Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell's concern with command problems in China, Burma, and India can be traced to the ARCADIA Conference in Washington, December 1941, when Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek that China's leader become Supreme Commander of a United Nations "China Theater." The Generalissimo agreed and, in replying, asked that a high-ranking U.S. Army officer be sent to China to be chief of staff of the Allied staff that the Generalissimo proposed to organize to help him command China Theater. The United States nominated Stilwell, and the Chinese agreed. This then was the basic command structure of China Theater, which was geographically synonymous with China. The Generalissimo was Supreme Commander; all United Nations forces in China Theater were under him, while he in turn was answerable to himself alone, in no way subject to any other officer or agency of the United Nations. Gen. Ho Ying-chin was Chief of Staff of the Chinese Army while General Stilwell was the Generalissimo's joint (Allied) chief of staff for China Theater. The Chinese were not willing to let Stilwell have a staff to help him carry out his duties as joint chief of staff to the Generalissimo, so Stilwell tried to perform them himself with the aid of an interpreter and a stenographer. And since Stilwell took this course, his American subordinates were often not aware of his plans for China Theater.