I
developed a sore today. This
happens every so often. Pieces of
Spain working their way out of my body.
The timing is perfect.
Friends took me to an air show yesterday. Air planes still give me the
creeps. [Sections that follow were not transcribed. Subject described the panic
that occurs with air planes. Describes air attacks in Spain. In one instance he hid in a ditch, but the explosion from the bombing blew off his pants and bits of his flesh. -A.S.]
In a wound to H.A.'s administration, Patrick
Hurley [a Republican and former Secretary of War under Hoover -A.S.] publicly, and scathingly, resigned
as U.S. ambassador to China without prior notification to the State Department. In his public statements he blamed the
president and State Department staff [including John Stewart Service and John Paton Davies known communist sympathizers -A.S.] for the civil war in China by undermining Chiang
Kai-Shek and promoting a Communist takeover there. H.A. asked George C. Marshall [former army chief of
staff -A.S.] to replace Hurley and mediate an end to the civil war. Marshall requested that if the mediation
failed, H.A. would back the Nationalists. H.A. refused because of the corruption and
anti-democratic nature of the Nationalists. Marshall reluctantly agreed to go. The anti-communist fear mongers in the Congress and the War Department want to commit our soldiers to ensure the success of Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalists, but both H.A. and Marshall agree that U.S. troops should not be involved.
Hurley's resignation just added fuel to the fire of H.A.'s opposition including the crazy Whiskey Rebels.
