THE LADY AND THE TIGER

Quarters A.
Taipei, Taiwan  Republic of China
November 1978
Fists pounded on the great red lacquered doors of Quarters A. The gabble of Chinese threats nearly drowned out the insanely repetitive strains of Auled Lang Syne, played at top volume from a sound truck parked on the other side of our front stone wall. “Should old acquaintance be forgot?”— an angry choice and one that clearly stated the mob’s opinion of the Carter administration’s foreign policy. I had heard its message for twenty-two hours without pause and knew the meaning of Chinese water torture. Crouched with The Girls, our two dogs, Suzie and Boom Boom on the sitting room floor, our heads below the windowsills, I heard the crack of rock against rock as the hysterical mob stoned Quarters A. The phones rang incessantly with no one on the other end. 

We were alone – the three of us. Earlier in the morning, I sent the house staff home for their own safety and at the U.S. Embassy, far down into the heart of Taipei, my husband Jim was under siege by an angry mob of University students. The Girls and I were locked in with curtains drawn shut so I could no longer see the Chinese house guards with their guns trained on us. 

The world was upside down.

On December fifteenth, President Carter had failed to renew the Mutual Taiwan Defense Treaty, a treaty that had lasted for thirty years between the United States and the Republic of China. When the announcement was made the people of Taiwan realized the United States had pulled the rug out from under them. 

They had been sold out. 

Our presence was no longer viable. In just a few days, on January first, 1979 a State Department team would arrive in Taiwan to abrogate the treaty and offer a cultural and trade agreement. Upon their arrival, a signal was apparently given to riot against U.S. official personnel.

Within the next few months, one after another, the U.S. installations throughout the Island would close down, twenty-one American flags lowered and taken away and the military presence of men and their families sent back to the United States.

My husband’s Command would end, the Island swept clean of all U.S. defense systems, leaving its inhabitants, Taiwanese, Chinese, Americans, and Europeans unprotected and vulnerable to a threatened invasion by xommunist China to the west. We had been their umbrella of protection for thirty years, but trade considerations now pushed the United States to align with the Peoples Republic of China on the Mainland. Diplomatic relations would then begin with that communist giant as they were ending in Taiwan, the free and democratic Republic of China. I feared for this small country and its people, I was furious at the injustice of the whole thing.

The noise increased. The Chinese guards on the iron gates of our driveway had opened them to the Cultural College students and they poured in, angry and armed.