Mediator : a new look at general George C. Marshall’s Chinese mission

General George Catlett Marshall, a soldier and diplomat, went down in history as the US secretary of state and the author of the famous Marshall Plan. In the years 1945–1947, he conducted a mediation mission in China which ended in a total fiasco. It is usually indicated that the reason for such a catastrophic conclusion was the inability to reach a compromise on the part of the Nationalist and Communist parties. The article points out that the actual goal of the Marshall Mission was to avoid America’s political and military entanglement in China. The Truman administration’s attention was focused on Europe. Real support for the KMT – which might have changed the outcome of the civil war – was not considered at all. The purpose of Marshall Mission was to provide an excuse to withdraw.