Mao Zedong – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

United Airlines, China and Course Corrections

This United Airlines travel poster from the 1950s sold for nearly $900 at a July 2017 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 1985, a man by the name of Richard Ferris, CEO of United Airlines, developed an innovative one-stop shopping strategy (Fly-Drive-Sleep) and then bought Hertz and Hilton hotels to add the two legs he needed. The expected synergies did not materialize, but he did manage to alienate his pilots and their powerful union. Rumors circulated that he had to travel incognito – under an assumed name – to avoid “last-minute mechanical failures” if his employees discovered him onboard.

In April 1987, barely two years into the new program, the angry pilots’ union made a hostile takeover bid, which effectively put the entire company “in play” on Wall Street. A compromise was reached for Ferris to resign, sell Hertz and Hilton, and change the company name from Allegis back to United Airlines. Everyone was happy except Ferris and the customers, who had suffered through two years of lousy service due to the squabbling.

The new UAL management aggressively decided to rebuild their frayed customer relations. Nancy and I were invited to go on a multistep goodwill tour to China and back. This was our first (of many) long, international flights to Asia that included a stop in Hong Kong, Guangzhou (Canton), Beijing, Shanghai and back to Hong Kong. Everything was first class-plus and I met some interesting CEOs from several major corporations. There were only 20 people (plus crew) on a specially outfitted 747 with fully reclining seats … a novelty in those days.

The food and beverage service was exceptional. However, what impressed me the most was the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. I could finally grasp what Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) and his crew encountered when they miscalculated, ran out of food and were so desperate they survived on a tasty dish of rat droppings mixed with sawdust. There were also stories of men gnawing on the ropes that lashed the mainsail. Only 18 men survived, and that did not include Captain Magellan.

The Pacific Ocean is the oldest of the world’s seas, a relic of the once all-encompassing Panthalassan Ocean that opened up 750 million years ago. It is by far the world’s biggest body of water – all the continents could fit easily within its borders, with ample room to spare. It is the most biologically diverse and seismically active, and holds the planet’s greatest mountains and deepest trenches. Its chemical influences and weather systems affect the entire orb we call home.

Most think of the Pacific Ocean in parts … a beach here … an atoll there … a long expanse of deep water. Captain James Cook wrote that by exploring the Pacific, he had gone “as far as I think it is possible for man to go.” Cook was not aware that it is 64 million square miles and humans are still exploring it.

Even the highly revered British Admiralty’s chart room bible “Ocean Passages for the World” still cautions sailors embarking on a crossing: “Very large areas are unsurveyed … no sounding at all recorded … only safeguards are a good lookout …”

The Chinese have always had good lookouts and now view the Pacific Ocean as their next area for expansion and dominance. They tell me to consider the past 4,000 years when judging their progress and to view the 20th century as an anomaly. They made a course correction to compensate for Mao Zedong and are now back on track for the next 1,000 years. They studied the flaws in our last financial system meltdown (greed and overleverage) and decided to create their own World Bank. They view our form of democracy with disdain since we appear irreparably divided over every single important strategic issue, with our economy bankrupt and elected officials in Washington, D.C., as the only ones with good health insurance, pensions and job security … hopelessly gridlocked.

They think it is better to have a strong leader and a navy capable of dominating the South China Sea with impunity. The great battle for the 21st century is essentially over. However, what they don’t understand is that we always find a way, then come together as needed. Winston Churchill put it best: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

How We Record History Has Evolved Over the Ages

A 1935 copy of *The History of Herodotus of Halicarnassus* (Nonesuch Press) sold for $1,125 at an October 2013 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

We often fail to remember that history (itself) has a history. From the earliest times, all societies told stories from their past, usually imaginative tales involving the acts of heroes or various gods. Later, civilizations kept records inscribed on clay tablets or the walls of caves. However, ancient societies made no attempt at verification of records, and often failed to differentiate between reality and mythical events and legends.

This changed in the 5th century B.C. when historians like Herodotus and Thucydides explored the past by the interpretation of evidence, despite still including a mixture of myth (“history” means “inquiry” in Greek). Still, Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War satisfies most criteria of modern historical study. It was based on interviews with eyewitnesses and attributed actual events to individuals rather than the intervention of gods.

Thus, Thucydides managed to create the most durable form of history: the detailed narrative of war, political conflict, diplomacy and decision-making. Then, the subsequent rise of Rome to dominance of the Mediterranean encouraged other historians like Polybius (Hellenic) and Livy (Roman) to develop narratives to capture a “big picture” that made sense of events on a longer time frame. Although restricted to just the Roman world, it was the beginning of a universal history to describe progress from origin to present, with a goal of giving the past a purpose.

In addition to making sense of events through narratives, there was a tradition growing to examine the behavior of heroes and villains for future moral lessons. We still attempt this today with a steady stream of studies of Lincoln, Churchill and Gandhi, as well as Stalin, Hitler and Mao.

But there was a big hiccup with the rise of Christianity in the late Roman Empire era, which fundamentally changed the concept of history in Europe. Historical events started to be viewed as “divine providence” or the working of God’s will. Skeptical inquiry was usually neglected and miracles routinely accepted without question. Thankfully, the Muslim world was more sophisticated in medieval times and they rejected accounts of events that could not be verified.

However, neither Christians nor Muslims produced anything close to the chronicle of Chinese history published under the Song Dynasty in 1085. It recorded history spanning almost 1,400 years and filled 294 volumes. (I have no idea how accurate it is!)

By the 20th century, the subject matter of history – which had always focused on kings, queens, prime ministers, presidents and generals – increasingly expanded to embrace common people, whose role in historical events became more accessible. But most world history was written as the story of the triumph of Western civilization, until the second half when the notion of a single grand narrative simply collapsed. Instead, the post-colonial, modern world demanded the study of blacks and women’s histories, in addition to Asians, Africans and American Indians.

Now we are in another new place where it is increasingly difficult to know where to find reliable accounts of real events and a flood of “fake news” is competing for widespread acceptance. Maybe Henry Ford was right after all when he declared that “History is bunk!”

Personally, I don’t mind and still enjoy frequent trips to the past … regardless of factual flaws.

After World War II, America Immediately Faced Challenges in China, Russia

Taiwan struck a gold 2000 Yuan Year 55 (1966) to commemorate the 80th birthday of Chaing Kai-shek.

By Jim O’Neal

Chaing Kai-shek joined the Chinese Nationalist Party in 1918, succeeding founder Sun Yat-sen as the leader. In 1925, he expelled Chinese Communists from the party and led a successful reunification of China. When the Allies declared war on Japan in 1941, China took its place among the Allied nations.

Chaing may have been an ally of the United States, but he presided over a corrupt society made ungovernable by China’s decade-long occupation at the hands of the Japanese and the growing strength of communist revolutionary Mao Zedong. Inflation was rampant, as was starvation, but Chiang’s police crushed opposition and no amount of American pressure could dissuade him.

In 1946, George Marshall made a valiant effort to consolidate power between Chiang and Mao, but it proved futile. As the Cold War advanced, Americans saw their own security at risk by supporting the anti-communists. Then, the Communist Revolution created an ardent hatred of all things American, followed by more bad news in September 1949. As the last of the Chinese Nationalists fled to Formosa (now Taiwan), a squadron of USAF B-29s detected traces of radioactive material while flying over the North Pole. This provided irrefutable evidence that the Soviet Union had successfully exploded their first atomic bomb.

Americans were disillusioned. This was not the way things were supposed to go. Right was supposed to triumph over wrong, freedom over oppression, God over the godless. Hadn’t the Allies just finished proving this on the beaches of Normandy and in the vast waters of the Pacific? And hadn’t the gods determined that Americans alone should possess the atomic secrets to keep the forces of evil in check?

Mao’s victory and Joseph Stalin’s bomb forced a reconsideration of plans for occupied Japan, for now the line between East and West had to be drawn even more firmly, and every American decision had to be viewed through the prism of the Cold War. The initial strategy, as it had been for occupied Germany, had been to halt Japan’s capacity for future aggression, to disarm the former enemy and slowly introduce democracy. But, just as the Russian actions in Eastern Europe had changed the pace of reeducation in West Germany, the victory of the Chinese Communists made it essential that Japan be immediately strengthened to resist the spread of the Red Tide in Asia.

General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander of occupied Japan, had personally written the new Japanese constitution, which banned “land, sea and air forces” and stated any war potential “will never be maintained – or the development of a military industry.” Just three years after the end of the war, that ban was lifted, creating a “self-defense force” of 75,000.

Today, as North Korean nuclear threats continue to grow, there are discussions about Japan assuming total responsibility for their own defense, including the possibility of a nuclear deterrence, something that many believe could be viable in a matter of months.

We seem to be incapable of eradicating or even mitigating war capabilities. Maybe there is just too much profit potential involved.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].