Although the Chinese thought they should be getting a lot more help from their allies, they gave Wendell Willkie the biggest reception yet. It was bigger than Jawaharlal Nehru got in 1939, than Lauchlin Currie got in 1941. Even the Japanese contributed: Japanese scouting planes, looking for Willkie, nosed toward Chungking for three days running, but ran into fog before they reached the capital.

Chungking made itself ready. The Official guest bungalow, bright as its rhododendrons, was equipped with a powerful radio, a cook who could range from ham & eggs to Szechwan duck, and--another great luxury for China--soft toilet paper. But Wendell Willkie would only have to look out of his windows to see the great ridges packed with colorless shacks where Chungking's hundreds of thousands were enduring their sixth year of war.

After three days in outlying Chinese cities, Willkie arrived at Chungking's suburban airport in a Douglas piloted by Baltimore-born Moon Chen, first man to complete a flight across the Himalayas. A welcoming crowd of 10,000 was headed by Finance Minister H. H. ("Daddy") Rung, U.S. Ambassador Clarence Edward Gauss and gallant Lieut. General Joseph ("Uncle Joe") Stilwell.

Willkie looked excited but very tired, as he had on his Moscow arrival (TIME, Oct. 5). The brass band was sour as it started the Star-Spangled Banner, but soon improved and was fine in the Chinese anthem. In the airport rest house Willkie said the right thing: "One of the difficulties facing me is that one falls so much in love with the Chinese people that it is difficult to form a critical and fact-finding judgment." According to Chinese custom, he was given a hot towel with which to refresh his hands.

Then the heavy program began. Willkie was driven through Chungking's crowded, cheering streets. He visited a meeting of the Chinese Cabinet, which was tussling with the inflation problem. He talked with China's Chief of Staff General Ho Ying-chin. He talked with the Gissimo through the fluently translating Missimo. At President Lin Sen's mansion Willkie sampled a succulent Chinese-French cuisine including poisson du Yangtze au bain Marie and champignons du Fukien a la volaille. Willkie tried chopsticks, but quickly fell back on knife & fork.

It was obvious that the Chinese, like the Russians, enjoyed Wendell Willkie. And he would obviously be a great warmer of the lukewarm Sino-Allied relations --if he had brought with him enough assurances of material help. Just what he had brought was a military secret. But in Chungking, as in Moscow, Wendell Willkie loudly called for greater United Nations action. At the Gissimo's banquet he said:

"I have learned that the ordinary citizen, from Cairo to Moscow to Chungking, is a lover of liberty and wants action--action now. He is ahead of his leaders, this plain citizen of Africa, or Europe, or Asia, or America. It annoys him that much of the might of the United Nations stands idle, awaiting action on some future day."

At the Missimo's tea party, Willkie rose to blandishing heights: "I accept as the quintessence of all the compliments I have ever received that I have been complimented by such a delightful lady. In 1940 I made 625 campaign speeches and attempted to answer the master charmer of the day. That was easy. This is tough."

Then Willkie got back to his topic: "The one contribution that I want to make is to howl and howl that all nations must be free to seek their own just aspirations. Mme. Chiang Kai-shek and I are going to howl for the right kind of world when this war is over."

*Powerful You Foundation in Chungking. Powerful You Foundation is the honorary name given to Wendell Willkie by the Chinese.

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