ABSTRACT
In March 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy accused Owen Lattimore, foremost American authority on Soviet Asia, of being also Russia’s top secret agent in the United States. Progressives, sometimes even the same ones, who were mistaken about the Soviets viewed events in China rightly. But, far from benefiting them, it only compounded their original sin of having been wrong about Russia. Progressives disagreed over who was most at fault. The Atlantic’s excellent feature “The Pacific War” blamed the Communists initially, asserting that they “had done almost as much as the Japanese to weaken China.” By the end of 1946 most progressives had given up hope that a coalition government could be formed in China. Most also had shed the illusion that Chinese Communists were only reformers. Progressives wanted the United States to recognize Red China, allow its admission to the UN, and stop supplying the Nationalists on Formosa.
