China Hands
After the sudden surrender of Japan in 1945 and the onset of the Cold War, the Communists and the Nationalists locked in a Civil War. The China Hand view was propounded by Harvard professor John Fairbank in his "The United States and China" (1948) and in the bestselling book "Thunder Out of China", published in 1946 by Theodore White and Annalee Jacobee. They hoped that American policy could encourage Chinese nationalism and prevent alignment with Soviet communism. Patrick Hurley testified to Congress that the China Hands had subverted his mission and General Albert Wedemeyer blamed the State Department for failing to act. When the Chinese Communists declared victory in 1949, an immediate outcry by anti-communists asked "Who lost China?" John T. Flynn, Louis F. Budenz, Freda Utley, none of whom had any professional expertise in Chinese history or politics, were among the many who charged that China Hands had undermined Chiang Kai-shek, misled the American public and lost China either through naive ignorance of the true nature of Marxism or even allegiance to the Soviet Union. John Service, they pointed out, had admitted that before he went to Yan'an he had not read the basic texts of Marxism, and the other China Hands were no better informed. Senator Joe McCarthy expanded these accusations to include Owen Lattimore, who had served as personal adviser to Chiang at the beginning of the war. These charges were developed in a series of congressional hearings, including those into the Institute of Pacific Relations. Foreign Service Officers O. Edmund Clubb, John Paton Davies, Jr., John S. Service, and John Carter Vincent were forced out of the Foreign Service, while journalists such as Edgar Snow and Theodore White could not continue their careers in magazine journalism. Career trajectories slowed down for the remaining FSO China Hands, but a few eventually attained ambassadorships: James K. Penfield (Iceland), Philip Sprouse (Cambodia), and Fulton Freeman (Colombia and Mexico)