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Book Reviews / Journal of Chinese Military History 2 (2013) 191-203 197 Book Reviews / Journal of Chinese Military History 2 (2013) 191-203 197 Honorable Survivor: Mao’s China, McCarthy’s America, and the Persecution of John S. Service. Lynne Joiner. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009. Pp. 450. $37.95. ISBN: 978- 159114236. Honorable Survivor, by journalist Lynne Joiner, is the latest contribution to the study of the injustice done to America’s China Hands under McCarthyism. It also sheds light on U.S.-China relations during World War II and the Cold War, as well as the mechanism of U.S. foreign policy. The key subject of Joiner’s book, John S. Service, was a prominent figure of the China Hands, a convenient but loosely designated label for a group of American diplomats, jour- nalists, and scholars stationed in China during World War II. Joiner argues that Service was one of the best and brightest Foreign Service officers in China during the war. The son of YMCA missionaries, Service was born and raised in China. He spoke Chinese fluently and also had a deep understanding of Chinese culture and politics. After he joined the Foreign Service, Service quickly distinguished himself as a young, able officer due to his intimate knowledge of China and his insightful analysis of China’s reality. China’s strategic importance to the U.S. was greatly enhanced during World War II. And Chiang Kai-shek, the head of Nationalist China, was favorably regarded by many Americans as the heroic leader of a loyal ally that deserved America’s support. However, Service and others became increasingly disillusioned with Chiang’s regime. In his field reports, Service repeatedly pointed out that regardless of what the U.S. government wanted to hear, Chiang Kai-shek headed a corrupt and dictatorial regime which lacked support among the Chinese people. Service was particularly frustrated by Chiang’s stubborn refusal to commit his best troops to fighting against Japan. Instead, Chiang was determined to preserve his troops and American military supplies for a later showdown with the Chinese Communists. There- fore, Service asked “whether it is to China’s advantage or to America’s own interests, for the United States to give the [Nationalist] government large quantities of military supplies which . .are not likely to be used effectively against Japan but will be available for civil war to enforce ‘unity’ in the country by military force” (38). Service’s opinion was shared by other disenchanted China Hands as well as by General Joseph Stilwell, who found it impossible to function as Chiang’s Chief of Staff, because Chiang denied him real authority over coordinating China’s troops. In fact, the clash between Stilwell and Chiang eventually ended with the recall of the former by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Meanwhile, Service, together with others, tried to establish direct contact with Mao Zedong’s Communist force, both for the sake of war and for the purpose of pressur- ing Chiang to change his policy. The Dixie Mission thus materialized when a U.S. observer group visited the Communist headquarters in July 1944. The group was impressed by the efficiency of the Communist government, the high fighting spirit of its troops, the accuracy of its military intelligence, and Mao’s pledge of full cooperation with America against Japan. The Dixie Mission thus reinforced the rationale of not supporting Chiang unconditionally. Nevertheless, the possibility of cooperating with Mao quickly died when Roosevelt appointed Patrick Hurley as his personal emissary and later, ambassador to China. Hurley, whose ignorance of China soon made him an unconditional supporter of Chiang, deemed © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2014 DOI: 10.1163/22127453-12341253 198 Book Reviews / Journal of Chinese Military History 2 (2013) 191-203 Service and others as communist sympathizers trying to sabotage his ill-conceived efforts to bring the two Chinese rivals together into a coalition government. He made sure that their reports were dismissed. When Service returned to the U.S. in 1945 to brief his superiors, he shared his opinion on China with anyone who would listen, including Phillip Jaffe from the journal Amerasia. Because of his association with Amerasia, Service was arrested on the ground that he leaked confidential information to Jaffe, who was already under FBI surveil- lance as a suspected communist sympathizer. Although Service was not indicted by the grand jury, the infamous Amerasia case was only the beginning of his nightmare. Here Joiner does an excellent job of showing how the fate of Service was inseparably intertwined with the larger historical context. China became a Communist country and leaned toward the Soviet Union. Soviet spies were caught stealing top secrets in Canada and America. The Korean War broke out, and Mao’s soldiers fought America to a standstill. Joseph McCarthy and the China Lobby demanded to find out “who lost China.” Moreover, the anti-Communism issue quickly became a bipartisan political battlefield. Under those circumstances Service was targeted as a chief villain, who willingly helped to sabotage Chiang’s regime and betrayed the national interests of the United States. Even though he underwent and passed eight loyalty examinations between 1945 and 1950, Service was still fired in 1951, the first China Hand to be fired because of McCarthyism. Service refused to give up and he soldiered on to restore his reputation. In 1957, the Supreme Court finally ruled to clear his name, and he was reinstated into the Foreign Serv- ice. A final historical irony happened when Richard Nixon announced that he would visit China in 1972. Service suddenly became a hero, as people started to ask all sorts of “what ifs” had his World War II China reports been heeded by Washington. Despite this final vindica- tion, however, Service’s career had already been ruined. He was assigned to a non-signifi- cant post in Liverpool after 1957, and he reluctantly retired in 1963. The charge that he was a communist dope haunted him until his death in 1999. While Joiner’s detailed analysis of Service’s ordeal clearly reveals that excessive egotism, biased misconception, and politically motivated maneuvering could cause great harm to individuals and U.S. foreign policy, she does not present Service as completely innocent of the charges against him. Joiner argues that it is hard to understand why Service “could be so recklessly indiscreet” when talking to people like Phillip Jaffe, and speculates “he may have indeed become too zealous in promoting his policy views” (147). Even Service himself admitted that he was so deeply involved in the China maze that “it had probably compro- mised my impartiality,” and in hindsight he “was certainly being used” by the Communists and their sympathizers (147, 321). This sober conclusion, of course, should not be used to deny that great injustice had been done to Service and others under McCarthyism. But it does raise other important ques- tions. Why did Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and George Marshall, despite their own doubts about Chiang’s regime, refuse to reevaluate America’s China policy? Should Service’s “reck- less indiscretion,” for the purpose of promoting his own policy, be regarded as unethical? How should historians evaluate the perceptional gap between the China Hands and their superiors in Washington regarding the correct policy toward China? How should Foreign .
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