Book Description

ON July 14, 1951 an American business man sat down to write a letter to a friend. It was a letter that took some thirty days, and ran to thirty-seven typewritten pages. In these pages, Robert H. W. Welch, Jr., set forth brilliantly and convincingly a straightforward clarification of some important recent history in Asia. At the same time he poured into paragraph after paragraph his indignation at the stupidity and suspicions of treason revealed by this history, and his alarm at the continuing course of events. This book is his letter, now published only after his friends had distributed several thousand mimeographed copies. Robert H. W. Welch, Jr., gives here the historical background of events which culminated in the dismissal of General MacArthur. Using on the public information available to him, he goes back twenty-five years to the first Communist uprising in China, Step by step he traces the blunders, betrayals, and deceptions which formed the United States foreign policy, the policy which led to sweeping Communist victories in China. As a concise, thorough summary of these events this book is invaluable. The final part of the book is a short biographical sketch of Chiang Kai-Shek (1887-1975), leader of the Republic of China between 1928-1975, first in mainland China until 1949 and then in Taiwan until his death. “Your treatise is just the kind of concise exposition of a whole picture which, as a publisher, I was constantly seeking and so seldom found. It presents for the first time in brief compass, with convincing honesty, crucial and appalling facts of a foreign policy that has led from one Communist victory to another; a foreign policy that, in spite of all revelations of stupidities and betrayals, has not been corrected and is still heading in the same direction. If your small book is read widely enough it can have far-reaching results.”—W. T. COUCH, Former Director, University of Chicago Press