When Headlines Cry Peace

On a bustling Nanking street, a newsboy said, "When headlines cry peace, it's easy to sell papers." Last week, the newsboy sold a lot of papers. A mounting clamor for peace with the Communists, at almost any price, was sweeping Nationalist China's crumbling fronts.

Shanghai's powerful city council--addressing the Communists as "gentlemen" instead of "bandits"--radioed its peace appeal direct to Red headquarters at Yenan. Peiping and Tientsin, completely isolated by Red armies, followed suit. The press burst out with reports that U.S. marines were leaving their base at Tsingtao (where they had been training Chinese navy personnel). The report was quickly denied by Washington, but it was nonetheless true that plans had been made for their withdrawal. From all sides, pressure increased on Chiang Kai-shek to retire in favor of a Chinese leader more acceptable to the Communists.

Polite Insubordination. One of the most powerful advocates of peace now with the Reds was broad-shouldered, bony-faced General Pai Chung-hsi, formerly China's Defense Minister and now Commander in Central China. He commands four Nationalist armies in the Hankow area, crucial for its position athwart the flow of food (from the Hunan rice bowl) and of munitions (from Szechwan arsenals).

Last week, by what the Chinese press called polite insubordination, Pai rudely defied the Gimo. He ignored an order to send one of his armies to the Huai River front, where the Communists were attacking less than 100 miles north of Nanking. He even requested the return of two armies he had previously "lent" to Chiang. Rumors swept Nanking that crafty Pai was delaying river-borne supplies to the capital, that he was shifting troops southward to fortify his lao chia (old home) in Kwangsi. If true, it would be a severe blow to Nationalist hopes of holding the Yangtze.

In Nanking, meanwhile, amid vain attempts at secrecy, Foreign Minister Wu Te-chen conferred separately with the U.S., British, French and Soviet ambassadors. His purpose was not made clear, but it was obvious that China was asking for international mediation of the-civil war.

Rude Interruption. Disregarding the inevitable, the Nationalist government pushed ahead with plans for a last-ditch stand. All ordnance plants in the Shanghai-Nanking area, much light industry and operational headquarters of civil and military airlines were being moved to Taiwan and Canton. The Communications Ministry was shifting personnel and gear to Kiangsi, Hunan and Kwangtung.

The high-riding Reds seemed to have no thought of making peace except on their own terms. A three-day radio barrage hammered out an anti-Chiang theme built around oft-repeated symbols of "reactionaries," "war criminals," and "running dogs of American imperialism." The big guns of Communist artillery then poured shells into Tientsin, North China's leading industrial and commercial city, where a quarter of a million men had been conscripted to build defense works.

The Reds battled their way to less than half a mile from Kiessling's famous confectionery-restaurant in the old British concession. Shells screamed down on Roosevelt Road, one of the main thoroughfares. Two members of the Nationalist garrison were executed for spreading "false" peace rumors. Then, just as suddenly as it had all started, the Reds called off their dogs--for the time being.

Under a white flag of truce, city fathers made their way 16 miles southeast for an interview with Communist General Lin Piao, who refused either to see or talk to them. Red guns resumed their shelling and Communist troops stormed across a dike surrounding the city to capture the North Station. At week's end it looked as if the clamor for peace in one of China's largest cities had been silenced--by the surging tide of Communist conquest.

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