susan marie

On July 13, 1936, yes, around this time 90 years ago, a young American journalist, introduced by Soong Ching-ling (宋庆龄), widow of Sun Yat-sen who founded the Republic of China, defied enormous political pressure from Chiang Kai-shek (蒋介石)'s government and broke through layer after layer of obstruction to reach a small place in northern Shaanxi called Bao'an (保安), now the County of Zhidan (志丹) under Yan'an (延安). He had come to interview a group Chiang Kai-shek had branded as "bandits"-people outsiders were warned they might not come back alive from meeting. That same day, he met Mao Zedong (毛泽东). To him, Mao looked like Lincoln. In the days that followed, the young American, Edgar Snow, interviewed Mao and other Chinese Communist leaders again and again. He and Mao talked deep into the night, many times, inside a cave dwelling that was far from spacious. The next year, Snow published Red Star Over China. It was not just a book of reportage. It was one of the first works to introduce Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communists, and their ideas to the outside world in a serious, direct, and vivid way. The book caused a sensation around the world. More importantly, it changed the way many people outside China understood the Chinese Communists. He insisted on photographing Mao Zedong, and asked him to put on a Red Army cap (top left). But Mao's own cap was old, soft, and collapsed out of shape. So Snow took off the brand-new military cap from his own head and placed it on Mao's. It fit perfectly. Snow kept that cap for the rest of his life. After his death, his family donated it to the National Museum of China. In 1937, when Snow's wife went to Yan'an for interviews, she brought the photograph to Mao. Looking at it, Mao laughed and said: "I never imagined that someone as untidy as me could look this good in a photograph. Thank you, Comrade Snow." That photograph would later become one of the most iconic images of Chairman Mao, known in almost every Chinese household. Yet most people still do not know it was taken by an American. Red Star Over China did not merely record history. It changed history. Snow mattered not because he sympathized with the Chinese revolution, but because he entered northern Shaanxi as a true journalist-curious, skeptical, and professionally alert. For so many readers, the most convincing thing was never that "he liked China." It was that he saw China, and was willing to tell the world honestly what he had seen. At the beginning of 1941, Chiang Kai-shek was not only fighting the Japanese. He turned his guns on his nominal allies-the Communist-led forces. Snow reported the truth in the New York Herald Tribune. Chiang got furious. Snow's press credentials were revoked. In February, he was forced to leave China and return to the United States. Chiang's sister-in-law, Soong Ching-ling personally came to the airport to see him off. "You will come back. We think of you as a younger brother. You belong to China." Snow replied that his body was leaving, but his heart remained in China. On February 24, shortly after Snow returned to the United States, he was received by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House. FDR greeted him with humor: I came to know you by reading Red Star Over China. You must be quite a China hand by now. Today, I'd like to be the reporter and interview you. How does that sound?” Snow was disarmed by the president's warmth and ease. Roosevelt asked what was really happening in China and how did the Chinese people think of Americans. Snow answered that Chiang Kai-shek was a dictator-intelligent, but incapable. Chiang did not understand what the Chinese people truly needed, nor did he know how to govern for them. In this, Snow said, Chiang was very different from Mao Zedong. China was an agricultural country. Peasants made up the overwhelming majority of its people. A man who did not understand the peasants could not govern China. As for the Communist-led army, Snow told Roosevelt he had never seen a more heroic force: Their morale remained high. From generals to ordinary soldiers, they were confident of victory. Compared with the US military, their material conditions were almost nothing. But they had their own strategy and tactics. Their guerrilla warfare left the Japanese constantly on edge. Roosevelt listened closely, and agreed. In May 1944, during his second meeting with Edgar Snow, Roosevelt told him that promoting reconciliation between the Nationalists and the Communists had become an established policy of the United States. Washington, FDR said, would also send a military observer mission to Yan'an. On September 29 that same year, Roosevelt told his aides that he hoped to meet Snow again, or have lunch with him soon (top right). On October 11, the White House called Snow's home, only to learn that he was abroad. In early March 1945, Roosevelt met Snow for a third time. He told Snow that the United States intended to elevate China's international status, placing it alongside the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, because China was too important, and America could not afford to lose China. He also told Snow that the American observer mission in Yan'an had been treated with courtesy and respect, and that Washington was considering direct assistance to the Chinese Communists. A little more than a month later, Roosevelt died suddenly. As I have written before, FDR had a remarkably favorable impression of the Chinese Communists. He had even corresponded with Mao Zedong. His conversations with Snow also reveal a little-known but strikingly perceptive judgment about China. Had Roosevelt lived longer, the history of China-US relations might have taken a very different path. Then came Truman, and he messed it all up. MacArthur would later discover that he, too, could be Trumaned. The Chinese never forget an old friend. In 1951, just two years after the CPC came to power in China, the Chinese government wrote to Edgar Snow, inviting him to visit and offering to cover his travel expenses. Snow declined. He believed that accepting money might compromise the objectivity of his reporting. In 1960, Snow finally returned to China for a visit that lasted nearly five months. On October 1, the National Day, he stood atop Tiananmen. When he met Mao Zedong again, Mao greeted him: "Long time no see." Snow replied: "Twenty-one years." Then he joked: since then, your cave dwelling has expanded quite a bit. Mao answered: "But you and I have not changed." Snow looked around and said: "But China has changed completely." On October 22, Mao invited Snow to his home at Zhongnanhai (中南海) for dinner (bottom left). The two men ate together and talked for nine hours. Mao told him this was the first time since 1949 that he had spoken with an American. China was going through a period of great hardship at the time. Snow noticed that Mao left the meat for his guests, while eating none himself. But during that trip, what struck Snow most was not Mao. Not Tiananmen. It was an ordinary Chinese college student. Her surname was Jiang. She asked Snow: The United States has 200 military bases overseas. Why do young Americans tolerate this? Snow's response was to prevent Communist invasion. The young woman looked at him and asked, word by word: "Have the Communists occupied Hawaii?" "Have Chinese planes flown over American skies?" "Have Chinese troops marched into Canada or Mexico?" Snow fell silent. More than sixty years later, those three questions still hit hard. In 1964, Snow visited China again. On January 9 the following year, Mao Zedong invited him to dinner at the Great Hall of the People. History has a funny way of rhyming: President Trump also came to China this May, and both Zhongnanhai and the Great Hall of the People were once again part of the story. By then, China-US relations were already extremely tense. But Mao told Snow that he regretted the historical forces that had cut off contact between the Chinese and American peoples. But Mao did not believe the two countries would ultimately go to war, which Mao defined as one of the greatest tragedies in history. Mao also told him that there was still hope for improving relations between the two countries. But it would take time. In the summer of 1970, Snow came to China for the last time. This time, he returned to Yan'an and revisited the cave dwelling where he had first met Mao. That was also where their friendship began. On October 1, 1970, Mao reviewed the National Day parade from Tiananmen Gate. Snow not only stood on the tower. He stood right beside Mao (bottom right). Close to two months later, the photograph appeared on the front page of People's Daily, on the day before Mao's birthday. At a time when China and the United States were locked in Cold War rivalry, yet quietly searching for rapprochement, this was a signal. A signal sent to one man far away in Washington: Richard Nixon. Most of the world did not understand it. Kissinger did. On December 18, Mao and Snow met for the last time. They had breakfast together and talked for five hours. Mao told him this was not an interview. It was a conversation between old friends. He said he had read Snow's reports, including those with which he disagreed. But he did not expect everyone to agree with him on everything. "You have the right to keep your own views," Mao told him, "and to make your own independent judgments." That was what made Snow different from many foreign observers. He neither demonized China nor romanticized it. What he tried to do was understand why China had become what it was. He was not a foreign friend who only praised China. He had his own judgment. He kept his right to criticize. China respected him not because he always agreed with China, but because he endeavored honestly to understand it. During that meeting, Mao also revealed to Snow that he was prepared to invite Nixon to Beijing. At that moment, only four months remained before Ping-Pong diplomacy would break the ice between China and the United States. Only one year and two months remained before Nixon would set foot in Beijing. And only one year and two months remained before Edgar Snow would leave this world. In 1971, Edgar Snow was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in Switzerland. Mao Zedong invited him to come to China for treatment, promising that he would receive the country's best medical care available. China even prepared a carefully arranged hospital room for him, along with first-class plane tickets for his entire family. Snow declined the invitation. But China still sent a medical team to Switzerland to care for him. They did more than treat his illness. They prepared a special diet for him, cooked the Chinese food he loved, and sat with him in conversation, doing everything they could to bring this old friend a little less pain, and a little more warmth, in the final days of his life. On February 15, 1972, Edgar Snow passed away. Less than a week later, Nixon arrived in China. Snow did not live to see the ice between China and the United States finally break. But in truth, he had already helped break it. From Roosevelt to Nixon, Snow stood in one of the most difficult and most necessary places in the world: between China and the United States. His life proved that history is not changed only by presidents, generals, and diplomats. It is also changed by those willing to cross through prejudice, enter unfamiliar lands, and tell the truth about what they see. He helped the world see China more honestly. And he helped China remember an American who truly wanted to understand her.