
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published by McMillian.
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And we'll be back with Mrs. Tuchman in just a moment.
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This is a book B. Each week introducing you to leading authors and critics this program
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is made possible in part by the National Book Committee and the American Booksellers Association.
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Your host is Robert Crumb a daily columnist for The Chicago Tribune and a contributing editor of book world
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the Sunday Literary Supplement of the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post.
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I don't suppose you've been invited to be the visiting lecturer at the University
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of Taiwan or anything like that yet have you now. No I don't think I will.
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It's a very frank very frank book and I'm surprised at the amount of
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behind the scenes majority of us have had GREAT. Well you're saying your forward still will
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let you use his diaries.
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Oh yes his diaries his wartime diaries had already been excerpted and
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published as you remember by Teddy White. But there was an
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additional huge archive that he left which Mrs. still
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possesses. Of all his papers prior to Pearl Harbor and diaries
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and supplementary diaries because he was a man who
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took out all his frustrations and agonies and thoughts in writing he wrote you know
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and he would write in this little pocket diary and then he would at the evening
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sometime he would start writing all over again supplement what he thought expanded
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loose sheets of paper and he kept everything.
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So there it was with nicknames for everybody that's right General
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chunk. Do you suppose the general knew that his nickname and still it was peanuts.
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I'm afraid so.
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Yes it was common talk. As Marshall
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scolded him at one time saying you know this is all over China.
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You must stop doing these things because you could defend that because that was also the code name.
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That's right. As a matter of fact his son in law Gen. Easterbrook pointed this out to me
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that one reason I'm one for so many of these
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nicknames is that it's a commonplace among military men to use a code name
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for people and places and operations. And that from code
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names he took to. Two nicknames.
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Although he had done that early in life to some of his nicknames for the generals and
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World War One was just. A very colorful
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and Uncle Sugar of course was Uncle
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saying. Some of the names I I didn't
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use I thought would be better not.
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What's really astonishing that that still became a general isn't it. In view of
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his he was a complete maverick or almost not really.
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I think the maverick quality comes out because I've used in
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and because of his diaries and papers have been used now
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extensively but in real life you have to
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remember that this was not open and that his comments
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and his as sort of big attitude were
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were just that acerbic but not so really maverick. He was a very regular
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West Pointer.
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What was different about him I think was his independence of
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temperament and his scorn
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for pretension for pomposity and
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also for people slower and less
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less efficient than himself or less. He
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was a man I'm impatient with. Well with people who
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didn't do their best and all that was very outspoken he would say it is very
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abrasive to on occasion.
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Yes.
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But on the other hand he was a very with people he liked a very
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jolly men and surprisingly enough there's a marvelous picture of him in there taken inside
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a. The body of a plane flying the home.
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Oh yeah they're almost laughing like hell of course politics. Yes there were Teddy White.
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That's right and brooks and consider Jack Belden there no it wasn't a Norman song
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as still is just as you could see the position he's having such a good time
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and I don't really think of him as a maverick.
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If he had been he really wouldn't have suited the theme I chose him because he
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really represented.
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But he was American attitude he was bypassed for promotion.
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Many times because he had offended the people over him well again he was by
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he was bypassed toward the end when he was a colonel because he was at odds with this one chap
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who ran the m id with military intelligence.
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But it really wasn't so many times in fact it was just this
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one situation. And he felt that if he was to be made a general one
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star it would have to come then.
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And it did as soon as George Marshall Marshall of course was
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his great friend and you have a very amusing episode. Unfortunately
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as you say there was no tape recording in which this new one star general walks in to see the
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Colonel who had given him such bad efficiency reports.
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Yes in the Pentagon and everybody kept the doors open down the corridor the listener thought he would
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certainly be ready. Yes he must have. Which surprised me a little I didn't think he would have I would have thought he
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would have ignored that.
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Well no he that was a very long and and
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unfair quar all that was conducted between him and the
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Cape Cape was really had it in for me you know he had a little black
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book I was told this by the wife of one of his colleagues colleagues
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SLB book. He was very apparently strange character who himself at the time
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got a promotion and still was not
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one of what was called the attachés clique. The McKay was trying to
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provoke him into resigning. And I think so we'll
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have every reason to. Be angry.
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Whether he really chewed him out I can't say because nobody knows what he said he
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just put in his diary and I I think you forgot what he said.
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It said something to infer that he let him have it up to some extent
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still was great use in World War One during one of the American
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offenses as a planner.
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He was in G2 in intelligence and he worked out the
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plan for the offense of it.
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SAM Yeah 1018 I spoke perfect French
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and Spanish Spanish and probably actually Chinese.
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Yes he was Mandarin Chinese Yes. He was the first
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language officer sent to represent the army. You know we have the system of the State Department
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always had language office yes but the army and the Navy started it in the Far East
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in one thousand eight when we thought we were going to have a war with Japan. But the Army didn't
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do anything about it until after World War One because
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prior to that we really had virtually had no intelligence corps leader going to China first in
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1911 in time to see some of the revolution.
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That's why he arrived in the month of the revolution and requested reassignment there later and that was when he
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went to Los Angeles for the start of his language course San Francisco so exactly. Yes but
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there's a funny story.
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Then when he got there he and the other officer went to have the head of
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the language class said you have very bad accents and told them a story about his asking these two peasants you might guess
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this. You repeat their story.
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Well actually that was when he got to Peking and it was all
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missionary I think he said who spoke perfect Chinese
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and who said that when he was referring to Stillwell's poor
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accent what typically an accent because of course Chinese is done by
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tone you know and that he stopped a peasant and asked him the way to chang job.
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And the peasant couldn't tell him anything. And finally he went
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on his way and he heard the peasant saying to his companion It sounds just as if that foreigner was
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asking the way to chunk shop.
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That's one of my favorite stories in the book. There's a lovely story. What do you think
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that that without Stillwell chunk I should have wound
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up in the same place he was still a kind of a help to
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him in the long run or hindrance because he didn't admire junk I shared and I think quite
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properly.
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But would junk I should have had more power less without So I don't think it would have
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made I don't think it matters now because still what was not
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was not able to do what he had been sent to do which was to
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energize and revitalize the Chinese army and
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make it as the missions head to raise the combat
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efficiency of the Chinese armed forces. He wanted to do this
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through. He was a great maker of Sultans was one of his but he was a good
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soldier. He was but he was also a great trainer and may carry.
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He made the seventh division Ford just before the Pearl Harbor.
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He wanted to because he believed in the Chinese soldier. There's that lovely
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story about his. Well I got fired from the point he believed that the
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Chinese soldiers with proper leadership and proper training and in food
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above all could be made the equal of any soldier in the world if he had
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if he felt the worth of his own function
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and didn't want that Chiang Kai-Shek wanted
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American materiel because he wanted to store it away and use it against the communists.
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And he was he was literally afraid of still was making
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a good effective Chinese armed force because
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he was very shrewd about the intricacies of
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Chinese politics and he felt that any force
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which owed its energy and its motive to
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someone else would might come under other leadership not necessarily stills but the
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leadership of some of the Chinese.
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Well the communists actually was what not what I was going but you know I don't think he was.
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You see we all think only now in terms of communism as well. The trouble is with People don't always
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think in terms of how things were then. There were
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there had been for the whole history of John's
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regime was one of. Conflict with other groups or John
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the war lords of the Southern group especially since Still it was
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operating in his training schools were in the south and the men in
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his under that came out of his command were from that area of China and nothing to do
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with the communist rep in the north I think. But John was afraid of was that
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the forces trained by Stillwell would come under rival leadership
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which would then threaten his position and of course to very many other reasons to
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still want to pay them properly. We want to pay the soldiers directly
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instead of giving the money to commander who then held out part of exactly but the whole system of the Chinese
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system was that of a general. O nd his armies. I
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mean armies in China were not the military system was not.
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Institutionalized up to Commander in Chief. It was really owed its allegiance
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almost to the media general who received the pay from the central
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government and then paid it to his soldiers. Well actually you know
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the amount the state unless you paid them more stayed in his pocket.
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Well it was a funny remark after Stillwell finally had
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at least pretty good success in Burma after having been driven out once because he couldn't get any help
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from Liberty for anybody else. He went back to the states and
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some Chinese general said oh I got so much land or something for winning it's
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always so hard to give him 10 counties.
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This was when he was recalled and. Wally said to
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General Garner was then still he was very sad about this recall he
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said when I had my victory was called a Hundred Victories way because
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he and a lot of fighting against the communists in the thirties he said. They gave me the taxes
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of four counties. Surely when General Stilwell gets home
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to get the taxes it take out that's a phony and that's a lot of things that are the Chinese
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isn't it.
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I think that's all of course that was a great. Stumbling block to all the
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allied efforts in China and around China for many many years and never really helped at
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all except that he was pushed into providing finally grudgingly a few divisions that
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worked out in Burma.
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The only thing that helped was by pinning down some of the Japanese divisions and all that was really a very
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central point to see the Chinese we mustn't forget been fighting in their
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way. The Japanese since one thousand thirty seven
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before Pearl Harbor and they had suffered a great deal in their country had been occupied and they'd been
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bombed and junk I say. Despite all kinds of pressure and
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not given in to the Japanese not sold out had not
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made a deal. We had even fought the much he no he hadn't except in places which would
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he hoped would involve the foreigners that's why he elected to fight at Shanghai and again
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at King although it was militarily useless but he felt these cities were where
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it might involve the Western nations. But Eve
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did. He had held China together and he hadn't had
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surrendered or made a deal or collaborated.
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And by doing that he held down the Japanese army of an
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occupation force of a million men. And this was a
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tremendous service to us. When we got into the war
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because our we were very much afraid. You see that if these Japanese
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were released by Chang made a deal they would be
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turned against the Americans who are coming up the Pacific.
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Dick kept using it as blackmail.
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Let's try like a mail device and in fact he couldn't make a deal because he would have been finished with his own
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country if he had. But we never really believed that we somehow
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swallowed this blackmail about what he would might make a deal with the Japanese.
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What I liked about still was after he finally got permission to train the Chinese troops in
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India over the great outcries of the British and finally got them into action in
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Burma flying the wounded out to hospitals which had never happened to them
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before and seeing that they got supplies and good weapons he really turned
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some of them at least good excellent soldiers.
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Oh yes for the first time. Well now again he had good
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material among many of the offices.
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We mustn't lump all Chinese as as inept and no he wanted the
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Communists he would rather have had the communists working with him when chunk I checked purely because they had better
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troops.
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That's right and so the rumor was I mean he he didn't know it at first hand you know there was nobody up
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there nobody could tell. And there was a lot of propaganda about the
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communist armies through Germany vs.. But he
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he supposed and he most people did that they were would be more
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vigorous fighters because they were more
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motivated. As the challenger always is more more
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motivated than the than the dying
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regime which chunk Isaac's regime essentially was losing you know
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it was failing it was decaying It was corrupt and it
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was not functioning effectively and there was no spirit.
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Will you have one story. I can't quote it all closely but the idea is easy. But the
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Chinese general someplace and the story was that he wouldn't advance he wouldn't
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surrender he wouldn't fight he wouldn't he wouldn't do anything he wouldn't give up.
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You know I didn't run away and he wouldn't leave and that was that was
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the story told about the Chinese commander. I think of the
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Opium Wars. I can time you and somebody not
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not me but I quoted it applied it to Chiang Kai shek and it was very apropos. Yeah it was it was
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and yeah he wouldn't fight he wouldn't run away wouldn't die.
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Well Stillwell was able because of his actions during an attack and
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during a campaign to get the undying loyalty of of the soldiers.
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Oh yeah especially Chinese soldiers by going up the front and one case he replaced
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a company commander who was killed in 11 attack and he didn't believe in doing
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having a stroke so I think he wouldn't know did he know that was that was very characteristic of him he
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would stand there.
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He would walk in Burma through these little narrow jungle paths up to
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the front. And this is one of his ways of galvanizing them into action
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because they knew if he was killed by a stray bullet their commander would be held
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responsible and he would they would beg him to go away and he would
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say stay there until they went into action. That was one way he kind of shame.
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I mean because they were under orders you know from John King all the time to hold back.
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You know that's what he was given one order and they were getting a lower by radio from from a
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journalist right. Yes. He also didn't get along too well with the British.
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No he didn't he had a thing about the Limeys as he called them and I was
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never really able to find out where this came from because
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he had it even in World War One when he was when he got over there the first
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thing they did was to send him for experience into a British
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sector sector. Thank you. And he started out all full of
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these very prickly prejudices. I think you came from. You have
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a curious chip on his shoulder about the
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rich and the Tony and anyone who put on airs so that all the
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British did. I think they have some of them do. But the
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very curious thing was that as soon as he got into a French sector
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he was right at home. He got on beautifully. He was sent to bed you remember
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for the seventeenth Corps. And he knew French perfectly that was
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one reason they liked him because it was the first American they had who spoke French.
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But the curious thing was that they all just just apparently
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adored him. They had a very very chummy relations and they gave him a dinner party
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and they gave him decorations and they all had their pictures taken with him in the center I have it in the book
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and wrote their names on the back I couldn't put that in. But that picture of
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him with the French 17th Corps you know as the name of every French officer written personally on the
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back. They give you a farewell party. That's right. I think you're right.
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Tim Well I think the general is Samoan and Madame Chung probably didn't
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like him because he saw through them and he refused to be influenced by her obvious
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allure as a woman. That's right. Which is more than you could say for the president and some of the other people on whom she used
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it.
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Well I think the president really charmer wasn't she. Oh yes. Yeah. She was apparently
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devastating when she tried and she she just as she did on
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Wilkie was apparently sucked in. If not seduced
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and a number of the others and it was they want for a
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little at least. I'm not so sure really you know I couldn't. I
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try very hard to get her nuances Di was just out of University of Iowa but they were
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holding it back for someone who is now working on it.
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But the gentleman out there who I wrote now seen it
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he says there's nothing personal about the trip to China.
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I still like Mad at least in
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between but I mean I when she was being friendly but he said mark now realize that she was
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part of space.
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But she was a great. Snow job she was great at the
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snow job.
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Well he finally wound up of course out of his chair like a man because of the
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great pressures put on by the journalist and he died
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rather tragically didn't have I mean of cancer I would have understood him dying of an ulcer
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after everything that happened to him but he died.
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How old was he was 63 63. Well yeah excuse
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me. He came back home you know when he was going well you know I mean when the war was
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going on I came back to China and they gave him this command because he had four stars
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by that time was very hard to fire a shot for him.
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So he went out he got that really by getting himself out there to the
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Pacific on that on his own.
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MacArthur gave it to him. Well yes but it was pure luck because
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the commanding general good commanding general was killed in the Tenth Army just whilst I was there
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and MacArthur had offered him I asked him would he be his chief of staff and
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said no I want to feel command.
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Well it was just then you know it was killed well in a sense this is a
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story of a of a potentially great general. We never had a chance really to
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prove it on a large scale.
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That's right you know and he would have been the commander in Europe because he was he
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was summoned right after Pearl Harbor to come to Washington and be
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given he was given the command of the first American offensive overseas which
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was then supposed to take place in North Africa you know.
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And he was to command it. But then that was turned out to be so much wrong with it and
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so they delayed it they decided not to do it at that time to postpone it. And
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just then all this practice broke out in China. And since
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he was the China expert in the Army he was
[23:27 - 23:32]
obviously as Stimson said to him the finger of destinies pointing at you and
[23:32 - 23:36]
you've got to go with Stimson's offended and well I marshal but the
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president kept listening to Chung. Well the president I have I
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think had a point. You know he he was he had
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restored the extravert the treaties of
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things that interfered with Chinese sovereignty his and his whole policy
[23:55 - 24:00]
was to restore the Chinese sovereignty
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intact and to treat junk I sack as a genuine head
[24:05 - 24:06]
of state.
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And. If Chung. Didn't like
[24:11 - 24:16]
Stillwell Roosevelt figured he had a sovereign right not to like him. I mean
[24:16 - 24:21]
and Chang made it an issue of his sovereignty said I surely have a right to decide who is to be my
[24:21 - 24:25]
advisor and I think the mistake
[24:25 - 24:30]
really was a longer one and an old one.
[24:30 - 24:35]
Our overall overestimate of junk I say Well in general a
[24:35 - 24:40]
small coursework for General Shelton and believed him when he said that with how many two hundred
[24:40 - 24:44]
in my words I don't think I'm in a place he could go to the Japanese.
[24:44 - 24:49]
I've never understood why she doesn't seem to be the
[24:49 - 24:54]
paranoid if not paranoid but I mean megalomania. Yeah he was I mean to
[24:54 - 24:58]
say that he could defeat Japan. Well he had a pretty good published demand and
[24:58 - 25:04]
he certainly did but that letter as I said I
[25:04 - 25:09]
think it was phrased was the self annunciation of a military Messiah
[25:09 - 25:14]
only was he said if you make me commander in chief instead of Stillwell then we can do this. Well
[25:14 - 25:19]
essentially the reason Chiang Kai shek liked him was because he offered to do
[25:19 - 25:25]
what Chiang Kai-Shek wanted which was to fight the war with American mean.
[25:25 - 25:29]
Well he was an employee of Chiang Kai shek for some time before before his army or before his
[25:29 - 25:31]
fliers were put in the army.
[25:31 - 25:34]
Right. But afterwards his whole point was.
[25:34 - 25:40]
He could he could be this surrogate in other words American airman and American planes would
[25:40 - 25:44]
fight the war in China. This is exactly what John wanted it meant that his ground
[25:44 - 25:49]
troops would not have to fight which is what he did.
[25:49 - 25:54]
One way he had figured it and he was a
[25:54 - 25:59]
Chinese at least showing and so many other generals apparently regarded their troops and their divisions
[25:59 - 26:04]
as almost as if they were irreplaceable treasures which mustn't get hurt that's why they wanted to
[26:04 - 26:06]
have them always on hand but never to use them for fighting.
[26:06 - 26:11]
Well that's a chunk I would say distilling all the time you know the defense in depth I mean in
[26:11 - 26:16]
one division there and then in the other one behind and the other one behind it because he said if we
[26:16 - 26:21]
lose if we lose one then we'll have more left but if we lose them all at once we
[26:21 - 26:26]
won't have any. So of course he would feed feed through even tanks and
[26:26 - 26:30]
using one tank at a time you know to feed this in usually one of the
[26:30 - 26:33]
time or too late.
[26:33 - 26:38]
In a way that wouldn't couldn't accomplish anything going to chuck up one by one or saving a chance to save it so
[26:38 - 26:43]
I guess it was a funny thing at the end of the war and what she said that he knew
[26:43 - 26:49]
of that. Still a lot of it to get the calmest having come down and capture Shanghai.
[26:49 - 26:54]
Well this is another one of these weird things you know that you can't believe we
[26:54 - 26:59]
how mad it was HIS Americans were during the McCarthy era I mean the kind of
[26:59 - 27:03]
accusations we flung at each other are so fantastic.
[27:03 - 27:09]
She got up in the investigating committee.
[27:09 - 27:13]
You know one of those Senate investigation committees this was the period when we all have
[27:13 - 27:17]
hysterical about. I've got about 20 seconds.
[27:17 - 27:22]
Oh and claim that I still was going to take you know you send a
[27:22 - 27:27]
command of the Tenth Army which is to invade and take the army to
[27:27 - 27:32]
China and open up the area to the communists
[27:32 - 27:35]
and so they could defeat Chiang Kai shek.
[27:35 - 27:40]
Well it's a fascinating book about a fascinating man we've been talking with Barbara W. Tuchman author
[27:40 - 27:45]
of Stillwell and the American experience in China a book published by McMillian which will give you a
[27:45 - 27:50]
great insight I think into the end of the period of the male of the era what you didn't have before I
[27:50 - 27:55]
Bob called me from the Chicago Tribune. Thanks for being with us and I hope we will have you back
[27:55 - 27:57]
next weekend. Mrs. Tuchman thank you so much for coming.
[27:57 - 28:04]
I enjoyed reading it very much.
[28:04 - 28:30]
Has been made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
[28:30 - 28:34]
This is the national educational radio network.