In this wry and insightful memoir, distinguished American diplomat John Paton Davies, Jr. describes his upbringing and wartime adventures in Asia, encounters with key twentieth-century figures from Mahatma Gandhi to Joseph Stalin, and how he carried on after his Foreign Service career was cut short by McCarthyism.

China Hand
An Autobiography

John Paton Davies, Jr. Foreword by Todd S. Purdum. Epilogue by Bruce Cumings

2012 | 376 pages | Cloth $34.95
Biography | Asian Studies
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Table of Contents

Foreword
—Todd S. Purdum

PART I. LEAVING AND RETURNING
i The Firing
ii From China to America
iii My Itinerant Education
iv Hankow, the Far East Desk, and Pearl Harbor

PART II. ''THIS ASSIGNMENT IS NOT MADE AT YOUR REQUEST NOR FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE''
v To Asia with Stilwell
vi A Moment with Mr. Gandhi
vii Nehru and ''The Problem''
viii An American in India
ix Willkie, Washington, and Vinegar Joe
x Among the Naga Headhunters

PART III. PUBLIC AND PERSONAL DIPLOMACY
xi The Politics of War
xii Cairo: With Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang
xiii The Resurrection of Britain's Empire in Asia May Be Said to Lie Outside the Scope of Our Mission
xiv Patricia's Passage to India; A Soong Family Fracas

PART IV. THE QUESTION OF CHINA
xv Stilwell's Wars
xvi The Generalissimo Versus the General
xvii Meeting Mao
xviii Communists Versus Nationalists Versus Hurley

PART V. MOSCOW NIGHTS AND DAYS
xix Posted to Moscow
xx Hurley's Opening Salvo
xxi Postwar Moscow

PART VI. AT WAR AT HOME
xxii Returning to America, and the China Lobby
xxiii Assigned to Kennan's Policy Planning Staff
xxiv Working with the National Security Council
xxv Revisiting Asia in 1948
xxvi ''The Most Nefarious Campaign of Half-Truths and Untruth in the History of the Republic''

Epilogue
—Bruce Cumings
Index
Acknowledgments

Gallery follows page 240