Our State/January 2000/1,250 words

The Letter

By Ralph Grizzle

If you were to pass Herbert Hitch on the sidewalks of Charlotte, you'd never suspect the story he had to tell. Now in his mid-80s, Hitch looks to be nothing more than what he is - a retired businessman finding some pleasure in the golden years of his life, a respected member of Myers Park Country Club, a father and grandfather - a man who has lived a full and satisfying life.

But there is another side to Herbert Hitch, and it is far removed from the sidewalks of Charlotte. It is fascinating tale - of bravery and camaraderie and a rare friendship with an unlikely acquaintance. That acquaintance was Mao Tse-Tung, founder of the Chinese Communist Party.

The story begins in 1941. Hitch, then in his late 20s, had graduated from Atlanta's Emory University, where he studied writing and journalism and was a Rhodes Scholar nominee. The young college graduate went on to take a job for a firm that published yearbooks in Atlanta. Then someone told him that as a young man the place to be was North Carolina. So Hitch packed his bags for Charlotte and went to work for the Charlotte Engraving Company.

Then war erupted. Dutifully, Hitch enlisted in the Navy. The Navy, however, did not readily accept him. The problem: He was born in Japanese-occupied territory - Wonsan, Korea, to American missionaries. He had lived there for the first 15 years of his life. Hitch, of course, saw this as an asset to the Navy. After all, he spoke Korean. The Navy eventually saw this as a plus, too, and after almost a year, officials informed him that he would begin Naval training at Cornell University.

In 1942, Hitch left Charlotte for Cornell in Ithaca, New York. That same year, he transferred to Washington, D.C., where he trained in Naval Intelligence. Upon completion of his studies, he was appointed Assistant Naval Attache at the American Embassy in Chunking, China.

One of young man's early assignments was to travel along the South China Coast, where he would set up coast watching stations. The stations were to be manned to watch for enemy ships and radio their positions to destroyers. To survey the coast, Hitch hid in Chinese junks that floated through the Formosa Strait. The soldier carried with him a vial of pills, which, if taken, would have killed him instantaneously. It was a precaution, for Hitch was well informed, and the Japanese, with their methods of torture, would have made it difficult for him not to divulge all that he knew. Asked if he would have taken those pills, Hitch replies emphatically, "Of course."

Setting up the coast watch stations was risky business. Hitch lived with the constant anxiety of knowing that he could be caught, which meant death because of the pills, or killed. "But there were lives being lost everyday," Hitch says. "If I could help shorten the war, that is what I wanted to do."

In 1944, Hitch and 17 other American soldiers received orders to establish relations with the Chinese Communists. Known as the Dixie Mission, the group of Americans were to evaluate what contribution the Communist troops might make were U.S. forces to land on the northern coast of China to push back the Japanese.

The Chinese Communists, stationed in Mao's revolutionary cradle in Yenan, accepted the group of Americans cordially. The U.S. soldiers spent three months living among the people. Hitch often dined with Mao, on millet, melon and, less often, pork. Though he was not sympathetic to communism, Hitch was impressed by their organizational abilities and sense of patriotism.

At his home in Charlotte, Hitch leafs through notebooks of letters and photos that show him as a young officer, then a Lieutenant, with the man who would become leader of all China. The photos also show another man, Mao's personal physician, who, oddly, was from Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.

George Haitem had attended school at UNC-Chapel Hill but left North Carolina to join the Communist Chinese. Late one night in December of 1944, Hitch was sleeping in a cave - as the peasants did - when Haitem awoke him. Haitem motioned for Hitch to follow him silently, without waking the others. Mao wanted to see him.

"No one else in the mission is to know about this," Mao told Hitch. "This is a secret between you and me and the group here [including Haitem and Mao's officers.]" Mao said he had an important letter that he wanted Hitch to deliver to the highest-ranking Navy officer, Admiral Ernest King in Washington. The letter promised support for U.S. troops should they make a coastal landing. The letter read in part:

At a time when the war in Europe is coming to a successful conclusion and the final victory of the war in the Pacific and Far East has drawn a step nearer, I wish to assure you that the Chinese Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, together with the people of the liberated areas, are willing to carry out to the greatest extent possible cooperation and coordination with any military operations of American forces that may take place in China.

Mao told Hitch that if supplied with ammunition and materiel [editor's note: this is the correct spelling when used to indicate war apparatus], he was willing to sacrifice a quarter of a million men to hold a 25-square-mile area near the Shantung Peninsula on China's northern coast.

Shortly before Christmas, Hitch set off on the long trip back to Washington. After a few weeks of travel, he presented the letter to Admiral King. Later, he addressed the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Even the severest critic cannot deny the organizational ability of the men who made the Long March, of the discipline of the Communist leaders and party workers," his report read. "Today we can use them to advantage in helping to save hundreds of American lives. Tomorrow, for many reasons, this may not be true. Future relations between America and China may also depend on the course followed by our government in dealing with them, or in perhaps failing to count them in."

Mao's offer was refused on the basis that U.S. foreign policy was to support only Nationalist China. Moreover, a development was under way that could make the invasion unnecessary. "What I could not have known, and what very few people knew, was that the U.S. was working on the atomic bomb," Hitch says. Even so, he adds: "Mao never got a response. He thought he had been spurned and never forgot it."

After World War II, Mao resumed civil war with Nationalist China, and by 1949, the Communists had captured most of nation. The Communists proclaimed the People's Republic of China and elected Mao president.

Hitch remains convinced that had the U.S. accepted Mao's offer, or at least acknowledged it, the wars pitting the U.S. against China in Korea and Vietnam may have been averted. "The whole course of history could have changed," he says, "if that letter would have been acted upon."

In the years since, Hitch has returned to China several times. He remains an old friend of the Chinese people and has served as a consultant on China trade affairs. On his many trips, he has returned with artifacts and antiques, reminders of days past. He lives among them at his home in Charlotte - along with the photos, the memories and, of course, the letter that could have changed history.