Editorial Note

No official record of this conversation has been found. Stimson, in his diary for December 31, has this to say about the meeting:

“In our talk it was brought out by Soong that Chiang Kai-shek is ready not only to permit his army to fight for the safety of Burma but is willing to put portions of it under foreign command. One of the difficulties has been the difficulty of separating the theatre of operations in China from the theatre of operations in Burma and also the southwestern Pacific. We have been drawing such a line of demarcation and it has been very difficult because the operations in one so vitally affect those in the other. Out of our conference came the decision that we must send one of our most important figures to China to be at the Generalissimo’s elbow and to give his seat of operations a recognition and dignity which we have not thus far afforded.”

For the considerations leading to the appointment of General Stilwell as one of Chiang’s two chiefs of staff, see Romanus and Sunderland, pp. 63–76.