=== Conclusion of the Chinese Civil War ===
General [[George C. Marshall ]] was sent in late 1945 by President Truman to resolve the Chinese civil war, hopefully by creating a new shared power arrangement between the Communists and Chiang's Nationalists. His specific instructions from Secretary of State [[James Byrnes ]] were to insist on a coalition government as a condition for continued aid to the Nationalists. <ref>Forrest C. Pogue, ''George C. Marshall, Statesman, 1945-1959'', (1987), p. 61.</ref> Communist leader Mao Zedong had already said publicly in April 1945 that a coalition government with the Chinese Nationalists would result in the defeat of "reactionary American imperialism." <ref>"On Coalition Government," address to the April 1945 Seventh National Convention of the Chinese Communist Party, quoted in Anthony Kubek, ''How the Far East Was Lost'', (1963), p. 238.</ref> In the summer of 1946, Truman told Chiang to be more willing to compromise. Chiang replied that first the Communists must abandon "their policy to seize political power through the use of armed force, to overthrow the government and to install a [[totalitarian ]] regime such as those with which [[Eastern Europe ]] is now being engulfed." <ref>Tang Tsou, ''America's Failure in China, 1941-1945'', (1964), p. 429.</ref>
American policy in China was largely being shaped by the so-called "China Hands" in the U.S. State Department: [[John Stewart Service]], [[John Paton Davies]], [[John Carter Vincent]], and others. Because they knew the Chinese language and had been in China for years, their recommendations carried much weight, and they played a major part in the fall of China.
The United States [[U.S. War Department, ]] however, had a more realistic and clearer view of the situation. In July 1945, a memorandum entitled, ''The Chinese Communist Movement'', gave a depiction of the true nature of the Communist movement. The report stated the Maoists were more rigidly controlled than the KMT, allowed no opposition groups to exist in their areas (in contrast to the KMT), and were part of the [[Comintern|international Communist]] movement. <ref>Anne W. Carroll, [http://www.ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/FR89102.TXT ''Who Lost China''], 1996. Retrieved from www.ewtn com/library/ August 16, 2007.</ref>
Without committing American U.S. combat troops and without supporting a coalition government, the [[Truman Doctrine ]] saved Greece from Communism. Greece received weapons and financial support and, most importantly, operational advisers at the battalion level, who ensured that American aid was used effectively. Marshall himself testified that similar aid might have worked in China, but General David Barr's military mission to China was specifically instructed not to supply this kind of assistance. <ref>Military Situation in the Far East, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 82nd Congress (Washington, 1951), p. 558.</ref> General [[Albert C. Wedemeyer ]] recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. <ref>Tang Tsou, ''America's Failure in China, 1941-1945'', Chicago 1964, pg. 457.</ref> Chiang believed that the Truman Doctrine to [[Containment|contain]] the spread of International Communism directed from Moscow would be extended to China, and ordered an offensive as soon as word of the new policy reached him. <ref>Richard C. Thornton, ''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', (1982), pg. 208.</ref> Truman however, made no effort to save China from Communism.
In 1946, when Chiang was on the verge of defeating the People Liberation Army (PLA), the shabby name for China's red army, its troops retreated into Soviet areas. Here they were given Japanese, Soviet, and even Nazi rifles, artillery, tanks, ships, and planes and trained in using these. When the four-month ceasefire Marshall had proposed ended, PLA troops attacked the Nationalists and mercilessly battered them in the coldest winter. In March 1947, Chiang's army commander Hu Tsung-nan seized the red capital of Yenan. But unfortuantely, Hu was a communist spy, and guerillas ambushed his troops and captured their weapons, leaving them to starve. Some even ate shoes from dead reds. In Manchuria a year later, Wei Li-huang, a World War II hero, commanded Chiang's largest and best equipped armies. Yet he too was a red spy. He gave up huge armies to the communists and led the rest into traps constantly. In North China, an insane general could not make proper military moves, while in the south the reds crossed the Yangtze. They ruled 80% of China by now, and slowly took Shanghai and the rest of Free China. Chiang was forced from the Chinese mainland to the island of [[Taiwan ]] in 1949, where he resumed his position as president, albeit of a massively reduced territory. Meanwhile, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China (PRC) and began to build up an army with Soviet equipment to seize Taiwan.
== Poetry ==