Word: sian
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...Sian, the interior city in which the "kidnapping" and series of conferences with Communist leaders occurred (TIME, Dec. 21 et seq.), was lavishly hospitable, through its satrap, General Yang Hu-cheng, to arriving Communist leaders of varying importance and to U. S. Counselor of Embassy Willys Ruggles Peck who flew up from Nanking and dined festively. On flying back to Nanking, highly diplomatic Counselor Peck said it was "partly correct" that some 21 U. S. citizens in Sian were being "held as hostages" by the Reds, but that General Yang had been nice about saying he would arrange for them...
Eleven prosperous Chinese, arriving in Nanking from Sian, said: "Conditions are deteriorating. Hundreds if not thousands of people have thought it best to leave Sian, even through the bandit-infested countryside and in bitter cold...
...once more the "guest" of Banker T. V. Soong (TIME, Jan. 4) and last week played around the Nanking Country Club golf course accompanied by soldiers carrying eight submachine guns "in readiness." The city of Sian. scene of the kidnapping, was reported in unconfirmed dispatches to have been taken over by a Chinese Communist army, and jittery Japanese continued to fear that the Premier's fantastic kidnapping and its fantastic sequels were largely a blind to distract world attention from a drawing together of Chiang's China and Stalin's Russia for united war on Japan...
...Sian official for Texas Co., one George Fitch, contributed to the dispute by arriving in Nanking to say that, so far as he knew, the persons principally concerned (Dictator Chiang, Mme Chiang, Brother Soong, Adviser Donald and the Young Marshal) got out of Sian only by a ruse in which they tricked General Yang Fu-cheng, whose troops had high-jacked the kidnapping. Oilman Fitch confirmed that the city of Weinan, which had absolutely nothing to do with the case, had been wiped out and said he thought 400 Chinese in Sian, also bystanders, had been "exe-cuted...
There was every reason this week to continue to suspect that the events at Sian, clouded by side issues of kidnapping, ransom and highjacking, were basically an exploration and feeling out of each other by the Chinese Communists and Dictator Chiang. Young Marshal Chang, after waiting around in Finance Minister Kung's house for four days, received from the Chinese Government full pardon and restoration of his civil rights, walked out scot free as the kidnapping profession's outstanding Boy Who Made Good...