had in my life.” For an alleged China Hand, Stilwell had violated the most basic tenet of civility as laid out by his comrade and sometime competitor Milton “Mary” Miles: he had disgraced a senior Chinese official in front of his subordinates. There was no way Chiang could allow Stilwell to remain in the country. T. V. Soong hypothesized that Stilwell had engineered the event to ensure that he would not become commander because he knew that he was not up to the job.
