The China Mission After Junod
For the past year and a half the couple had been under house arrest. Now the moment had arrived at last. Perry Hanson held two documents in his hands - one was an expulsion order from the Government, stating that he and his wife, Kathleen, must leave China immediately. The second was an exit visa.May 1st, 1951 - May Day !! What better day to be expelled from Communist China ?
They left the following day.
They were the last out - the last of UNICEF’s 15 international staff to leave - the final remnant of two and a half years of efforts by UNICEF in China.
1
Twenty-seven years would pass before another UNICEF official would visit 1
and thirty years before UNICEF would again open an office there.
1
Notes: Eighteen months ago things had seemed to be going so well. What had happened to UNICEF in China and to the brilliant Shijiazhuang strategy that Junod, Eloesser, and Hanson had pursued to establish relations with Communist China?
Looking back many years later in 1984, Perry Hanson noted mistakes on both the Chinese side and on UNICEF’s. He noted three important failures on UNICEF’s part. All three remain long-standing issues for which we are still seeking solutions:
1. 1947 - The lost year: while UNICEF moved quickly to fill posts and get programmes moving in Europe, China was put on the back-burner. Only at the end of 1947 when UNRRA was wrapping up did UNICEF finally appoint a Representative and start hiring key staff.
At the end of the war Perry joined UNRRA and Kathleen and their son were finally able to join him in China. When UNRRA wrapped up operations in China towards the end of 1947, they returned briefly to New York. Perry was promptly hired by UNICEF and sent back to join Dr. Junod’s team in Nanjing in June 1948.
Expulsion from China nearly three years later must have been crushing for the Hansons. In a short time Perry's title had gone from 'Field Liaison Officer' to 'UNICEF Senior Representative in China'. Then - at the time of his house arrest, he was informed on the one hand that China no longer viewed him as an international official, but rather as a 'private foreign person'. Yet on the other hand, he was told that the government held him responsible for any and all actions of UNICEF with regard to China whether those actions took place in New York or in China.
- in politics, his association with socialist causes - most especially his 1916 defense of the socialist. Tom Mooney, whom he believed wrongly convicted of involvement in a terrorist bombing.
During the Spanish civil war Eloesser worked on the Republican side, raised funds and established his own field hospital units. His Jewish family background and his involvement in the Republican cause made it impossible for him to continue working in Europe once WWII broke out.
At age 64 Eloesser came to China to work for WHO and UNRRA. In his initial assignment he spent five months in an isolated northern village that had previously been the base of another famous thoracic surgeon and veteran of the Spanish civil war, Dr. Norman Bethune. Bethune had worked with the communist forces throughout the war with Japan, and died there in 1939. Eloesser later looked back on those months in the village as his most valuable learning experience - his opportunity to learn about the real conditions of China's rural poor.
When Eloesser returned to New York from China in October 1949, he reported to the Board and to senior staff on the situation of the country and the programme. He remained deeply sympathetic to the Communist Chinese cause, despite the fact that in the Chinese press he was being labelled an American colonialist and imperialist.
At home Eloesser’s history of anti-fascism in Spain and his association with the communist side in China, put him immediately on the ‘blacklist’ of suspected Americans during the McCarthy hearings in the Senate. But he was not alone - Ludwik Rajchman himself was subpoenaed to appear before McCarthy's Senate Committee (instead, he left the US for France and never returned). Several other Americans working for UNICEF were called to appear befroe the same Congressional committee and forced to defend themselves of communist sympathies during this period.
One of those UNICEF Americans who suffered through the grilling was Joyce Campbell. In an office romance Eloesser (now age 70) fell in love with the much younger Campbell. They married.
John Painter - was a transport and supply officer and took charge of Beijing following Drummond’s departure. Like Perry Hanson he became one of the last two UNICEF international staff in China. Also like Hanson, he was effectively held under house arrest until the end of February 1951. I recall his name (and perhaps his face) so assume that he continued in UNICEF.
Yu Yung - UNICEF Representative in Nanjing from October 1949 until June 1951; after Hanson’s departure, Yu Yung was UNICEF’s last remaining staff member until UNICEF reopened its Beijing office in 1981.
Looking back many years later in 1984, Perry Hanson noted mistakes on both the Chinese side and on UNICEF’s. He noted three important failures on UNICEF’s part. All three remain long-standing issues for which we are still seeking solutions:
1. 1947 - The lost year: while UNICEF moved quickly to fill posts and get programmes moving in Europe, China was put on the back-burner. Only at the end of 1947 when UNRRA was wrapping up did UNICEF finally appoint a Representative and start hiring key staff.
How many times in more recent years have we seen the same? A key head of office post goes unfilled at a critical time - the programme drifts or stalls. Sound familiar?
2. 'End of ship's tackle' - A lack of clear guidelines on the respective roles of government and UNICEF with regard to supervision of supplies and cash: After the first supplies for the new government began arriving in March 1949, relations with UNICEF fell apart over questions of trust and the extent to which national authorities should manage their distribution.
2. 'End of ship's tackle' - A lack of clear guidelines on the respective roles of government and UNICEF with regard to supervision of supplies and cash: After the first supplies for the new government began arriving in March 1949, relations with UNICEF fell apart over questions of trust and the extent to which national authorities should manage their distribution.
Does this sound familiar?
3. Lack of a political strategy for internally divided countries: After Mao’s forces had won control of the Chinese mainland, the UN continued to recognize the defeated Nationalists as China’s only legitimate representatives. UNICEF's Executive Board locked up over demands that China's new government be seated.
3. Lack of a political strategy for internally divided countries: After Mao’s forces had won control of the Chinese mainland, the UN continued to recognize the defeated Nationalists as China’s only legitimate representatives. UNICEF's Executive Board locked up over demands that China's new government be seated.
How can the Executive Board of a humanitarian agency like UNICEF, while a part of a very political body like the UN, hear the views of both sides - or in this case, the winning side - of a conflict?
UNICEF faces similar issues today in Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia, and Myanmar. Consider also Sudan before the creation of South Sudan. We are still looking for a solution.
Back to the Staff Left in China
We can return in a future edition to those management and policy issues to see how they played out at both the Beijing and New York ends. For this week’s edition, I instead offer a little about a few of the people caught up in the drama in China.
Perry and Kathleen Hanson
For Perry Hanson leaving China in May 1951 was a departure, not just from a UNICEF assignment, but from the land of his birth. He was born in 1915 in Tai’an (Shandong) as a son of Methodist missionaries working there at the foot of one of China's seven holy mountains. |
| Tai'an @1920 with his father and brother. |
After graduating from what is today Beijing University, his family sent him off to the University of Minnesota. Perry graduated in 1937 and went on to study at New York’s Union Theological Seminary. There, while doing volunteer work at a homeless shelter on New York's lower-east side, he met a girl named Kathleen Berry. They fell in love and married in 1940. When WWII broke out, Perry returned to China to work as a translator and liaison between US and Chinese forces in western China. Kathleen, already pregnant, had to stay behind.
At the end of the war Perry joined UNRRA and Kathleen and their son were finally able to join him in China. When UNRRA wrapped up operations in China towards the end of 1947, they returned briefly to New York. Perry was promptly hired by UNICEF and sent back to join Dr. Junod’s team in Nanjing in June 1948.
Expulsion from China nearly three years later must have been crushing for the Hansons. In a short time Perry's title had gone from 'Field Liaison Officer' to 'UNICEF Senior Representative in China'. Then - at the time of his house arrest, he was informed on the one hand that China no longer viewed him as an international official, but rather as a 'private foreign person'. Yet on the other hand, he was told that the government held him responsible for any and all actions of UNICEF with regard to China whether those actions took place in New York or in China.
After returning to New York, Perry and Kathleen's second son was born in 1952.
Perry would go on to many other UNICEF assignments in the Philippines, Uganda, Pakistan, New York and Bangladesh1, but he was never able to return to his beloved homeland, China.
After retirement in 1975 Perry and Kathleen settled on a farm they had bought on return from China in Ripton, Vermont (the home of Robert Frost). He continued working post retirement as a preacher in Methodist and Baptist churches and as a business manager for a local hospital.
Kathleen died in 1989. Perry died in 2010.
Dr. Leo Eloesser
Leo Eloesser is one of those ‘larger than life’ characters about whom books could be written (and indeed have been) at each stage of his life.
He was born in San Francisco in 1881 and initially wanted to be a musician. In high school and college he and gave more time to his music than his studies. Nonetheless, he graduated from Berkeley with honors and went to Heidelberg to study medicine. Further studies took him to Kiel and Breslau.
He was fluent in English, Spanish, French and Russian, and later added Mandarin.
He was fluent in English, Spanish, French and Russian, and later added Mandarin.
During WWI he served initially as a doctor with the German Army. After the sinking of the Lusitania, however, he reconsidered his allegiances, and returned to work as a thoracic surgeon in San Francisco.
There he became known as a brilliant thoracic surgeon quite famous for two things:
- in medicine, development of the ‘Eloesser flap’, a surgical technique for treatment of tuberculosis which remained the only successful surgical treatment for severe TB until chemotherapy became possible in the 1950s
- in medicine, development of the ‘Eloesser flap’, a surgical technique for treatment of tuberculosis which remained the only successful surgical treatment for severe TB until chemotherapy became possible in the 1950s
- in politics, his association with socialist causes - most especially his 1916 defense of the socialist. Tom Mooney, whom he believed wrongly convicted of involvement in a terrorist bombing.
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| The Letters of Frida Kahlo and Leo Eloesser |
In San Francisco Eloesser became a close friend of the artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. He became Kahlo's private physician and lifelong friend until her death in 1954. That friendship would lead Eloesser to return to Mexico for the balance of his life after UNICEF.
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| Eloesser at his field hospital in the Spanish civil war. |
During the Spanish civil war Eloesser worked on the Republican side, raised funds and established his own field hospital units. His Jewish family background and his involvement in the Republican cause made it impossible for him to continue working in Europe once WWII broke out.
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| Leo Eloesser's 1948 TA |
When Eloesser returned to New York from China in October 1949, he reported to the Board and to senior staff on the situation of the country and the programme. He remained deeply sympathetic to the Communist Chinese cause, despite the fact that in the Chinese press he was being labelled an American colonialist and imperialist.
At home Eloesser’s history of anti-fascism in Spain and his association with the communist side in China, put him immediately on the ‘blacklist’ of suspected Americans during the McCarthy hearings in the Senate. But he was not alone - Ludwik Rajchman himself was subpoenaed to appear before McCarthy's Senate Committee (instead, he left the US for France and never returned). Several other Americans working for UNICEF were called to appear befroe the same Congressional committee and forced to defend themselves of communist sympathies during this period.
One of those UNICEF Americans who suffered through the grilling was Joyce Campbell. In an office romance Eloesser (now age 70) fell in love with the much younger Campbell. They married.
Like most others in UNICEF Campbell was eventually cleared of all charges, but the experience was deeply disturbing to her and to Eloesser. Disgusted with their treatment in the US, Leo and Joyce moved to Mexico where, despite his age, he continued to work as a village doctor.
Eloesser died there in October 1976 at age 95.
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| 1976 - Leo (at age 95) and Joyce Eloesser at their ranch in Tacámbaro, México |
Others from the China Mission about whom we would like to know more - please help if you know more about them or have photos:
Helen Drummond - A former UNRRA dietician, Helen Drummond, stayed on in Beijing as head of office after the city changed hands in late January 1949. She managed the office until she left Beijing in September 1949.John Painter - was a transport and supply officer and took charge of Beijing following Drummond’s departure. Like Perry Hanson he became one of the last two UNICEF international staff in China. Also like Hanson, he was effectively held under house arrest until the end of February 1951. I recall his name (and perhaps his face) so assume that he continued in UNICEF.
Simon Polak - was head of the Canton office. After the fall of Nanjing in April 1949, Canton became the last foothold of the Nationalist government on China’s mainland. Simon Polak was thus the last person in direct contact with the Nationalists. He left in September 1949 and then took charge of the Thai Area Office in Bangkok and UNICEF’s first Representative to Thailand.
Edith Galt and Isabel Hemingway - nurse-midwife trainers Leo Eloesser recruited on secondment from the American mission board. They managed the training of midwives in Tungchow from April 1949 until the end of January 1950. They became well-known in UNICEF for authoring the UNICEF Midwifery Training Manual which continued to be a standard reference book and a UNIPAC favorite for many years.
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| One of the many versions of the midwifery training manual co-authored by Eloesser, Galt and Hemingway |
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| Elizabeth Hemingway |
John Merryman - was the Admin officer in Shanghai and became the OIC when Junod left China in January 1949, planning to return immediately after briefing the Board. Instead, Junod fell desperately ill with ascheleriosis and had to resign. Merryman continued as OIC until the fall of Nanjing in April. Merryman left Shanghai on May 15th, one week before Shanghai also fell to the communist forces.
Dr. J. Earle McPhail - paediatrician recruited from UNRRA. Served as health advisor in Nanjing and Beijing. Worked with Galt and Hemingway as a tutor on MCH for village health workers and midwives. He left China in January 1951 and took up the post of WHO Representative to Burma.
Alexander McIver - worked in Washington for UNRRA in 1947 as Acting Chief of the Far East Bureau. He then joined UNICEF and served as the first Representative to Pakistan.
Dr. J. Earle McPhail - paediatrician recruited from UNRRA. Served as health advisor in Nanjing and Beijing. Worked with Galt and Hemingway as a tutor on MCH for village health workers and midwives. He left China in January 1951 and took up the post of WHO Representative to Burma.
Alexander McIver - worked in Washington for UNRRA in 1947 as Acting Chief of the Far East Bureau. He then joined UNICEF and served as the first Representative to Pakistan.
Yu Yung - UNICEF Representative in Nanjing from October 1949 until June 1951; after Hanson’s departure, Yu Yung was UNICEF’s last remaining staff member until UNICEF reopened its Beijing office in 1981.
1 Not quite 'the final remnant' . As indicated in the list of those about whom we would like to learn more, Yu Yung seems to have been the last national staff member left in China until the end of June 1951. ↩
2 Newton Bowles who was then the Deputy Director of Programmes was invited to visit Beijing in 1978 to discuss a possible re-opening of an office and country programme..↩
3 The China Country Office re-opened in June 1981. Ralph Eckert was appointed as the Representative. ↩
4 I met first Perry in Bangladesh around 1973.
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