At the beginning of the Chinese war five and a half years ago, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the Generalissimo, drove to the Shanghai front. Her car rolled into a ditch and Madame Chiang was flung out, causing an injury to her back. Late last year she was flown secretly to the U.S. by the American Army and for the past three months has been under medical treatment in a New York hospital. Now China's "Missimo" (to match her husband's abbreviated title of "Gissimo") is well enough to step out from behind her official incognitoand reveal another larger reason for her presence in this country.     China never needed an ambassador of Madame's stature more desperately than now. And this week Madame was to move into the White House. She was to address the Senate and House of Representatives,a distinction reserved usually for heads-of-state and only once before for a woman, the Netherlands' Queen Wilhelmina.Next month her appearances, limited by her doctor's orders, will be in New York, Chicago and on the West Coast. At Wesleyan College for women in Macon, Ga., Madame Chiang Kai-shek, then Mei-ling (meaning "Beautiful Mood") Soong, sits front center all in white, in 1913, aged 15. She was tutored. Later that year she went to Wellesley,copped all honors. The Chiangs visit Gandhi last February in Calcutta. The legs are of course Gandhi's. The polite Chiangs were trying to warn Gandhi about the threat of the Japanese to India, but the old Hindu lawyer just bared his teeth, twinkled and dodged. Courtship of Mei-ling ran through the great days of 1927 when revolutionary armies of Generalissimo ChiangKai-shek were sweeping into Nanking. Chiang was later converted to Christianity. Mei-ling's sister was by now thewidow of Sun Yat-sen. The marriage was Dec. 1, 1927 at the Hotel Majestic in Shanghai. One service was Methodist, one orthodoxChinese. The pages above are Louis and Jeanette Kung, children of bride's sister. Mei-ling still had a Georgiaaccent and great seriousness. In cold Chungking, at anniversary dinner of Chiang's New Life Movement, the Missimo sit at Gissimo's right hand and keeps her coat on. The others are the heads of the government. There was less and less food in Chungkingfor chop-sticks to dip into. Wendell Willkie had a charm contest with the Missimo on his visit last September. He admitted freely that theMissimo won with ease, and added, "Madame Chiang Kai-shek and I are going to howl for the right kind of world whenthis war is over." FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT'S EMISSARY LAUCHLIN CURRIE AND MME. CHIANG KAI-SHEK HAVE TEA WITH LEMON IN CHUNGKING Wendall Wilkie hung deep over the hand of China's Madame Chiang Kai-shek in Chungking while her great husband stands by. Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, China's First Lady, has a subtle, glowing charm that came from both East and West.She was educated in the U.S., is now here for her health. LIFE'S COVER:  First Lieutenant Carl D. Schubach of Zanesville, Ohio, is looking through the oblique view-finder of his K-3Baerial camera at Brooks Field, Texas. His armored force commander sent him there to learn to be an aerial observer. Adapted by Carl W. Weidenburner from the February 22, 1943 issue ofLIFE. Portions copyright 1943 Time, Inc. Additional images from other isues of LIFE have been added FOR PRIVATE NON-COMMERCIAL HISTORICAL REFERENCE ONLY  TOP OF PAGE    ABOUT THIS PAGE   MORE CBI FROM LIFE MAGAZINE    CLOSE THIS WINDOW