ABSTRACT
Logic suggests the characteristics of China expertise in the State Department at the beginning of the Second World War, more advanced and connected than either before or after the Roosevelt administration, should have produced more favorable policy outcomes as the growth in expertise and professionalization occurred. Yet misperception, misinformation, and, ultimately, policy failure eventuated. This chapter examines how these outcomes prevailed. Drawing on Roosevelt’s White House management and his decision-making process, it illustrates how restrictive conditions, enforced upon key advisers and decision-makers, drove China images and perceptions counter to on-the-ground observations. For Roosevelt, China was considered a private domain, its leader Chiang Kai-shek a great friend and ally of likeminded ambitions. These led the president to downplay military and diplomatic communication channels, adopting a questionable White House link with wartime Chungking. This had immediate and adverse effects for General Joseph W. Stilwell, charged with leading the China-Burma-India theatre in the fight against the Japanese. A third figure in this saga is Patrick J. Hurley, who, given underestimated influence over the China message, promoted uninformed and prejudicial memorandums to the White House. Once in the United States, Hurley promulgated his ideological views on the public, driving a gross misperception of events.
