FORMOSA: Second Chance

The special commission investigating the case of General Sun Li-jen, the U.S.-educated World War II hero who abruptly resigned last summer as Chiang Kai-shek’s personal chief of staff amid rumors of a Red plot (TIME, Aug. 29), made public its findings last week. Its verdict: General Sun had formed a clique of army officers that had been used—without his knowledge—by a Red agent. Accepting the commission’s recommendation of clemency, President Chiang announced that the general would be “given an opportunity to redeem himself and be subject to no further disciplinary action.”

General Sun had got off lightly. According to the evidence made public last week, he had built up the sort of outfit to back his personal ambitions. A similar undertaking within the U.S. Army would have brought instant dismissal to any general so involved. In entrusting liaison with his organization to a Major Kuo Ting-liang, who has since confessed to being a secret Communist, Sun played at best a dupe’s role. In the commission’s view, Sun “could not have been entirely ignorant of the conspiracy” planned by the major and broken up last summer by counterintelligence.

In letting Sun off with little more than a reprimand, the commission said it took account of his distinguished fighting record and his “admission of past mistakes and self-censure.” Leniency toward Sun also served to reassure U.S. and overseas Chinese opinion, which holds Sun in high esteem and might have wondered at the implications for Nationalist China’s future had so able, senior and “Western-minded” a leader been tossed overboard. Much cheered by the verdict, General Sun called last week on Vice President Chen Cheng, the commission chairman, to offer his thanks and to remind the Vice President that he is an engineer (Purdue ’23) as well as a military man (V.M.I. ’27). Sun’s likely next assignment: Formosa’s new Shihmen dam project, of which Chen Cheng is also chairman.