Madame Chiang Kai-shek died October 23 at the astonishing age of 105, having far outlived her fame.

* Madame Chiang Kai-shek died October 23 at the astonishing age of 105, having far outlived her fame. Older Americans remembered her as an attractive and eloquent spokeswoman for her nation, which her husband was struggling valiantly to defend against fascist invaders and Communist insurrectionists. The Japanese were of course defeated at last, but Mao Tsetung's Communists won the subsequent civil war, and the Chiangs were forced to flee to Taiwan. Given the horrors of Mao's rule on the mainland, and the eventual democratization and economic success of Taiwan, a casual observer might be puzzled by the unflattering tone of Madame Chiang's obituaries, and by the bad press the Chiangs have received from anti-Communist historians. A close study of the period dispels most doubts. While Chiang Kai-shek's analysis of his country's peril--the Japanese were, he said, merely a disease of the skin, while the Communists were a disease of the bowels--was arguably correct, the incompetence and corruption of his regime disillusioned even the most sympathetic observers at last. Chiang forfeited the support of his own people, and would in all probability have lost U.S. support too, but for the Korean War. Taiwan's success was based on reforms he was forced to accept as the price of continued U.S. aid, reforms that, had he implemented them on the mainland, might have saved his regime and spared China the nightmare of Communist rule. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, and it is unlikely that the Chiangs were altogether bereft of sincerely patriotic motives; but it would be easier to write kindly of them if their determination to enrich themselves and their relatives had been less brazen, and their indifference to the sufferings of their poorest, lowest fellow citizens less obvious. R.I.P.