"Real Soldier"

The Chinese government needed a field general with the habit of success. Last week Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek thought he had found just the man. To the post of military commander for all North China, with headquarters in Peiping, he called bulletheaded, bland-eyed, 53-year-old General Fu Tso-yi from his "pacification" command in Chahar.

General Fu was something of a novelty among Chinese generals. In the field, he wore the plain cotton-padded uniform of a private, drove his own jeep, ate with his men. U.S. General Albert C. Wedemeyer had found those men the best-drilled soldiers in China. So, before that, had the Japanese whom General Fu harried for eight years. And so, last year, had the Chinese Communists; Fu's crack cavalry had caught them unprepared in Kalgan, had driven them out and reopened 500 miles of railroad west of Peiping. That area was still firmly in government hands, thanks to Fu.

General Fu had proved able to do one other thing rather better than most Chinese commanders: he had organized the people of the northwest countryside in active support of the Nationalist cause. Months before Nanking called for it, Fu had mobilized district militia, mustered them out every morning at 6 for intensive calisthenics and political lectures. Rifles were few but spirits were high. When Fu drove out Communists he returned most land titles to the old owners but insisted that rents be sharply reduced (never more than a third of the yield). As a practical agrarian reformer, Fu pleased the people rather more than the Reds had.

Fu's task in his new command would be bigger and bleaker than it had been in the northwest. Even Fu's military and political sense could not entirely offset the lack of prompt U.S. help. But Fu's appointment would be well regarded even by one of China's sternest critics. U.S. Secretary of State Marshall had said: "Fu is a real soldier . . . when he says he can do something, I believe him." Last week Fu said: "We will move quickly, keep active on all fronts. . . ."

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