Word: johnson
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Sept. 17, 1935, Nelson Johnson was graduated from Minister to Ambassador, his salary raised from $10,000 to $17,500. All the while Japan was becoming more & more threatening, and by July 1937, when North China hostilities began, Ambassador Johnson had a really big job on his hands. It then took four hours for a cable to get to Washington, and considerably longer for an answer to return; and so he usually made decisions and consulted afterward...
...Nelson Johnson is a regular Old King Cole. He is plump as a pillow. He has thinning pale-gold hair, with lashes and brows to match, a face all shades of pink, from salmon to sunset, big enough nose, strong chin, mouth with a chronic smile. In ricksha, cutaway or gas mask he looks more like a tire salesman than an Ambassador...
...quality which above all others makes Nelson Johnson a really good diplomat is the ease with which he translates his corny U. S. traits into polished Chinese formulas. When he sits down at an important conference with Chinese statesmen, he begins by saying (in Chinese): "Well, boys, have I told you the one about the traveling salesman and the old farmer?" He can sing Chinese songs, too, and play the pipa (lute...
...Chungking home, across the Yangtze from the city proper, Nelson Johnson rises at seven, eats a hearty breakfast (Sundays he has the staff in for waffles and chicken). He rides to the Embassy Office in a four-coolie sedan with specially strong bamboo lift-poles. There he reads and answers 40-odd telegrams from China sore-spots each day. If there is a big rush on, he helps decode messages. Some errand may take him to the Foreign Minister, less frequently to the Finance Minister, very seldom to Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek. In the evening he occasionally gives a stag dinner...
What to Do? Fortnight ago Nelson Johnson left Chungking for the Shanghai establishment. There he hastily conferred with Commander in Chief of the Asiatic Fleet...