Mrs. Generalissimo ends an era, finally; and it's good riddance to pretentiously vicious rubbish. The last of Charlie Soong's daughters, surely the worst female War Criminal of the 20th Century, is dead at the age of 105, adding emphasis to the cliche that the good die young. While The New York Times sends her off with a very long, front page obit, the following excerpt sums up the murderous, thieving "Mei Ling" well enough for those who know what she did to the China she supposedly loved so much.
Madame Chiang helped craft American policy toward China during the war years, running the Nationalist Government's propaganda operation and emerging as its most important diplomat. Yet she was also deeply involved in the endless maneuverings of her husband, Chiang Kai-shek, who was uneasily at the helm of several shifting alliances with Chinese warlords vying for control of what was then a badly fractured nation.
A devout Christian, Madame Chiang spoke fluent English tinted with the Southern accent she acquired as a school girl in Georgia, and presented a civilized and humane image of a courageous China battling a Japanese invasion and Communist subversion. Yet historians have documented the murderous path that Chiang Kai-shek led in his efforts to win, then keep, and ultimately lose power. It also became clear in later years that the Chiang family had pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars of American aid intended for the war.
Madame Chiang had a notoriously tempestuous relationship with her husband, and then with his son by a previous marriage, Chiang Ching-kuo, who became Taiwan's leader after Chiang Kai-shek's death. Madame Chiang had no children.
Her skill as a politician, alternately charming and vicious, made her a formidable presence. She made a play for Taiwan's leadership after Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988, even though she was 90 and living in New York at the time.
Although she suffered numerous ailments, including breast cancer, Madame Chiang eventually outlived all her contemporary rivals. She was said to credit her religious faith - she told friends she rose at dawn for an hour of prayer each day - for her good health.
Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, who worked closely with her when he commanded American forces in China during the war, described Madame Chiang in his diary as a "clever, brainy woman." "Direct, forceful, energetic. Loves power, eats up publicity and flattery, pretty weak on her history. Can turn on charm at will and knows it."
