The Marshall Mission (December 20, 1945 - January, 1947) was a failed diplomatic mission undertaken by United States Army General George C. Marshall to China in an attempt to negotiate the Communist Party of China and the Nationalists (Kuomintang) into a unified government.
Contents |
The end of the Second World War on 15 August 1945, also represented the conclusion of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Throughout the length of the war an uneasy stalemate had existed between the Chinese Communists (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalists (KMT), while prior to the war, both parties had been in open conflict with each other. American attempts during the Second World War to end the off and on again civil war between the two factions had failed, notably with the Hurley Mission. Throughout the war, both the CCP and the KMT had accused the other of withholding men and arms against the Japanese in preparation for offensive actions against the other. Thus, in a desperate attempt to keep the country whole, President Harry S. Truman in late 1945 sent General George Marshall as his special presidential envoy to China to negotiate a unity government.
Marshall arrived in China on December 20, 1945. His goal was to unify the Nationalists and Communists with the hope that a strong, non-Communist China, would act as a bulwark against the encroachment of the Soviet Union. Immediately, Marshall drew both sides into negotiations which would last for nearly two years. Significant agreements failed to appear, as both sides used the time to further prepare themselves for the ensuing conflict. Finally, in February 1947, exasperated with the failure of the negotiations, Marshall left China.
The failure of the Marshall Mission signaled the renewal of the Chinese Civil War. George Marshall returned to the United States and committed himself to the revitalization of Europe with the Marshall Plan in the role of United States Secretary of State. By 1949, the Kuomintang was driven from the continent by a victorious Communist Party, which established the People's Republic of China.
On June 9, 1951, Douglas MacArthur charged that the post-war Marshall mission to China committed "...one of the greatest blunders in American diplomatic history, for which the free world is now paying in blood and disaster..."[1] in a telegram to Senator William F. Knowland. On June 14, 1951, as the Korean War stalemated in heavy fighting between American and Chinese forces, Republican Senator Joe McCarthy attacked. He charged that Marshall was directly responsible for the "loss of China," as China turned from friend to enemy.[2] McCarthy said the only way to explain why the U.S. "fell from our position as the most powerful Nation on earth at the end of World War II to a position of declared weakness by our leadership" was because of "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man."[3] McCarthy argued that General Albert Coady Wedemeyer had prepared a wise plan that would keep China a valued ally, but that it had been sabotaged; "only in treason can we find why evil genius thwarted and frustrated it." [4] McCarthy suggested that Marshall was old and feeble and easily duped; he did not charge Marshall with treason. Specifically McCarthy alleged:
Public opinion became bitterly divided along party lines on Marshall's record. In 1952, Eisenhower while campaigning for president denounced the Truman administrations failures in Korea, campaigned alongside McCarthy, and refused to defend Marshall's policies.[6]