Excerpt from "Our First Line of Defense"

Originally published in Plain Talk magazine, September 1949

"The White Paper is a denial of the existence of a will to save Asia. The White Paper is at best a testimonial to spinelessness and a confession of guilty conduct in the past.…"

The vast Chinese empire existed in the Far East for centuries. By the early 1890s, however, a more modern, European type of world encroached upon ancient China. By 1911, a revolution had ended the empire, but only economic and political instability resulted. As a consequence, civil war broke out in the 1930s. The Kuomintang, or Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) had ruled parts of China since the 1920s. The United States had recognized the Nationalist government since 1928. They were challenged by Mao Zedong (1893–1976) and his communist revolutionary forces. Mao,...