Agents of Subversion. The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA’s Covert War in China

Twenty years ago, I wrote a review article for this journal discussing five books dealing with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in China and Tibet. While none of those books dealt with John (Jack) Downey and his fellow CIA officer and captive Richard Fecteau, I included their stories to the extent that I could, given the available resources at the time. Now, finally, we have a fuller account of the destinies of these men. While the title of this book promises to tell us “the fate of John Downey,” which the author John Delury does eventually, the book is really about the ColdWar between the US and China from 1949 until 1972 which made possible an American war against China: economically, politically and militarily, albeit covertly. One consequence of that war was the capture of several officers of the CIA who ended up in Chinese prisons. Delury begins by introducing readers to an overview of US policy towards China and the struggles the American government went through in its search for a post-World War II foreign policy. He delves into the debate between those urging the US towards a “hawkish imperial internationalism” and those who warned against imperial over-reach. Concerning the latter, he quotes extensively from the political philosophers George Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, Hannah Arendt, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Delury also relates the story of the rift in the academic community of China Studies induced by these political machinations as represented by the opposing views of John K. Fairbank at Harvard and David Nelson Rowe at Yale. As we know, the hardliners won this debate largely due to fear, insecurity (ironically enough), the commercial interests of the military-industrial complex, and intoxication with imperial power. They supported the militarization of US foreign policy and the creation of a CIA with a robust covert operations role beyond its original mandate of intelligence collecting. “Operations tails are now starting to wag the intelligence dog,” as Delury puts it (168). Delury does not get to China itself until about a third of the way through the text but by that time readers have been well prepared by an excellent short synopsis of this complex history in its broader historical context allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of the events outlined in the rest of the book. The “loss of China,” i.e., the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in China’s Civil War (1945-1949) and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), was a huge blow to American policy makers and the public. For half a century China had been presented as a unique US project to nurture, Christianize, tutor, and modernize; a “special relationship.” This was predominately an American myth, but strongly and widely held. Delury quotes the senior British diplomat in China in 1950: