A Light on Statecraft

Patrick Hurley's resignation rampage served another purpose. It turned the beam of public interest on the State Department--and on one of its dustier aspects. As many besides Pat Hurley had long known: 1) on many points of foreign relations, particularly with China, the Department is as divided as China itself; 2) the day-to-day direction and implementation of policy is sometimes in the hands of men opposed to it.

This week Oklahoman Hurley threatened to break more diplomatic crockery and let in more light. Congressional committees vied with each other to get on record "the names, the numbers and the places" where, he said, "we have supported ideologies that are in conflict with the principles for which we asked our people to die on the battlefield."

General Hurley had named no names, but Washington knew the men he refrained from naming. His main target was quiet John Carter Vincent, head of State's Office of Far Eastern Affairs and thus Secretary Byrnes's most influential adviser on China matters. Vincent had been the go-slow opponent of the War and Navy Secretaries in their efforts to frame a stronger policy in support of Chiang Kaishek.

Hurley's antipathy to John Carter Vincent goes back to China. Vincent had been Counselor of Embassy in Chungking under Ambassador Clarence E. Gauss. Then Vincent had taken over State's China desk. In Hurley's view Vincent and Gauss had no confidence in Chiang or in his ability to keep China afloat.

Gauss resigned soon after Hurley's arrival. But Vincent went on and upward, became--by Byrnes's appointment--Far Eastern chief. Ambassador Hurley began to receive instructions which he considered detrimental to his mission and at variance with U.S. policy as he understood it.

"Derogatory Leaks." Hurley was further incensed when he found that other career men opposed to Chiang were also placed in key department posts. Among them were portly George Atcheson Jr.,* now political adviser to General MacArthur in Tokyo, and China-born John Stewart Service, who was welcomed back to the Department after he was cleared of FBI charges that he had divulged State Department secrets (TIME, Sept. 3). Service is now Atcheson's assistant in Tokyo.

What made Hurley sorest was what he called the practice of some lower-level officials in State "leaking information derogatory to the settled policy of this Government." He added, in characteristic Hurley lingo: "I'm opposed to being leaked upon."

Pat Hurley said that he had no quarrel with Secretary Byrnes. But if hearings should develop substantial evidence of Hurley's charge that U.S. policy has been sabotaged within the Department, Jimmy Byrnes could not escape sharp criticism.

Jimmy Byrnes's approach to a China policy had been frankly tempered by U.S. political implications, and he had put down his warnings in a memorandum to President Truman. The Secretary knew that a forthright, cooperative policy toward Chiang would bring down on the Administration the wrath of 1) those who could see no good reason for keeping U.S. forces in China; 2) those "liberals" and leftists who saw the solution of the China problem not in control by Chiang, but in control by the Chinese Communists.

*Not to be confused with Dean Acheson, Under Secretary of State.

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