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Page 1 - Foreign - Neville - Article 4

HONGKONG

Professor Chi, of the Publicity Board, called me aside and said: "You are to be received tomorrow between 10 and 11 A.M. by the Genalissimo. Dr. Tong will interpret. Be at the office, please, at 9:30."

I had seen the Geralissimo from a distance at least three times before. Once he strode into Chialing House for lunch. Another time the cavalcade of cars he moves about in passed me downtown. Another time, on Chungking's main street, I had seen him, preceded by a half dozen officers and flanked by a bodyguard much bigger, taking a stroll. 

From all I have heard and read, Chiang Kai-shek is an amazingly complex individual. He has inspired great devotion--and sometimes great hatred. In his public life he seems a cross between a Buddhist monk and a soldier of forceful action. In his private life he is an esthetic. 

His background is definitely that of the landlord class, and he once was broker on the Shanghai exchange. And still he has not hesitated to turn to radicalism when it suited his ends. People tell me that Chinese will curse the Changking government at the same time they praise the Generalissimo. He is the author of at least some of the friction between Left and Right in China, and still he remains the sole figure who can compromise that friction. Even communists will admit that he is the only possible man around whom China can rally in any semblance of unity.