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Naming Names. In making the mistake of a century in China, what individuals were chiefly responsible? A large part of The China Story is devoted to an examination of the attitudes of the men who shaped or influenced U.S. policy.
DEAN ACHESON—who "oscillates between two contrary theses: one that 'good' and 'evil' are irreconcilable; the other that there is no real incompatibility between them . . . Mr. Acheson evidently believes that the Communist menace will disappear, given 'a chicken in every pot'—or a full rice bowl ... He takes no account of the fact that there are precious few Communists in Ireland, which is one of the poorest countries in Europe; whereas prosperous Czechoslovakia had enough of them to enable Stalin to win power ... Our Secretary of State is a leading example of a particular species of American that has flourished since the early 1930's. They think of themselves as 'liberal idealists,' but they are in fact protagonists of the Marxian materialistic philosophy."
PHILIP JESSUP—now U.S. Ambassador at Large (and chief editor of the State Department's white paper on China), who was chairman of the Institute of Pacific Relations when it "started its virulent smear campaign against Nationalist China."
OWEN LATTIMORE—"epitomized in his writing the views which inspired the Administration Far Eastern policy . . . Cleverest, most scholarly and persuasive of all . . . who have championed the Chinese Communists and represented the Soviet Union as democratic, peace-loving and 'progressive.' " Among the instances cited by Utley: in September 1938, Lattimore wrote in Pacific Affairs that the Moscow purge trials had shown Soviet citizens talking back to officials and "that sounds to me like democracy." In explanation, Lattimore told the Tydings Committee last year that it had looked as if the Soviet dictatorship was "becoming less rigid."
JOHN DAVIES, JOHN SERVICE and RAYMOND LUDDEN—all members of the U.S. diplomatic service during the early '40's, they strongly influenced Lieut. General Joseph ("Vinegar Joe") Stilwell, who called Chiang Kai-shek a "peanut" and wanted to arm Mao Tse-tung's forces; they were champions of the Chinese Communists, whom they extolled in official reports as dynamic, progressive democrats; bitter enemies of the Nationalist government, which they denounced as feudalistic, benighted and decadent.
JOHN CARTER VINCENT—in 1945 chief of the State Department's Office of Far Eastern Affairs, "a perfect position to exercise enormous influence over our policy in China." Vincent accompanied Vice President Henry Wallace, with Lattimore as a guide, on a trip to Soviet Siberia and
China in the summer of 1944. (He helped draft the directive to General Marshall defining his mission to China.)