In Nationalist China's steaming capital of Taipei, a question of courtroom justice touched off the ugliest and most violent anti-American riot in Formosa's history. Unlike many anti-U.S. outbreaks in the Far East and elsewhere in recent years, last week's riot was no carefully organized manifestation of left or right, but a spontaneous, flash-fire uprising. And because it was misunderstood, and its consequences unforeseen, it very nearly became something worse.
All week, Taipei's newspapers, both government-controlled and independent, had been giving extensive coverage of a U.S. Army court-martial. Robert G. Reynolds, 42, a balding and meaty U.S. Army master sergeant, was...