Reunion in Chungking

All Yenan flocked to the airfield to see nervous Mao Tse-tung take off for his unity conference with Chiang Kaishek. U.S. Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley had flown up from Chungking the night before (with two cases of Scotch) to escort the Communist leader. Mao hugged his little daughter, kissed his young wife goodbye with the quiet desperation of a man going to be executed. Then he climbed aboard for the first plane ride of his 52 years, his first meeting with the Generalissimo in two decades of civil strife.

Chiang Kai-shek was not on hand when Mao deplaned at Chungking. But the welcoming delegation included the Generalissimo's eldest son, brisk, Moscow-trained Chiang Ching-kuo. Someone asked Mao: "What do you think of the plane?" Said he, with noticeable lack of fervor: "Very efficient." Ambassador Hurley would not think of letting the Communist leader ride in the limousine provided by the Generalissimo. He hustled Mao into his own black Cadillac. As they drove off, the high-spirited Oklahoma diplomat, whose Choctaw war whoops are the delight of Asia, yelled to the astonished crowd: "Olive oil! Olive oil!"

Atmosphere of 1924. That night the Generalissimo wined & dined Mao. Other guests included Ambassador Hurley, tactful Lieut. General Albert C. Wedemeyer, commander of U.S. forces in China, and round-faced General Chou Enlai, China's No. 2 Communist. Chiang and Mao toasted each other in yellow wine. The Communist leader quaffed his cup; the Generalissimo (a teetotaler) barely wet his lips. Said Chiang: "I hope we can have the cordial atmosphere of 1924."

The words brushed memories that went back to the beginnings of modern China. In 1924 the Communists were part of Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary people's party, the Kuomintang. Chiang, just back from military training in Moscow, had the job of organizing the Whampoa Military Academy, the nucleus of China's new nationalist army. Mao and Chou were his comrades and the army's political commissars. From Canton the three men marched together on the famed Northern Expedition (1926-27), which gave republican China its first taste of unity. They split when Chiang broke with the Kuomintang's Communist wing and its Russian boss, shrewd Michael Borodin.

No communiques were issued as the two leaders began their talks. But with the signing of the Sino-Russian pact (TIME, Aug. 27) a change came over the Communist propaganda line. The Generalissimo was no longer a "fascist" defeatist but "President Chiang Kai-shek." The Generalissimo's regime was no longer the "reactionary Kuomintang clique" but the "National Government." Said a Communist spokesman: "We recognize Chiang as a national leader of the anti-Japanese war and we are prepared to recognize him as the leader of postwar rehabilitation."

Meanwhile, the Generalissimo carried on the business of his Government. He approved arrangements for the formal surrender of Japanese forces in China, to take place this week at Nanking. He appointed an old Kuomintang crony, General Hsiung Shih-hui, to take over Manchuria from the Red Army. He exchanged felicitations with Generalissimo Joseph Stalin over the ratification of the new Sino-Russian treaty.

For the men from Yenan all this was food for thought. At week's end Chungking's authoritative Central News Agency reported: "well-informed observers" believe that "a comprehensive settlement" between the Central Government and the Communists is a "certainty."

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