Service John S., Esherick Joseph W. Lost Chance in China: The World War II Despatches of John S. Service

Random House, 1974. — 464 p.An eyewitness account of how the United States started on its disastrous course in the Far East, by a State Department "old China hand. John Service and other diplomats predicted that the corrupt and incompetent Chiang Kai-shek would lose to Mao Tse-tung in the civil war after WWII. The diplomatic dispatches of Mr. Service in this book are an excellent review of the convoluted dealings between Chiang, Mao and US policy makers. The editor of the book, Joseph Esherick, adds excellent background notes to the dispatches. When the anticommunist hysteria came along Mr. Service and the other diplomats became scapegoats for McCarthy and his band of demagogues. The fact that their recommendations had no influence on US policy did not deter the crusade to blame someone for the "loss of China". If their ideas had helped form a realistic policy the outcome of our relationship with China might have been quite different. Of course Service would say there was a chance. Born in China to an American missionary family and later a known and active figure both in the high political circle in Chongqing and Yenan, he was among one of those prophetic and pragmatic enough China Hands proposing to the US Government to change its China Policy and pay close attention to the emergence of the CCP.