The Japanese used to say that Russian Vladivostok was "a dagger" pointed at their islands (the Siberian port lies 680 airline miles northwest of Tokyo). Since World War II's end, another Russian dagger has been poised, even closer to Japan: the island of Sakhalin (600 miles long, 75 miles wide), separated by only 26 miles of sea from the northernmost main Japanese island, Hokkaido. The lower half of Sakhalin once belonged to Japan; it was turned over to the Russians by one ot Yalta's secret deals.
When the Chinese Communist armies in Korea began to run into trouble a few...
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