FOREIGN RELATIONS: For a Price

To make her dramatic, last-minute plea for more money and arms for Nationalist China last December, Madame Chiang Kai-shek asked the U.S. for a favor: she needed suitable air transport between Nanking and Washington. The U.S. Government fixed her up handsomely. The Military Air Transport Service brought her to California in a Navy plane, flew her and her party (a general, a maid, two secretaries) the rest of the way in the old presidential DC-4, the Sacred Cow.

Last week the State Department let it be known that the gesture was not quite so generous as it had seemed. After turning down her request for aid to China, the Government—while waiting for China’s dust to settle—found time to send her a $9,002 bill for airplane transportation. She paid promptly. When she travels to Formosa this month, it will be by commercial airliner.