"Exhibit Greatness"

It took China's Central Government seven months to bring its No. i war criminal to trial, but only six hours to try him and a week to find him guilty. In the century-old mansion that houses the Kiangsu High Court at Soochow, Columbia-educated Chen Kung-po, last president of the late Wang Ching-wei's Nanking puppet regime, heard the judgment of his people: traitor, death.

The blue-gowned but urbane Chen, once a revolutionary and after that Kuomintang Minister of Industry and Commerce, did not lose the polite composure that had lent an oddly gracious note to his trial. Bowing, he had told the court: "Whatever judgment your honor may pass on me, I will not appeal."

The Government accused Chen, among other things, of persecuting patriots, making secret treaties with Japan, and injecting propaganda into textbooks. In his 60,000-word defense, Chen denied everything--including any motives of personal gain. Said he: "I have no house on earth, and no cash in the bank. If I say I have no property, people won't believe me. If I admit I have, I won't believe myself."

Chen's sentence capped a career at ironic variance with the literal translation of his name: "Exhibit Public Greatness." In the days when he was an honest man, Chen had never been more than a high-ranking functionary. Now he qualified as the great traitor only because Wang Ching-wei was dead and the Russians held Puppet Emperor Henry Pu-yi of Manchukuo.

Even at his trial Chen was in the shadow of a more colorful and sinister puppet. Wang Ching-wei's shrewd, fat, diabetic, bad-tempered widow, Chen Pi-chun, came before the court this week. Wang's closest political adviser, she henpecked her handsome husband and bullied her four grown children, three of whom have also been jailed. Chen Pi-chun was unrepentant, but she wrote her children that she was ready, even eager, to die.

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