Abstract

The chapter tells the backstory of US–China relations coming out of World War II and through the Chinese Civil War. It combines diplomatic, intelligence, and intellectual history to reconstruct the early Cold War conditions of possibility for the covert initiative that ultimately put Jack Downey on a plane into Manchuria. It begins with a jarring experience that Americans came to describe as “The Loss of China.” The chapter recounts the high point of signing an alliance days after Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the relationship to a nadir of mutual disillusionment as Chiang Kai-shek's demoralized National Army was challenged by Mao Zedong's disciplined People's Liberation Army. After the failure of a year-long mediation by George Marshall, Mao took the mainland, Chiang fled to Taiwan, and the Third Force regrouped in Hong Kong.

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