The China Hands

We tend to think of diplomats as effete cookie pushers, adverse to risk, insult or injury. But in during World War II the U.S. State Department had in China a group fo brilliant and courageous Foreign Service Officers. Their names should read like a list of honor: Oliver Edmund Clubb, John Paton Davies Jr., Everett F. Drumright, Fulton Freeman, Raymond P. Ludden, James K. Penfield, Edward E. Rice, Arthur R. Ringwalt, John Stewart Service, Phillip P. Sprouse, John Carter Vincent. Risking life, limb and reputation they issued honest reports on the corrupt regime of Chiang Kai-Shek, predicting a civil war and ultimate communist victory. In 1949 what the China Hands had forseen had come to pass. Mao Tse-tung's forces had conquered the mainland of China, sending a shockwave of reprecussions throughout the American political system. Within a few years the China Hands had either been driven from the Foreign Service or had their careers derailed. E. J. Kahn's lucid narrative is based not only on documented evidence, but interviews with many of the China Hands themselves. This forgotten chapter of history bears retelling in the wake of the faked intelligence before the invasion of Iraq.