Read Eve of a Hundred Midnights Online
Authors: Bill Lascher
T
his book would not have become a reality without the encouragement, support, and backstopping provided by many family members, many friends, and even some strangers.
Thank you to Chan Ka Yik's daughter, Emmy Ma, for bringing together so much support. Emmy, her husband Dominic, her sisters Eva Cheung and Susie Poon, and Susie's husband Raymond encouraged other contributors who helped me afford to tell this story. It was such a delight to meet them over lunch at Susie and Raymond's house in 2012. An extraordinary coincidence at that lunch also led me to Deborah Ching. In turn, I must thank Debbie for the once-in-a-lifetime afternoon I spent with her father, George T. M. Ching, Mel's friend from Lingnan and Stanford.
Likewise, the children of many of Mel and Annalee's journalist friends provided access to private letters and papers, personal recollections, and simple cheerleading. These included Annalee's daughter, Anne Fadiman; Theodore White's children, David White and Heyden White Rostow; Shelley and Seth Mydans, who permitted me to quote from their father's
notebooks (thanks as well to Shelley and John Griffing for their hospitality); and Hugh Deane's son, Michael. I'd also like to thank Chris and Michael Hoogendyk for information about the pandas. Thank you as well to Darrow Carson, grandson of Lew Carson. I also wish to thank Paul French, Steven MacKinnon, and especially Peter Rand, who spent some time talking with me about Mel.
Jessica Papin at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management shepherded this book, answered my ceaseless questions, and assuaged many worries, all without complaint or lack of good cheer. Meanwhile, Henry Ferris and Nick Amphlett at William Morrow expertly guided me as I honed this narrative into a work of which I am proud. Thank you to all.
To the people of Chongqing, Beijing, Guangzhou, Jintian, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, Manila, Corregidor, Pola, and Cebu (and along the roads, rails, and ferry lines in between): thank you for happily welcoming me into your countries, cities, and homes. Specifically, thank you to Zhangrong (Jackie) for your hospitality and for easing my transition into China. I also want to thank Manuel L. “Manolo” Quezon III and Liana and Roberto Romulo, who helped me understand the Philippines, its history, and their families. Thank you as well to Carsten Schael of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong for making me feel welcome among the Press Hostel's inheritors even after I flubbed our schedule. I'd also be remiss if I didn't thank Shawna and Margaret at Oui Presse; their cookies, ceaseless warmth, and fermentation chats fueled much of this book.
When I began this book, I reconnected with Lindsey Miller, an enthusiastic “liver” who helped me launch this project, even as she taught me to dance in the rain and savor farmers' market tomatoes. She is missed. Lindsey and I also scrambled to the wreckage of the ship once known as the SS
Melville Jacoby
with Jake Cunningham, whose consistent friendship has been matched only by Libby Buchanan, Justin Messina, Aaron Hoholik, Monica Garcia, and Noah Rolff. Through encouraging letters she wrote from her own Pacific adventures, Megan Knize, herself a former
Stanford Daily
editor, pushed me to share Mel and Annalee's story.
Emily Kemper's insistence that I couple my passion for this story with a plan to see it through spurred me to work hard enough to complete the book. I'd also like to thank Amanda Peacher and Thomas Schmidt, fellow writers who have coupled their professional encouragement with deep wells of loving friendship. Christina Cooke's long camaraderie as a freelancer and nonfiction writer has been as welcome as her breathtaking prose. Saikat Chakrabarti made me look better than I deserve in head shots. Suzi Steffen shared fortifying enthusiasm for this project over Byways meals. Doug Kenck-Crispin has made history cool again and amplified my work. Manfred Elfstrom provided timely hospitality in Shenzhen, helped me make travel plans, and even remotely routed a confused taxi driver. Carla and Joe McGarvey (and Moose!) made scouring the National Archives and Library of Congress more bearable. So did Will and Patti Carrington. My incomparable schedule twin, sounding board, and confidant Katelyn Petroka hosted me (assisted by Tarzan and Nugget), as did longtime friends Laura Veuve, Peter Prows, and Constance Brichford (Biff too!). Andrea Gerson has been in my corner since the day we met. This note understates your role in my life, but thank you, Andrea, for much more than Mexican food, bingo, and doughnuts. Also, for bringing Noah along.
Every member of my family has nudged this book along. Thanks to Susan and Matt Guasco, Thomas Lascher, Ted Lascher, and Liz Posner. Bear Wilner-Nugent and JJ Wilner have been my champions, as have Dedee Wilner-Nugent and the ever-delightful Wendolin and Rachel. Gretchen and Stew
Brandt welcomed me during a research trip Shabbat dinner. Susan Cole and Mike Forster (as well as Nestle, Zoe, and Lily) hosted me as I did research at Stanford; they also provided many great ideas for my work. Roger Cole and Michelle Kurtis Cole gave me an art-filled welcome in San Diego. Bill Cole and Carol Lombardini have been enthusiastic supporters from start to finish. Dave Cole handled many logistical needs while also providing levity.
But I wouldn't be where I am without Wendy Lascher. She has always been the most stringent, and best, editor I could want. More importantly, her love and support have kept me writing when it hasn't seemed possible. She is an inspiration both for her own work ethic and her encouragement. Likewise, I am so grateful to Peggy Cole and Jackee Marks for much more than keeping Mel's memory alive. I look up so proudly to these last three amazing women. “Thank you” is simply not an adequate sentiment. Still, thank you.
I'd also like to thank the following for their financial or other support: Michael Andersen, E. V. Armitage, James Armstrong, Stephen Baboi, Kathleen and Brian Back, Amy Baird, Wei Leng and Charles Baker, Roger Bartlett, Jim Baumer, Juliette Beale, Tim Berg and Pat Martin, Margaret Berger, Mellissa Betts and Jared Hedges, Katherine Blauvelt, Madeline Bodin, Ed Borasky, Denise and Tony Brogna, Valerie Brown, Dr. Moritz Butscheid, Harold and Carola Butscheid, Billy Calzada, Rachel Carbonell, Adam Carlson, Wendy Carrillo, Paul and Bessie Carrington, Helen Chan, Cheng Chang, Ethel Chang, Arthur Cheung, Kwok Ping Chiu, David Chott, Pat Chow, Katie Clunen, Sarah Corbitt, Stevi Costa and Marcus Gorman, Emily Craddick, Kyra Czar, Pete Danko, Mo Daviau, Ivor Davis, Rebecca Davis, Jen Dean, Vicki DeGoff and Richard
Sherman, Melissa Delzio and Ryan Scheel, Rick and Kathy Derevan, Gary Dickson, Ed Elrod, Ernestine Elster, David Ettinger, Peter Fairley, Sarah Fama, Suzanne Fischer, Whitney Fox, Andrew Galasetti, Elizabeth Gelner, Erica Gies, Matthew Gitchell, Ross Golowicz, Robert Greene, Sharon Greenfield, Sarah Guare, Hannah Guzik, Karen Hamberg, Elizabeth Hassett, Christine Heinreichs, Noah Heller, John Hribar, Audra Ibarra, Barry Johnson, Erin Kelley, Rhea Yablon Kennedy, Carrie Kilman, Eli Kress, Dennis and Jo Ann LaRochelle, Gabriele and James Lashly, James Lauter, Dien Le, Jennifer Lauren Lee, Edan Lepucki, Becky Lerner, Anne Leung, Tip Lin, Dottie Loebl, Dave Long, Jenny Lower, Alvin Lui, Amy Jo Luna, Clifton Ma, Connie and Eric Ma, Sue and Terry Ma, Jason MacDonald, Evan Manvel and Lillie Jones Manvel, Lisa Marks, Colm McHugh, Kate McLean, Kevin McVerry, Claudia Melendez, Tina Mercado, Rose Messina, Laura Miller, Andy Moran, Karen Adams Moran, Aaron Mucciolo, Patrick Mulligan, Scott Nichols, Patrick Nork, Jennifer Novak, Gabe O'Brien, Mary Catherine O'Connor, Toni Palacios, Michael Parks, Jonathan Partridge, Bill Paterson, Jennifer Peebles, Erin Pidot, T. Peter Pierce, Hadley and Max Porter, Cassandra Profita, Larry Pryor, Suzie Racho, Michelle Rafter, Emily Render, Casey Rentz, Colin Reyman, Whit Richardson, Rebecca Robinson, Harriet Rochlin, Karen and Andrew Rodney, Louise Sanchez, Karen Schaefer, Barbara Schultz, Erik Schwartz, Brooke Shepherd, Courtney Sherwood, Catherine Smith, Jaclyn Smith, Ezra Spier, David Stern, Deborah Stern, Taffy Stern, Joe Streckert, Brandon Stroman, Kristen Sullivan, Meri McCoy-Thompson, Solvej Todd, Jennifer Troolines, Maren Tusing, Lee Van Der Voo, Al Vargas, Lou Vigorita, Joel Villaseñor, Emily Vizzo, Jeff and Shelia Waters, Sam Weisberg, Amy Westervelt, Susan White, Jennifer Willis, Edward Wolf, Elaine and Kelly Wong, Roy Xavier, Nancy Young, and Linda Zin.
In closing, I would like to acknowledge the librarians and archivists I interacted with and the many more who prepared, cataloged, and indexed the sources I consulted. Your work is unsung. Specifically, thank you to the following institutions and their staffs: the Australian War Memorial; the Autry National Center; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Filipinas Heritage Library; Harvard University Archives; Hoover Institution Library; Lewis and Clark Watzek Library; Library of Congress; Lingnan University Archives; Margaret Herrick Library; National Archives and Records Administration; Stanford University Library; Union Church of Manila Library; United States Air Force Historical Research Agency; University of California at Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library; University of California at San Diego Mandeville Library; and University of Oregon Knight Library, Special Collections and University Archives.
Bibliographic listings and references have been condensed in the interest of space. A full bibliography of print, online and periodical works consulted as well as complete citations can be found at eveofahundredmidnights.com/sources.
Correspondence, writings, photography, and other materials of Melville Jacoby, Elza Stern Meyberg, and Manfred Meyberg were provided by Peggy Stern Cole and the estate of Melville J. Jacoby.
Acknowledgment is made to Shelley and Seth Mydans for permission to quote from Carl Mydans's notebooks. Please see the notes for specific citations.
The correspondence of Theodore H. White was quoted with permission from Heyden White Rostow and cited as such in the notes.
See the notes for details about Annalee Jacoby Fadiman that were provided or clarified by Anne Fadiman.
Archival Collections Consulted
The following archival and library collections were consulted for this work:
Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, MA
Theodore Harold White Papers, HUM 1.10, 1922â1986
Lewis and Clark University, Watzek Library, Special Collections, Portland, OR
Hugh Deane Collection
Margaret Herrick Library, Special Collections, Beverly Hills, CA
Louella Parsons Scrapbooks and Photographs
Sidney Skolsky Papers
National Archives, College Park, MD
“General Correspondence Files Relating to Civilian Employees, 1941â1955,” Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1917â [AGO], RG 407
“Motion Picture Films from the âCombat Subjects' Program,” Records of Army Air Forces, RG 18
“Records Relating to War Support Services, 1941â1947,” Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1917â [AGO], RG 407
“USN Deck Logs,” Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, 1798â2007, RG 24
U.S. Department of State, General Records, Washington, D.C.
“Death in Australia of Melville J. Jacoby, American Citizen,” 347.113 Briscoe Estate Benjaminâ347.113 Perry, RG 59
Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA
Jack Belden Papers
Claire Lee Chennault Papers
Lauchlin Bernard Currie Papers, 1941â1943
Randall Chase Gould Papers
Stanley Kuhl Hornbeck Papers
Suzanne Norman Malloch Papers
Roger Mansell Collection
Charlotte Ellen Martin Papers, 1942â1982
Laurence E. Salisbury Papers
A. T. Steele Papers
Karl H. Von Wiegand Papers
Nym Wales Papers
Charles Andrew Willoughby Papers
Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collections, Stanford, CA
Estate of Carl Mydans Photography Collection, MSS PHOTO 243
University of California, Ethnic Studies Library, Berkeley, CA
Charles Leong Papers, 1932â1972
University of California, Special Collections and Archives, San Diego, CA
Frank Tillman Durdin Papers, MSS 95
University of Oregon, Knight Library, East Asian Collection, Eugene, OR
Charles E. Stuart Papers
Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Collection of American Literature, New Haven, CT
Carl and Shelley Smith Mydans Papers
U.S. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.
Cordell Hull Papers
Owen Lattimore Papers
Clare Boothe Luce Papers
Henry Robinson Luce Papers
Francis B. Sayres Papers
U.S. Library of Congress, Recorded Sound Reference Center, Washington, D.C.
National Broadcasting Company History Files
Miscellaneous
Filipinas Heritage Library, Ayala Museum, Makati City, the Philippines
Lingnan University Archives, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was made. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature on your e-book reader.
Note: Statements by Melville Jacoby not otherwise cited are quoted from correspondence between Jacoby and Elza and Manfred Meyberg. See the extended bibliography at eveofahundredmidnights.com/sources for full citation of these and other quotes.
Key to Abbreviations:
AWJF
â Annalee Whitmore Jacoby Fadiman
CKY
â Chan Ka Yik
DH
â David Hulburd
ESM
â Elza Stern Meyberg
HRL
â Henry Robinson Luce
JH
â John Hersey
MJ
â Melville J. Jacoby
MM
â Manfred Meyberg
THW
â Theodore H. White
Prologue
4Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “There were no other ships”:
MJ “In the Air Somewhere in Australia” (cable to DH), April 4, 1942, p. 4.
5Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Bombed and sabotaged vessels:
Charles Dana Gibson and E. Kay Gibson,
Over Seas: U.S. Army Maritime Operations, 1898 Through the Fall of the Philippines
(Camden, ME: Ensign Press, 2002), p. 227.
7Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “The last two weeks in Manila”:
AWJF letter to ESM and MM, April 10, 1942, Melbourne, Australia.
Chapter 1: “Why Should I Contribute a Little More Trash?”
14Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Louis Loss Burns and Harry Revier:
Mary Mallory, “A Little Barn Started It All,”
Hollywood Heritage Inc.
(Los Angeles) 32, no. 3 (Fall 2013).
15Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The epidemic . . . killed:
Molly Billings, “The Influenza Pandemic of 1918,” June 1997 (modified 2005), virus.stanford.edu/uda/ (accessed August 26, 2014).
15Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “As young as [Mel] was”:
ESM letter to JH, March 31, 1942, Bel Air, CA, p. 1.
17Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “I still remember”:
Ibid., p. 4.
18Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â traits that later prompted:
Ta Kung Pao,
translated in C. L. Hsia, Director, Chinese News Service, Inc., May 18, 1942 letter to ESM.
18Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Mel was tall, dark”:
Clark Lee,
They Call It Pacific: An Eye-Witness Story of Our War Against Japan from Bataan to the Solomons
, New York: Viking Press, 1943, p. 125.
19Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “because he always wanted”:
Winton Ralph Close to ESM, Oct. 28, 1942, New Orleans, LA, p. 2.
25Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “I tried to take them”:
George T. M. Ching, interview, Aug. 27, 2012.
27Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “For most of the American students”:
Hugh Deane, “Memories of Lingnan, Notes on Chung Shan,”
China and US.
(U.S. China Peoples Friendship Association) 2, no. 5 (NovemberâDecember 1973): 4.
28Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Though it began with 100,000:
History.com, “This Day in History: October 20, 1935: Mao's Long March Concludes,” A&E Networks, history.com/this-day-in-history/maos-long-march-concludes.
28Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â After reaching Yenan:
Rana Mitter,
Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937â1945
. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013, p. 70.
28Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â devised a scheme:
Ibid., pp. 71â73.
33Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “He talked about [Mel] often”:
Emmy Ma, telephone conversation, Aug. 8, 2011.
34Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Mel later wrote in an essay:
MJ, classroom assignment titled “4 Jacoby 25,” Stanford University, Fall, 1937.
38Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The question then became whether:
Mitter, pp. 80â81.
39Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “If it were just [Peiping]”:
Ibid., p. 81
40Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “To return to a war”:
Ibid., p. 83
40Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Japan did make a few:
Ibid., p. 89.
Chapter 2: “The Itch Is Perpetual”
43Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Hull acknowledged the violence:
Cordell Hull, telegram to Grace Caulfield, July 21, 1937, 11:19 a.m., Washington, D.C.
43Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Local leaders on each side”:
Mitter, p. 85.
48Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Propaganda is scattered”:
MJ, “Inside China,”
Stanford Daily
92, no. 7, (October 5, 1937), p. 4.
49Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Keller had been in Asia:
“Helen Keller: Her First Visit to Japan in 1937,” Topics on Deaf Japan, September 26, 2013, deafjapan.blogspot.com/2013/09/helen-keller-her-first-visit-to-japan.html.
49Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Discussing the Japanese people”:
“Student Meets Helen Keller in Mid-Pacific,”
Stanford Daily
92, no. 3 (September 29, 1937), p. 3.
50Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “The itch is perpetual”:
MJ, “4 Jacoby 25,” p. 3.
50Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “The air raid in Canton”:
CKY, letter to MJ, November 15, 1937, Canton (Guangzhou), China, p. 1.
51Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “You Americans”:
Leîtao, Marie, letter to M. Jacoby, Oct. 4, 1937, Macau, p. 1.
51Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Life as an exchange student”:
MJ, “Inside China,”
Stanford Daily
92, no. 4 (September 30, 1937), p. 4.
52Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Personally, I hate”:
MJ, “Assignment 24” (classroom assignment), October 1937, Stanford University, Stanford, CA., p. 2.
52Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â But even his parents' help:
Ibid.
52Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â But despite a full-page blitz:
“Looking at Stanford Through the Eyes of Foreign Students,”
Stanford Daily,
February 14, 1938, p. 2.
53Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Creative (or desperate) solutions:
Ibid.
54Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Mel, you are the best”:
CKY, letter to MJ, March 16, 1938, Canton (Guangzhou), China, p. 1.
54Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â they examined stories:
MJ and Charles L. Leong, “An Analysis of Far Eastern News in Representative California Newspapers: 1934â38” (master's thesis), Stanford University, Division of Journalism, Stanford, CA, September 1939.
57Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Not one asked about the background”:
Ibid, p. 281.
58Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Its highly touted features included:
Golden Gate International Exhibition,
Official Guidebook
(San Francisco: Crocker Company, 1939).
62Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “But if you aren't British”:
MJ, “Shanghai Is” (unpublished column), December 1939, Shanghai, China.
63Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Between 20,000 and 300,000:
Kate Merkel-Hess and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, “Nanjing by the Numbers,”
Foreign Policy,
February 9, 2010, foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/09/nanjing_by_the_numbers (accessed May 14, 2013).
63Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Wang's underlings set up:
John B. Powell,
My Twenty-Five Years in China
(New York: MacMillan Company, 1945), p. 335.
64Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Things went from bad to worse”:
Paul French,
Through the Looking Glass: China's Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), Kindle Ebook location 4210.
65Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Aside from Abend and Gould:
Stephen R. MacKinnon and Oris Friesen,
China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 25.
66Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Mel did publish:
MJ (writing as “Mel Jack”), “Jews in Exile,”
Los Angeles Times,
January 14, 1940, p. 17.
Chapter 3: The Voice of China
71Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Leaf, who was also:
Earl H. Leaf, “Behind Chinese Lines,” in
Eye Witness
by members of the Overseas Press Club of America, ed. Robert Spiers Benjamin (New York: Alliance Book Corp., 1940), p. 132.
76Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “the 20th Century caught up”:
MJ, “Unheavenly City” (unpublished article draft), Summer 1941, Chungking (Chongqing), China.
76Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Moving the entire government”:
Mitter,
Forgotten Ally,
p. 174.
77Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “most raided city”:
MJ (writing as “Mel Jacks”), “China's âMost Raided City,'”
This World
(
San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday magazine), September 8, 1940, p. 11.
77Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Chungking is probably”:
MJ, “Unheavenly City,” p. 1.
77Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “evil and new”:
Carl Mydans,
More Than Meets the Eye
. New York: Harper & Bros, 1959; reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974, p. 40.
78Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Few foreigners desert”:
MJ, “Unheavenly City,” p. 2.
80Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “If you are a correspondent”:
Ibid, p. 7.
82Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “those days in Chungking”:
THW, letter to Peggy and Tillman Durdin, August 30, 1955, Frank Tillman Durdin Papers, MSS 95, Special Collections and Archives, University of California at San Diego.
83Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â They were, as the author:
Peter Rand,
China Hands
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, p. 195.
83Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “I don't know how, if ever”:
THW, August 30, 1955 letter.
84Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “like suction cups plopping”:
MJ, “Monsieur Big-Hat (or) Chungking Interlude,” unpublished short story, summer, 1940, Chungking (Chongqing), China, p. 5.
86Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “You get to know Chinese officials”:
MJ, “Unheavenly City,” p. 7.
89Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Thank you, NBC”:
MJ, NBC radio broadcast, April 17, 1940.
90Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Not the easiest capital”:
MJ, cable to DH, June 17, 1941, Chungking (Chongqing), China, p. 1.
91Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “When you are climbing”:
MJ, “Unheavenly City,” p. 3.
94Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â she'd censored it heavily:
MJ, “China's First Lady” (prepublication article draft), May 4, 1940, Chungking (Chongqing), China.
95Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “The atmosphere between”:
John Oakie, letter to MJ, April 11, 1940, San Francisco, CA, p. 2.
96Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Learning to bum cigarettes”:
MJ, “Unheavenly City,” p. 8.
96Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “You damn a government bureau”:
Ibid, p. 5.
Chapter 4: The Haiphong Incident
100Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “I feel that your initiative”:
Hollington K. Tong, “Ref. No. 838” (letter to MJ, July 15, 1940, Chungking (Chongqing), China.
104Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “The French have given”:
MJ as collated by AWJF, “Notes on Indo-China,” typewritten copy of handwritten summaries collected fall, 1940, p. 2.
105Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â They'd liked his earlier reporting:
Robert Bellaire, letter to MJ, September 11, 1940, Shanghai, China.
106Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “In one way or another”:
MJ, letter to Bellaire, October 9, 1940, Hanoi, French Indochina (Vietnam), p. 2.
106Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Bellaire had thought:
Bellaire, September 11, 1940 letter.
107Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “foreign correspondent, ahem”:
MJ quoted in Shirlee Austerland, “Tues,” letter to ESM, Fall, 1940 (specific date unavailable), San Francisco, CA.
107Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Sometimes that takes a lot”:
MJ, October 9, 1940 letter, p. 2.
108Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “From the Manila broadcasts”:
Ibid, p. 3.
111Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â She even sent a telegram:
Austerland, telegram to MJ October 28, 1940, San Francisco, CA.
111Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “frantically querying”:
MJ, telegram to United Press Shanghai office, October 2, 1940, Hanoi, French Indochina (Vietnam).
112Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “If there are chances”:
MJ, October 9, 1940 letter, p. 1.
112Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “I have been told”:
MJ, letter to Bellaire, November 1, 1940, Hanoi, French Indochina (Vietnam), p. 1.
112Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The situation became so bad:
MJ, letter to Charles S. Reed, November 12, 1940, Hanoi, French Indochina (Vietnam), p. 1.
113Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â A U.S. flag still flew:
French officials stopped his cable: MJ, cable draft 128, translated from French, November 21, 1940, Haiphong, French Indochina (Vietnam).
114Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “The French police”:
MJ, letter to Charles S. Reed, November 21, 1940, Hanoi, French Indochina (Vietnam).
114Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Another writer later recounted:
Moats, Alice-Leone.
Blind Date with Mars
. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1943, p. 73.
115Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Four days later”:
Joseph Grew, State Department bulletin 1700, November 26, 1940, as reprinted at Foreign Relations of the United States,
Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Japan: 1931â1941,
p. 704, University of WisconsinâMadison Libraries, Digital Collections (UWMDC), digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS193141v01.p0800&id=FRUS.FRUS193141v01&isize=text.
115Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “By that time”:
Moats,
Blind Date with Mars,
p. 73.
116Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “dismal, grimy place”:
Ibid.
117Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Consul Reed reported:
“The Consul at Hanoi (Reed) to the Secretary of State,” as reprinted at United States Department of State,
Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1940 (The Far East),
UWMDC, digicoll.library .wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1940v04.p0251&id=FRUS.FRUS1940v04&isize=M&q1=jacoby, p. 243.
119Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “We thought of having a showdown”:
Maurice Votaw, letter to MJ, January 4, 1941, Chungking (Chongqing), China.
119Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “He is extremely modest”:
Chilton R. Bush, letter to ESM, January 25, 1941, Stanford, CA.
Chapter 5: A True Hollywood Story
125Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Shippey wrote that:
Lee Shippey, “Lee Side o' L.A.: Direct from Indo-China,”
Los Angeles Times,
February 22, 1941.