Moreira Peter - Hemingway on the China Front

HEMINGWAY
ON THE
CHINA
FRONT

HIS WWII SPY MISSION WITH MARTHA GELLHORN

MAP BY MOLLY O HALLORAN

HIS WWII SPY MISSION WITH MARTHA GELLHORN

BY PETER MOREIRA

Copyright 2006 by Potomac Books, Inc.

Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Moreira, Peter.

Hemingway on the China front : his WWII spy mission with Martha

Gellhorn/by Peter Moreira.1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 1-57488-881-1 (alk. paper)

1. Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961TravelChina. 2. Espionage, American ChinaHistory20th century. 3. Authors, American20th centuryBiography. 4. AmericansChinaHistory20th century. 5. Gellhorn, Martha, 1908TravelChina. 6. ChinaHistory1937-1945. 7. World War, 1939-1945China.

I. Title.

PS3515.E37Z4314 2005

818.5203dc22

[B]

2005054955

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.

Potomac Books, Inc.

22841 Quicksilver Drive

Dulles, Virginia 20166

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Ernest Hemingways letter to Henry Morgenthau in is reprinted with the permission of the Hemingway Foundation.

For Carol

I will send her. Your lovely
cool goddess. English
goddess. My God what
would a man do with
a woman like that except
worship her?

Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms

Though pinyin spellings of Chinese words are customarily used in books today, Ive opted to retain the spelling Hemingway and Gellhorn used in their reports. Hence, Zhou En-Lai is Chou En-Lai and Guangdong Province is Kwangtung Province, etcetera. One name that I have found only in pinyin is Professor Xia Ji Xong, whose reminiscences of Hemingway were translated into English in 2003. For the sake of consistency, I have changed his name to the Wade-Giles spelling, Hsia Zhi Shong.

Ive come to believe that anyone doubting the basic goodness of people should write a book. The kindness of friends and strangers who helped me in researching and writing this work has been overwhelming. Id like to thank each and apologize to those who should be mentioned here but were inadvertently omitted.

This whole project seemed destined for a box in the attic until one person showed faith in it, so my agent, Elizabeth Frost-Knappman of New England Publishing Associates, merits special praise and appreciation. I also owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Don McKeon, my editor Marla Traweek, and the staff at Potomac Books.

Many outstanding librarians helped me, and I owe the following a huge debt of gratitude: Stephen Plotkin, James Roth, and the staff overseeing the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, including Maryrose Grossman in the photograph archives; Margaret Rich and AnnaLee Pauls of the Special Collection at Princeton University Library; Raymond Teichman and his staff at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, N.Y.; Andrea B. Goldstein and her staff at the Pusey Library at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA; Kate MacLean and the staff at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University; Janie C. Morris at Duke University Library; Barry L. Zerby at the Modern Military Records of the National Archives and Records Administration; the staff of the Public Records Office in Hong Kong and the South China Morning Post library in Hong Kong; and Thomas Gilbert in the photo service of the Associated Press.

Kaimei Zheng was a huge help, both in her generous sharing of knowledge of the trip and her translation.

Martha Gellhorn, late in her life, declined twice to be interviewed for this project, but she did take the time to respond to my letters, despite her deteriorating health, which I greatly appreciate. Id also like to thank her literacy executor, Sandy Matthews, for his courtesy and kindness.

In so many different ways, the following people took the time to help or encourage me: Stephen and Linda Bagworth; Susan Beegel; Dan Bloom; Henrique Alberto de Barros Botelho; Mary Bisbee-Beek Michael Broadbent; Christine Courtney; Chan Pak; Elizabeth Case; Shu-Ching Jean Chen; Yvonne Daley; John DeMont; Victoria Glendinning; Arthur Gomes; Nicko Goncharoff (wherever he may be); John M. Gray; Jonathan Grant; Mariel Hemingway; Hilary K. Justice; Josh Karlen; Daniel Levy; Alison MacKeen; Barry Martin; Jeffrey Meyers; Paul Mooney; Caroline Moorehead; Jamie Moreira; William Moreira; Robert Morgenthau; David ODell; Tako Oezono; Sue and Tom Omstead; Michael Palin; Ian Quinn; Carl Rollyson; John Sanford; Bill Savedove; Robert E. Shepard; Gerald Shrawder; Jeff Senior; Bill Sewell; Elizabeth Sin; Emile Texier; Carola Vecchio; and Jennifer Wheeler.

Two journalists pitched in to do overseas research, asking nothing more than the pleasure of helping, so I would especially like to thank Esther Lee in Taipei and Lisa Clifford in London. Two other journalists who deserve loud kudos for their support, professionalism, and kindness are my editors at The Deal in New York, Bob Teitelman and Ed Paisley.

Id like to pay a special thanks to my father, the late Arthur Moreira, whose copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls I will always cherish, and my mother, Judy Moreira, for her constant support. Id also like to thank Dan Callis of Halifax for his splendid work on the photo for the dust jacket. And of course, thanks with all my heart to Carol, Catherine, and Scott.

Ernest Hemingway and his translator were walking through the crowded streets of Shanghai during his trip to Asia in 1941, when they noticed a policeman tying a mans hands behind his back. With China divided between the Japanese, Nationalists, and Communists, it was a time of great tension and arrests were not uncommon. The prisoner showed no resistance, and no crowd gathered. The policeman ordered the man to his knees, then took out a gun and shot him in the ear. Hemingway had the interpreter ask the policeman for an explanation, and the policeman answered that the man had been caught selling drugsa capital offenseand the courts were too crowded for such a case. Quick justice is best, the policeman said.

Hemingway would tell the story to his three sons years later. In the late 1940s, when Ernest Hemingway was living on the outskirts of Havana, he often took his sons to a Chinese restaurant in town, called El Pacifico. The family would ascend five stories in an elevator that stopped at every floor, and theyd sit beneath an awning in the sprawling restaurant that overlooked downtown Havana. As they dined on shark fin soup and other Chinese delicacies, Hemingway regaled his sons with tales of the time he and his third wife, Martha Gellhorn, had visited China. According to his youngest son Gregory, Papa told them of eating monkey brain