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47.02.05(894w)

TO MADAME CHIANG KAI-SHEKFebruary 5, 1947

[Washington, DC]

Dear Madame:Katherine and I received the gracious message from you and the Generalissimo acknowledging our New Year’s greetings.1 I have been in the midst of such a turmoil ever since I left Hawaii that I have not found a moment in which to turn to personal things.

To bring you up to date on the Marshalls, we went directly to Leesburg on our return and stayed there until day before yesterday morning, February 3. Katherine was very closely occupied in straightening things out in the house and also in having a great deal of work done around the grounds. Incidentally, I was employed as common labor whenever I got back, usually about 5:30 at night, doing everything from cleaning out gutters on top of the house to a tremendous amount of pruning and distribution of fertilizer to get the effect of the winter rains and snows.2 We were very fortunate in obtaining gravel for the roads, fertilizer, and in getting the furnaces repaired and a number of other things of this sort done in a few days--in complete contrast to our previous efforts which sometimes covered months with little results.

Katherine worked very hard, too hard, in fact, but was quite satisfied with the results and we got the place in good shape for the remainder of the winter. She made one brief visit of two days and a half to New York to see the children.3 Her sister went up with her and remained to have some medical, possibly surgical, and dental work done. Allene will probably join Katherine at Pinehurst in a month from now. Incidentally, she will probably be married in May, which came as a great surprise to Katherine, to a fellow who owns one of the large places fairly near us in the Leesburg district.4

Katherine left early Monday morning for Pinehurst by car taking the amah with her and my orderly, Sergeant Wing, to do the driving. The two of them make an excellent team in running a house. Wing, however, will be demobilized as soon as he returns from Moscow with me. I am bringing him up here about a week before I leave the country.

I have had a wire from her that she arrived safely, but have been unable to contact her on the telephone for some unknown reason. She fortunately got away from here before a very cold wave hit the area Monday night, which has the thermometer down almost to zero today with a high wind and snow flurries.

We meet in New York on the 21st when I, with the other principal American commanders, receive degrees from ColumbiaUniversity. Katherine and I go to Princeton that night and I receive a degree the next morning. She returns to New York and I come back to Washington that evening. I don’t think she will tarry in New York longer than another day and then will go back to Pinehurst. I hope to get down there this weekend, but cannot be at all certain.

My own affairs have been rather overwhelming with a tremendous amount of information to be accumulated in a short time, a large number of people to see, and very pressing problems to meet. It is a little more than an endurance contest, with the time factor dominant. I think I have finally gotten rid of all political implications concerning me, which will facilitate my business.

My mind turns back with frequency to our days together, the delightful hospitality the Generalissimo and you gave us, and the walks and picnics. The purple mountain is a vivid picture in my mind, and particularly our long walk the day Katherine left for Honolulu.

With affectionate regards to you and the Generalissimo and my thanks again for a thousand favors and considerations,Faithfully yours,

GCMRL/G. C. Marshall Papers (Secretary of State, General)

1. Madame Chiang Kai-shek (Soong Mei-ling) was the wife of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Nationalist Government of China.During Marshall’s 1945–46 mission to China she had served as translator for some of his meetings with her husband and became close friends with Katherine Marshall, who was her guest at the Chiangs’ summer palace in the mountains at Kuling. (Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Statesman, 1945-1959 [New York: Viking Press, 1987], pp. 110–11; Papers of GCM, 5: 631–32.)

2. On this same date, Marshall wrote to Lord Halifax, former British ambassador to the United States, that his Leesburg labor regime was “the action of the totalitarian government which kept me at work every evening when I returned about 5:30. However, the physical labor really helped me to endure the mental torments of this confused situation and lack of time to assimilate the large amount of information required of me to act intelligently.” (Marshall to Halifax, February 5, 1947, GCMRL/G. C. Marshall Papers [Secretary of State, Categorical, Congratulations].)

3. Mrs. Marshall’s middle child, Clifton, worked at the New York City headquarters of Louis Marx & Company, toy manufacturers. Madge, the widow of her youngest child, Allen, also worked in the city on the national news desk of Life magazine. Her eldest child, Molly, was in New Delhi, India, with her family.

4. On the wedding of Mrs. Marshall’s sister, Allene Tupper Wilkes, see Marshall to Madame Chiang, May 20, 1947, pp. 000–00.

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