IF MAO HAD COME TO WASHINGTON:
AN ESSAY IN ALTERNATIVES
By Barbara W. Tuchman
Before examining the circumstances and reasons for this procedure, let us imagine instead that, following a more normal process, the message had been duly forwarded to the "highest officials, " and had received an affirmative response which is 9944/100 percent unlikely but not absolutely impossible. If Mao and Chou had then gone to Washington, if they had succeeded in persuading Roosevelt of the real and growing strength of their sub-government relative to that of the decadent Central Government, and if they had gained what they came for-some supply of arms, a cessation of America's unqualified commitment to Chiang Kai-shek and firm American pressure on Chiang to admit the Communists on acceptable terms to a coalition government (a base from which they expected to expand)-what then would have been the consequences?
With prestige and power enhanced by an American connection, the Communists' rise and the......
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Approximate Word Count: 1223
Approximate Pages: 5 (260 words per double-spaced page) |