The Amerasia Affair, China, and Postwar Anti-Communist Fervor collection uncovers one of the great spy cases in the postwar era, which concluded in the growing atmosphere of McCarythism where many saw the affair as an indication of Communist espionage on the government.
The case was the first public drama featuring charges that American citizens had spied for the Communists. The affair began with an article printed in the magazine Amerasia in January 26, 1945 which was almost identical to the report Kenneth Wells, of the Office of Strategic Services, wrote on Thailand. This discovery led to FBI illegal seizures of documents, and investigations into reporters and State Department employees, resulting in arrests that anti-climatically resulted in fines. The documents in the collection shed light on the debate over who "lost" China, Soviet espionage, McCarythism, and the loyalty program – and also the bureaucratic intricacies of anti-communism in Washington.
Of interest to scholars in American Studies, History, Economics, Foreign Affairs, Chinese Studies, legal studies. http://go.utlib.ca/cat/12243133