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James M. McHugh papers

 Collection
Identifier: 2770

Scope and content

Included are military correspondence and intelligence reports, family and other personal correspondence, diaries, among them a journal that McHugh kept on his motor trip over the Burma Road (December 1938-January 1939), photographs (ca. 1300 items, many not precisely identified, of wartime figures, and colleagues and friends), manuscripts of articles and books, and printed items.
Scope and content

Subjects of the correspondence and reports to 1946 include China in general, the Sino-Japanese War, McHugh's association with or impressions of the Chiangs, T.V. Soong, Ai-Ling Soong (Madame H.H. Kung), and other Chinese public figures, the management of the Bank of China, disputes and rivalries among American interests with contracts for supplying the Chinese Air Force.
Scope and content

Other subjects include the bribery of Chinese officials, the administration of Lend-Lease in China, the construction and use of the Burma Road, the bombing of the British gunboat H.M.S. "Sandpiper," the work of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), Japan and the Japanese people, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the activities of William Henry Donald, advisor to the Chiangs, Ambassador Nelson Trusler Johnson, and Clarence Gauss, Vice-President Hyman G. Rickover, General Evans F. Carlson, and General Claire Lee Chennault.
Scope and content

After 1946, the letters are primarily analyses of events of national and international importance, such as the civil war in Indo-China and tVietnamese conflict, Soviet-American relations, Sino-Soviet relations, Amcan presidential elections, and the foreign policies of the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations, written to and from various representatives of Jardine, Matheson & Co. and Balfour, Guthrie & Co., including Hugh David MacEwen Barton, David Bosanquet, Michael Alexander Robert Young-Herries, John Henry Keswick, William Johnson Keswick, and Erik Watts; also correspondence with Richard R. Smith, formerly with the British-American Tobacco Company (BAT) in Shanghai, on world affairs and on Smith's life in California.
Scope and content

Also, manuscripts and correspondence relating to an article by K.C. Wu (Kuo-chen Wu), former governor of Formosa; and correspondence and articles of McHugh's wife, Maxine Davis, the writer. Other correspondents include Major Ronald Aubry Boone, John H. Bruins, General Evans Fordyce Carlson, General Claire Lee Chennault, Madame Chiang Kai-shek (Mayling Soong), Oscar Sidney Cox, Commander John Marion Creighton, C.D. Culbertson, Lauchlin Currie, William Henry Donald, Herbert B. Elliston, Abijah Upson Fox, Clarence E. Gauss, Robin Gordon.
Scope and content

Other correspondents include Major Edward Gillette Hagan, Luther Hartwell Hodges, General Thomas Holcomb, Cordell Hull, Juang P'ing-heng (P.H. Whang), British Ambassador Archibald Clark Kerr, Claire (Lady) Keswick, Val St. J. Killery, Franklin William Knox, John Magruder, Rear Admiral Edward John Marquart, Lieutenant Commander Milton Edward Miles, Sir Geoffrey Alexander Stafford Northcote, Duncan Oppenheim, George M. Schurman, Charles Vincent Sheehan, Edgar Snow, Harold John Timperley, Rear Admiral Kemp Tolley, John Carter Vincent, and Admiral Harry Ervin Yarnell.

Dates

  • 1930-1965.

Creator

Language of Materials

Collection material in English

Conditions Governing Access

Military material in Series I, II, and III (Box 1 folders 1-10, Box 2 folders 1-14, Box 3 folders 1-12, Box 21 folders 1-4) and equivalent microfilm reels from Series XIV are restricted.

Biographical / Historical

James M. McHugh was born in Nevada, Missouri, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1922. Following training at Quantico he went to China in 1923 to study the country and its language. His father-in-law, Jacob Gould Schurman, who was president of Cornell University from 1892-1920, was then American minister to China. McHugh authored a standard textbook on China and a Chinese-English dictionary which were used by the British and American embassies and armed forces in China until the Japanese took over Shanghai.

Biographical / Historical

McHugh spent over twenty years in China, where he served as intelligence officer for the 4th Marines and U.S. Asiatic Fleet, Shanghai, from 1933-1935, then became special Assistant Naval Attache, American Embassy at Nanking, Hankow, and Chungking. He was Naval Attache and Naval Attache for Air from 1940-1943, serving as a special representative of Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, with whom he was a close friend.

Biographical / Historical

For his work in this capacity he was later awarded the Legion of Merit. He was officer in charge of the Far East Secret Intelligence and served on the staff of the Fifth Amphibious Corps (G-5), then was sent to Guam in 1944 to help plan the attack on Iwo Jima. An attack of malaria led to his recall in 1943; after hospitalization he was assigned to Navy Department, to one of the forerunners of the present Central Intelligence Agency.

Biographical / Historical

Following retirement in February 1946, he became an economic consultant for several corporations having interest in the Far East, including Jardine, Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), and Balfour, Guthrie & Co. (New York).

Extent

8.5 cubic feet. (8.5 cubic feet.)

Additional Description

Abstract

Included are military correspondence and intelligence reports, personal correspondence, diaries, including a journal McHugh kept on his trip over the Burma Road (Dec. 1938-Jan. 1939), photographs (ca. 1300 items, many not precisely identified, of wartime figures, and colleagues and friends), manuscripts of articles and books, and printed items.

Physical Description

Correspondence, diaries, photographs, manuscripts, clippings, and printed material.

General

Contact Information:
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections 2B Carl A. Kroch Library Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3530 Fax: (607) 255-9524 rareref@cornell.edu http://rmc.library.cornell.edu
Compiled by:
Nancy Dean
Date completed:
January 1996
EAD encoding:
Rachel Hubregsen, March 2003
Date modified:
Jude Corina, December 2013

Subjects

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Status
Completed
Author
Compiled by Nancy Dean
Date
March 31, 2003
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script

Revision Statements

  • 12/07/2018: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)
  • 2007-05-29: converted from EAD 1.0 to EAD 2002

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Repository

https://rare.library.cornell.edu/
Contact:
2B Carl A. Kroch Library
Cornell University
Ithaca NY 14853
607-255-3530
607-255-9524 (Fax)

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