>> well, i certainly would say that the treasury's program, the health care amp program -- hamp program has been an unmitigated disaster. from the very outset it was just badly conceived. it really was almost the worst possible combination of kind of, um, people coming up with an idea of how to not help people is really how it ended up working. ..

>> i also felt that the experience of my contractor was a real failure of regulation, because it's clear that someone at bank of america was actually in collusion with this lawyer, and in steering him on. that seems to me to be really corrupt. >> unfortunately, again, we don't have a housing policy. and not making excuses for one or the other. i don't know the basis and the background on your equity in your home, but the other side is, is freddie mac subsidizing not necessarily in your case, some borrowers who will not ultimately be able to stay in the home, get him to pay cash into a house where they haven't done the appraisal as you said, they haven't been any verification. that gets back to the other practices. there's a big difference on top

of that between the two, comparing apples and oranges. fannie and freddie arctic government guarantee. they owned the credit risk already. bank of america, the likelihood is him your contractors mortgage is not held by bank of america. it's held by a mortgage back holding those investors have to be considered. the problem is bank of america is a service or who also owns really the largest portfolio of second liens and home equity lines, and so there's risk to them on it depending on what they do on the first mortgage. you're right that this is a problematic situation. and the government into the -- isn't interested in the with it. before you can have bank of america treat a borrowers well, they need to be unconflicted in the relationship between the second liens build on their balance sheet and the first liens they service for people like your contractor.

>> thanks very much for writing the book. i have a couple of questions. right now it looks like fannie and freddie might be profitable by the end of 2012, maybe going into 2013, setting aside the 10% dividend that they might of the treasury. at that point i'm sure there will be pressure to bring them out of conservatorship, but they have patented most of the mortgage business they hold over 40 patents now and they're continuing to get patents. so they patented everything from the mortgage application process all the way to securitization. and they also own a lot of technology and information on everything, single homeowner in the country. i'm not sure those patents should have ever been granted, but i guess i'm asking, do you think they'll ever be put in public domain along with information, technology tracks what you think will happen quite

often going back to business as usual? >> go ahead. [laughter] >> so, there's this great divide right now in washington between those who are afraid if we wait too long to address it, you wait until after the next presidential election. is going to be -- let's put them back out there, let's bring you back in the public markets, everything is okay, we will tighten up regulation around the edge. and then you've got those were saying, let's get rid of them. i actually am agnostic. there is value to the franchises. there's great value in the passport photo, in information that they have. which i think you could use if you could figure out a way to make not government sponsored enterprises, but enterprises that were fully private. i think there's some value in that because there is value in the information. or you can offer to the entire market, open it up.

but the debate right now unfortunately is to have fannie and freddie as fannie and freddie or to have the mortgage banks as the next fannie and freddie? and so, i think really the question is should either of those groups be the mechanism for social policy deliver osha there will be nothing more than mortgage market structure, financial market in the years. and the likelihood is that fannie and freddie at this point are going to come out the other side it seems, not with the same names, not with the same structure, but i think that some of the franchise i would be retained. it's still unclear as to what manner. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, gretchen and josh. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at

booktv@c-span.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> talk about the experience of two americans in china during the mid-20th century. lynn jorde is the author of "honorable survivor: mao's china, mccarthy's america and the persecution of john s. service," and lawrence kaplan is the author of "homer lea: american soldier of fortune." >> we are in for a rare treat. doctor lawrence kaplan's book, american soldier of fortune, tells the story of homer lea, a strong-willed person with wild imagination. despite his physical handicaps, he inserts himself first with the chinese reform movement, the

late dynasty, and there became an advisor. ms. lynne joiner, her book, "honorable survivor," gives us story about john service, and idealistic american foreign service officer, caught in the political intrigues, and later faced character assassination during the mccarthy era. i find it fascinating, a little teaser here, that although lee and service were several decades apart, their respected fate was touched by another historical figure who was the benefactor for leaves a legacy, but a tormentor for service.

read the books and you should find the answer. [laughter] and we have a book signing at the end of the program. ms. joyner is a seasoned journalist with over 25 years experience with countries top news organizations. she wasn't the only american correspondent in china in 1976, when the premier died. her coverage was carried by abc, cbs and nbc. she also covered the historic visit and 79, hong kong's return to china in 1970. she has been a media consultant for numerous organizations. chief among them, shanghai tv which has viewership estimate about 100 million. she's not only an award-winning

journalist, but a producer and a documentary filmmaker. and her jobs have taken her around the world. c. received a ba in english literature from cornell. in the late '70s, she met john service and his wife. after being allowed to the confidential oral history in 78, she resolved to write his book. she has since given talks on cambridgeshire national archives to harvard, just to mention a few. she has received great reviews, and chief among them, the 2010 award for distinguished writing i've the american academy of diplomacy. i think it's a fitting tribute

to lee, as well as to john service. we're going to have each panelist to make a 20 million -- a 20 minute presentation, and after that we hope with time for q&a and followed by books on. and we will start with doctor caplan. dr. lawrence kaplan has been the u.s. missile defense agency historian since 2003. prior to that, he served as a status join with the u.s. army center of military history in washington, d.c.. and as a staff historian as the u.s. army artillery center. he holds ph.d in american history from kansas state, an m.a. in american history from ohio state, and a ba in history

from ohio university. his book, "homer lea: american soldier of fortune," is part of the association of the u.s. army american war your series. is also the editor of the book by a civil war officer, the artillery service in the war of the rebellion, a forthcoming publication due out later this year. he has even talked on this book at the annual association on the u.s. army convention in december, in december under in -- that was also film for c-span booktv. so today is an encore performance for dr. kaplan. >> thank you and good morning ladies and gentlemen. and as soon as we get the screen down i will get my slides up.

well, there ago. just bear with me. it's my pleasure to be with you today and i think you'll know a lot more about my topic, homer lea, about 20 minutes from now then when you walk into. at least i think most of you will. if you're interested in people that helped shape world events, i think you'll find homer lea of particular interest. if you are all a live -- excuse me. if you are a live 100 years ago this week, you would know who homer lea was. he had status equivalent to a sports star or popular figure in an international reputation, and, unfortunately, since his death he's been relatively obscure in american history. so my effort to resurrect his

place by this biography i think is very timely, as he will see. homer lea's career only spanned a short number of years. and his career was divided into two parts. his affiliation with the chinese, as part one, i'm going to talk about first. and in his career as a writer can independent and separate from his affiliation from the chinese and that does help a bit. first about the chinese. the fellow on the far left, kang yu-wei was one of the principal advisers to the emperor of china in the 1890s. and kang yu-wei convinced or helped convince the emperor to institute western reforms. and at that time one of the reforms that instituted in the late 1890s was doing away with print binding. is a great concern, backlash against these reforms, and the

empress launched a palace coup against the emperor and he was placed under virtual house arrest. well, kang yu-wei fled china with a price on his head for his affiliation with the emperor. and he left china in 1898 and 1899 he established a not so secret chinese society called -- to restore the empress decided to garner support to try to get the emperor restored back into power. and originally this society which had members all over the world was raising funds for military operations to restore the emperor to power. well, homer lea whose photo you just saw, homer lea was a five-foot 3'" hunchback and his attending stanford university and he didn't have any expectations for a future, other

than the pursuit of something like a lawyer or economist or some desk job. and 1898 while his colleagues and friends were going off to fight in the spanish-american war, he could only just watch them go off. he was a great advocate and lover of military history. and he had a passion for history in general and military history in particular. so here he is in san francisco, the war is going on with the spanish american war in cuba. and then he gets away and of this association that's got a branch in san francisco, and as you does the spelling of the name, lpa. so homer lea defensive number of chinese and he convinces a number of chinese and have a cisco that is a great military strategist and very knowledgeable. and particularly because he's a

relatively, he tells them of robert e. lee, the great federal general, which he was not. he was not. you have 5'3" hunchback who is real aspiration for military career that he would never be able to accomplish in any american military service because of his disabilities. and the chinese believe he's really got something off. so they embrace them. they taken into the fold, and in 1899 he dropped out of stanford university and he went over to china, a little later, actually it was a year later. when he was going over to china he was expecting to play a large role as a military commander for this army that was being raised from peasants and the like in china to help restore the emperor. and when he got to china they actually did make him a

lieutenant general in this so-called army. but it wasn't a formal army. they were not trained or organized. it's a military force of sorts but is not really a form of military force. so homer lea went over to china. he's thought of highly, gets himself, show you a photo a little later, military looking comment of sorts, and they make him a lieutenant general. this happens to coincide in the summer of 1900 with the boxer rebellion. there's turmoil all of which i'm. there's turmoil with the allied forces there sending military forces to the relief of the indices in taking. homer lea and his group are trying to train and organize a force in china to take action against the emperor. and what's not very well known are documented is the military force was crushed, imperial

forces to crush them before they could really launched the rebellion. but they did of thousands of people that were armed that actually were staging and planning to launch this effort to restore the emperor to carpet the homer lea was drifting around china at this time after the imperial forces crushed the army. and he has the so-called army. so he comes back to america, and at that time he reformulated some plans with pao huang hui and he came up and embarked on a program where instead of going back to china to raise another army, kang yu-wei was turn off about the military approach. he was, at this point is more interested in peaceful reform and waiting for the emperor's to die. she was getting up in years. but homer lea meanwhile, would appeal to a certain branch of this organization and he said look, i will train in america

covertly a military force and then we'll ship these people over to china and we can use them to help restore the emperor. it was unclear if they were going to infiltrate the imperial army, if they're going to join it and become drill masters and the like, that those going to be thousands of people going to be trained in military ways that can work in concert in china to restore the emperor to power. so homer lea at that time, gets himself a real honest to god military uniform and he starts a series of covert train schools across america. it's hard to believe that your covertly training a foreign ministry force in this country but he was very shrewd. he did it under the auspices of setting up military academies on the surface that look like a military academy to train and uplift the chinese in various cities across america. there were more than 20 cities that had 100 or more of these

cadets, if you will, that have military uniforms or by the way, he got these military uniforms, they get surplus u.s. army uniforms, and what they did is they took the buttons off with eagles and put buttons on with dragons. they took the eagles off the hats and put dragons on, and from a distance you think you are looking at u.s. army soldiers. you wouldn't know from a distance. they look like regular soldiers. in for drill instructors, he capped the fourth cavalry regiment and that were veterans to be drill masters. these people were out of the army, and they get paid officers wages in this pao huang hui army. you have is military force in america, it does get investigated, and there are problems that lead to its operations come if you will. but this is what homer lea was doing. the emperor of china and empress

both died in late 1908 and two days of each other actually the opposite speculative poisoned the emperor. after the emperor was going homer lea had no ties to the pao huang hui to restore the empire. in late 1908. up with doctor yung wing, the second person over here who was a very esteemed scholar, the first you graduate from china in america, and believe in reform. and they put together a conspiracy called the red dragon conspiracy what homer lea was going to lead a military venture on behalf of yung wing and some americans they're going to bring into this conspiracy and takeover the provinces in southern china, carbon out of the empire and start the own republic. well, that's pretty audacious. well, homer lea became an author as i said and one of his books are going to talk about is called the power of ignorance which got him worldwide acclaim.

and talked about american defenses and his vulnerability to the japanese in particular. a renowned revolutionary in its own right, wanted to topple them, not just reform from within, he was a friend or an associate i should say of yung wing, and doctor sun yat-sen in 1910 decided to hire homer lea to be his military adviser, if you will. he was bring in the red dragon conspiracy into this revolutionary movement. so, homer lea ended up becoming doctor sun yat-sen's closest foreign advisor, and went sun yat-sen's revolution did occur it was 100 years ago this year in october 1911, homer lea went with him to china, expecting to be the chief of staff of the chinese army. somebody with no drink, no formal military training. he had a great reputation. so now let's just advance you and homer lea, there's some sensational training headlines

if you will just give you an idea that he was very well known at this time he received a lot of press during his life. there he is right coming back in china on the left. those other two photos, the middle and the right were taking in 1904 and in a chinese outfit. there's a drill instructor on the right. there's some of the trainees in california, chinese troops training. there's a headline that was not supposed to be appearing showing the train. they were supposed to be doing this below the radar screen. there's homer lea when he was in shanghai in 1911. he did believe he is going to head the chinese army. the u.s. government for a stop to the and told him it was against the law, he would face prosecution so he backed out of that. he died in 1912 from a stroke he

suffered in china, never recovered. so the three books i've talked about very briefly, the first one was a novel called the vermillion pencil. the second book called "the power of ignorance," the third book about the faces of the empire called a day of the sax saxon. the first book was made into a film in 1922. the second book at introductions by two former military leaders. that made a big impression in washington. in world war ii general macarthur and her staff were well versed with the valor of ignorance which talk about defending the philippines and defending california. so american officers were well-versed in his come especially out in the philippines. the japanese translator. clare boothe luce was her interest in homer lea and wrote

introductions to rerelease the two books to elevate him to the status of the forgotten profit. third book he wrote on british former commander of the british army, lord roberts asked lea, could he write a book like "the valor of ignorance" that they did about american defense? and he did. here's this other book, the germans translated it. kaiser wilhelm ready. they thought it was interesting. lea died in 1912. he was cremated and his last wishes were to be buried in china. didn't happen. his wife kept his ashes. she died in 1934 and then when the family donated a few papers he had, they made it a condition to try to get the ashes interred to china. the mainland was out of the question. and luckily chang kai-shek said sure, come on over. they had a nice military ceremony.

his ashes are currently interred in taiwan, and the taiwanese government at the time said when the two chinas are reunited, the plans are to move homer lea's ashes to the mainland and have been interred. so that's my quick overview of homer lea. and if you're interested in people that do shape world events i think you'll find it a fascinating character. he was fascinating when he was alive, and the shooting the 100 year anniversary of the republican revolution, there may be some more attention paid to him and his place in history. so thank you. [applause]

>> wait a second, we have a problem. here we go. i would like the lights up for right now. don't worry about what's on the screen, gentlemen, with the cameras come if you don't mind. i want to talk to you for a moment before we get into this slide, and i have to start by saying thank you for coming. when you're a writer you're in a cave writing. and you go, oh, my god. i get to come out of the cave and see people and i really appreciated. i'm going to whip through faster than normal because the last time i played it was in england at cambridge university, and they are more long winded so they have to do it, and i have more time so i will do that. but i can't begin without saying to dr. kaplan, i find it interesting that homer lea had aspirations of becoming the commander of the chinese army, and the man who jack service was

assigned to as a political advisor, general vinegar joe stilwell, washington cooked up this idea that he should become the commander of all allied forces, including the chinese forces of the nationalists and the communists in 1944, and that their humility -- humiliating message was delivered by john service because he spoke fluent chinese and had been born and raised there. so, there's a very good reason for us time these stories together, i think. and i have to start by just telling you that jack service and i were friends. and here's proof of it. this is a 1980 on the wall in beijing, the great wall. but we met first at stanford university in 1976 when i came back from doing my first film in

china -- keep the lights up even though -- i don't need to see myself. but anyway, we met at a conference in stanford on the hot topic, who should america recognize red china? we don't remember at that time we didn't but there was a bamboo curtain for 27 years from the end of the war. now -- can you see me? all right. it's the cameras i'm worrying about. unit, tv gets in my head and gets out of the way. very quickly. but anyway, we were friends. his wife came up during this coffee break because she liked my work on tv. i anchored at cbs in san francisco and its in my documentary. then she introduced me to her husband, who i had studied a little bit about in college and my job drop because he's really an important figure in american history. and out of that first meeting we

developed a professional relationship, and then a personal relationship, and as rose said, they let me read their oral histories when they were still under wraps to the public. and i vowed i would someday do this, this book that i finally done. but it is my fate to have done this book because in 1978, we were together when the announcement was made of formal diplomatic relations between u.s. and china. and jack service bought a bottle of champagne and we toasted the people in the friendship of the u.s. and chinese people, and that's way for started telling me about his experiences, talking with mao zedong in the case of the guerrilla headquarters behind japanese in the lines, and how mao had said to him he wanted a good relationship with the u.s., and didn't want a civil war, and water the u.s. businessmen to help rebuild china after the war. and he said, that he said to

mao, you know, american businessmen will be very leery of you communists him these capitalistic he said, well, we thought about changing our name. [laughter] but we thought once they got to know us. so he was sending reports back to washington about this but however he is way off in the boondocks, and mao urged him to go back on the flight that came every two weeks and make sure that message got to the u.s. and he said it was a mistake him he never did it. and instead he sent it by code and it sat and gathered dust on the desk for a couple of months, and momentous things change. i will get into in a moment. but what i want to say to you, even though he was my friend, i'm a trained investigative reporter. it took me four years to get access to his fbi and state department security files under the freedom of information act. and i learned things that jack service never knew, and i

learned things that jack service chose to forget. and one of the most important things i learned is how and why he had become a scapegoat for a convergence of international and domestic forces. and i would just tick off a couple of them and i promise we'll get into the show until with the slide. by some of the things that were coming together at the same time as his cataclysmic moment in history where the rivalries and bitter ms. -- bitterness between the democrats and republicans in america, the soviet union which had been our wartime ally with all of a sudden becoming our new enemy as their tanks rolling across eastern europe at the end of the war in europe why the war in asia was still going on and everybody expected it would go on for at least another year. he also became the scapegoat for a nasty rivalry inside the belt way between hoover's fbi and the

justice department. in between influence peddlers inside washington and washington insider to want to protect their own rear end. now, i don't think any of this sound relevant to today, do you? [laughter] but before we get i would also tell you, it's also a love story involving john service and his loyal wife, and a beautiful chinese actress with whom he had a brief affair during the war. and during the 50s when he became mccarthy's first victim, a nationalist secret police and their intelligence agencies spread false stories inside the corridors of power inside washington that he had fathered an illegitimate child by his soviet spy lover during the work and even though at that time the soviets were our allies. so i'm going to go ahead and ask you to go to the slides and a,

and we will see where it all began, which is -- his parents started the ymca in far southwest china, and that's where he was born and raised i is ymca missionary parents. and this is how you got to do it was three months of the river and in 250 miles rattling along in a sedan chair to get the. and the family had to be very self-reliant. there were three boys and his father who learn to speak chinese. a lot of the chinese, a lot of them, foreigners in china never learned to speak chinese. i don't know if homer did. he did, okay. but is the only way you could really get out of the saran wrap that includes you in the special enclaves of foreigners. and jack spent most of his life -- he was homeschooled and then he went to a high school in shanghai and then went to oberlin and met caroline scholz. he told her about the

fascinating international community of shanghai, this international court, and that he was going into the foreign service and she agreed to marry him and went across the ocean by herself. in 1933, and his first post was in a squalid backwater. she hated it. shared real culture shock but eventually they went to beijing. he studied informal chinese for three years and then he was posted to shanghai in time for the japanese bombing of shanghai, and by 1940, he helped supervise the evacuation of all american dependence. and he volunteered to go to the new wartime capital, which was the third time the nationalists have had to move away from the japanese aggression of into the boondocks of the province behind these big torches, you may have heard of them, gorgeous.

they have streets that are like stepladder streets, they call the bladder street. but even though the bombs are falling every day from japanese attacks, he had to formally present his credentials and he had to borrow the hat from british diplomat and stuff it with newspaper to make it fit. there was a real question of how to fight the war in china. air war, which would be fewer people would be hurt, quicker, quicker. or ground troops? with that a few discussions about air versus ground. but this is how difficult it was to refuel a plane and why it was so critical that the precious cargo that was flown over the himalayan's mountains which are 29,000 feet and were called the hump, who got the supplies. wasn't for the ground forces or was it four the era forces, or the ground forces of chanel.

they have to siphon out of these big drums into five gallons, climb the ladder and pour them through a funnel into the wings as the airplane. and the americans were on that hump route would get very upset when they would see a lot of the supplies on the black market in china and know that many of their compatriots and companions had died when there was the icing on the wings and they crashed. by december of 43, jack had went -- in 1940 before the u.s. entered the war after pearl harbor, but in 1943, december there's a big powwow in cairo and is the first and only time fdr met sean kai-shek who he had made out as being a great democrat and would be the fourth pillar of democracy in the postwar world. as great a president as roosevelt was, i as an investigative reporter have found out some things that i wish we could go back in shape

and one of them, he never let facts get in the way of good story when it came to this idea of a four pillars, britain, russia, china and the u.s. it didn't quite work out that way, but his vision of the united nations did work out, and as you know, yesterday, two weeks to a comedy decided to install and no-fly zone to help the people who are about to die. we won't go there now. anyway, he was very upset with chiang kai-shek who was hoarding -- service said in reports you've been hoarding supplies to fight his rivals, the congress, rather than to commit to stilwell's counteroffensive against the japanese. so roosevelt sent his pistachio and fellow on the right -- mustachioed fell on the right whose name is patrick early. patrick earley had been hoover's secretary of war. he had never fought a battle in his life. but homer lea you a lot more about military defense than pat

heard the. but he went to try to convince china to hijack. the at the same time, john service for two years have been pushing to say look, we are all these rumors of what's going on behind enemy lines in guerrilla territory controlled by the chinese commies and we don't know how to edit. it sounds good that they're putting up an active fight against the japanese, unlike a nationalist. we got to try and get american observers in their to find it if it through to. and so, finally again, china can check didn't like john service because he was the messenger and he was the instigator of this thing called the dixie mission that went to the other china.

now in 1978 when i was sipping champagne and john service is tiny about his talks with mao, i'm going, how many americans know that we had relations with the chinese communists during world war ii? very few. because until nixon's historic handshake with mao 27 years later, no one on either side talked about it at all. so jack went, he was the only diplomat with the military observers and david bear was in charge of it. he was ostensibly the government side of this thing. and they had talks with mao. there is a young mao, i don't have a pointer but he is on the far right and across the table with a smile is john service. and they had briefings by guerrilla commanders were coming in because there's going to be a big powwow. and mao was spreading the word that we will cooperate with the americans, and the reason the americans were interested in it

and why the u.s. army sent jack was because they were in the area of china controlled occupied by japanese forces, whereas the nationalists have had to retreat to the southwest of the country and were nowhere near where the main forces were. it turns out that not only were they there to assure them and find out if you're strong enough and how effective they were, and jack was there to understand how they were able to have such strong morale and becomes organized when in other parts of china carved up between warlords and japanese occupation forces and puppet forces in the nationalists, the inflation was horrible, the corruption was high, and here there was this vibrant society and he wrote about it and he predicted that if the nationalists did not go as far as economies had in moderate land reform and economic reforms and giving people participation in a voice

in the own government, at the chinese kindness would become dominant player in china, and that the u.s. needed to try to avert the coming civil war so that everyone could effectively fight against it, the japanese. and these are military members of the american group that included secret agent from the os as, office of strategic studies, and i've got to start to go a lot faster because i, too, much to try to turn. but unbeknownst to anybody in america and the files weren't open into the '90s, the oss had a secret plan to work with the communist to sabotage japanese operations in china. they had plans to outfit a force of 25,000 guerrillas and give them guns and ammunition, and radio so they could set up networks. and we've done a few other things like that in other parts of the world, afghanistan and

pakistan, and things like that. it keeps happening over and over again. john service was told by mao we first arrived i want you to look around and we will talk. we both want to talk but let's wait a while. so wasn't until a month later that they went and had these conversations. but he was told he could talk to anyone else you wanted to answer his question. the americans sent men out on missions with the communists behind japanese lines, all the way to near beijing. and they came back and reported about, yeah, this is for real, these folks are organized. meanwhile, during all this time, john service had met mao chat was a famous actors and their friendship blossom. they met on a public bus. it blossomed into a romance. you wrote to his wife and said i want a divorce, i have fallen in love. but ambassador said don't be a damn fool. live with her if you must enable you really agree.

you can't marry a foreign woman. meanwhile, early he was there to try to help still will get his job got it recall because he played chiang kai-shek. he goes off to talk to the chinese communist because he's going to forge a political settlement for a coalition government. and he likens the dispute between the republic between the chinese nationalism and chinese communists to what happened in his home state of oklahoma. he's a lawyer and he says, it's just like the democrats and republicans, except the out of power republicans here, the communists, they have guns. so, for many months he tries to forge this, but he doesn't understand the politics. he didn't even understand the culture. he called transfix his wife madam chair not knowing that the last name comes first so it should have been madame.

so i think you can see in the eyes they are toasting and here's his master over on the side, but there was no chance for any kind of reproach because the japanese nationals were not allowed to give the communist any real power in a power-sharing coalition government. and jack service was pragmatic. he said he just want it so that there was this fig leaf if you are so we could deal with both groups openly for america's best interest to preserve the effort against the japanese in the postwar world, no matter who won. this happen in august of 45, and by then jack service was headline news. this is a composite of newspapers through a number of decades. jack service was front-line headlines, because in 1945 he came back, he was recalled from china to talk about his talks

with mao, and i have eight minutes left. speed it up. and lo and behold, he was assigned to give background briefings to different government agencies doing work in china and trying to fight the japanese, and to journalists. he was urged by his higher ups at state department and by roosevelt's right and mine on china in the white house. and so he was invited to talk to this magazine photographer, and he came back a man with a mission. he felt that the civil war was going to break out if we couldn't be the brokers to bring about some kind of way we deal with both of them. and he lent this magazine editor, some of his reports. and they were not about a military situation, but about how mao was thinking about and what was going on and how they had been able to make their

peasant revolution begin. and unbeknownst to him, the magazine editor was under surveillance by the fbi which it planted an illegal microphone in the room. and it trapped jack service into a web of suspicion that lasted all have his life -- all of his life. hoover got upset with it. they rounded up six suspects, spies. even the new your times headline, fbi seizes spies, turn the state department, secrets stolen. well, it ended up instead of it being an espionage case, it turned into a stolen government documents, some leaked stuff. in this age of wikileaks it doesn't sound so shocking, but back then it was hugely shocking, and the idea that there were soviet spies was a whole new concept because of the worsening situation in europe. turns out that higher ups try to

help jack and said you need a lawyer come and they called on the guide named tommy the cork corcoran. many of you from this area may know him. tommy the cork's interest in helping jack was his interest in covering the rear ends of some people at the white house and the state department and justice department. goodall j. edgar hoover had wiretapped tommy the cork so because the truman and mr. schwab very nervous about the old new dealers. so, it started in 45, and there were claims of coverups but it was always, jack was always able to prove that he was assigned on a vote, they didn't press charges against him. he was sent to tokyo to be on macarthur's staff. this is not what you do with someone who is not very confident or may not be something illegal. hoover didn't like that.

at all. and he said that the case against the six was airtight unless they had to prove intent. excuse me, you always have to prove intent if you're going to find someone guilty. and he didn't give up on it. and lo and behold, by 1950, after the soviets had detonated a atomic bomb and shock the world and we found there were atomic spies, he gave a lot of information, leaked information to mccarthy, who leaked it to the present started this spies and communist agents in the state department. and he gave a speech at many of you may have heard of in wheeling, west virginia, in february of 1950. and he said he had the names of 250 card-carrying communists in the state department. he only named for people, and one of them he singled out was

john service. this is what he said about them. service sent official reports back to the state department urging that we torpedo our ally chiang kai-shek and that communism is the only hope of china. later, this man john service, and please remember that name, ladies and gentlemen, was picked up by the fbi for turning over to the communists secret information. strangely however he was never prosecuted. today ladies and gentlemen, this man is on his way to represent the state department and calcutta by far away the most important post in the far east. john service and his family at that moment in time were on a freighter on the way to the new post in india. and on the way to japan, they are at dinner with the captain on the freighter one night in the radioman comes in and says, is your name john service? he said yeah.

he said, you better come up to the radioman. there some senator talking about you. that's how he found out what was going on through this scratchy shortwave radio. and from the ship when they landed, when they land in oklahoma, he got a cable from the state department's and come back to consultation, decide what to do with the family. they can proceed to any or they can return with you. if they proceed, they would be on travel expense of the government if they came back they decided having would go on and hopefully he could clear this up in a couple of weeks. maybe he could fly to india and be on the dock a month later when the family got there. but his wife wrote a letter to her parents, and i just want to quote a little bit and honest, i'm almost done. they should be the final 484 jacks bitter enemies, and everything should be at last cleared up and the insinuations and the lies and the cruel

persecution and the terrible thing of accusing a man of something he did not do and never giving him a chance to defend himself should be over. she wrote her parents. we have had five years of it, and that is enough and too much. and all because he and others had the courage to report the truth from china. she continued, if only we were still in washington all of this should have been cleared up then. here we sit in the pacific ocean able to do absolutely nothing, top between the sea and the sky. so, off jack goes. he gets caught up in this horrible investigation by the senate committee. another round of loyalty investigations by the state department, and he gets cleared i all of them. his family is left in limbo for more than a year in india. and then the loyalty review board takes a look at his case, and under freedom of information

act, i got access to those transcripts, and some of them are in the book, "honorable survivor: mao's china, mccarthy's america and the persecution of john s. service" in which it is clearly indicated that his alleged affair with a soviet spy is the real reason why they're going to order him, order secretary acheson to fire him and not the reasons that they give. but he fought all the way to the supreme court. he was kicked out. he couldn't get a job. they wouldn't convert his injured. they were afraid he might commit suicide. and, finally, the private effort -- the owner of a private company gave him a job and he ended up inventing a better steam trap. but finally, seven years later he won in the supreme court. he got his job back, but the anti-communist politician, jihad for hoover -- j. edgar hoover neutralize his career. and eventually though, he left,

took early retirement, i found it was a secret memo in his personnel file saying that because of this interesting incident with the editor back in 45 whenever he was up for promotion, it should be taken into account, even though we never found them disloyal, but when mao, when nixon decided it would be better for the united states interest of better relations with the chinese as a counterweight to the soviet union, the chinese invited john service back before nixon as a signal they wanted better relations with the u.s. and so after the nixon handshake, john service was again considered a major political specialist on chinese affairs, and he was given many, many honors, and honorary degrees. here he's in his rope and next to him is his wife caroline. and next to her is the actors drank a. this took place in california.

and if you want to know how it ended like that, i'm afraid you're going to have to read the book. [laughter] and i would also like to just let you know that you can find a lot of these pictures on my webpage, audible survivor.com, and even these pictures from modern china i went there and they're selling the glorious past and what ever the chinese commies are interested in better relations with the u.s., they will talk about the great old spirit days. and now you can go there, and with his new socialist economy with chinese characters, you can read old world war ii, his army uniforms and put your kids in front of an idealistic picture of mao. and so i thank you for your attention, and i am delighted to be here, and hope that you go to the webpage and take a look at some of these of the photographs that i haven't had a chance to show you.

there some chapters from the book there and i would love it if you want to buy the book. [applause] >> now i think we will take questions from the audience. please raise your hand, and then the volunteer will hand you the mic. right there, thank you. >> i had a question. [inaudible] >> well, he was an avid reader but his book was not fiction but he was an avid reader and the red a lot of science fiction. and he did read fiction, but i would say this, it just me with american strategic policy in

late 19, early '20s century, there was a naval officer he was our first real strategic thinker. he wrote a book in the 1890s. that's great. its focus on the navy and to see. homer lea, his 1909, "the valor of ignorance" was the very first great strategic treatise written in america. he talked a lot about land warfare. so even though he wasn't a real army officer, he had his picture and his general uniform in the front of this book and people thought it was written especially because it had the introductions by these two former american generals. it became like the bible of army officers in america. i don't know if that answers your question exactly, but he was a pioneer, if you will, rather than piggybacking. and his work was considered the first of the series works talking about a war between america and china. excuse me, america and japan.

so when clare boothe luce was fascinated and resurrected him, there were other people that wrote fictional pieces, articles and the like about fictional wars in that period. but homer lea wasn't talking about fiction. he was talking about reality. and that's a little different. by the way, his books have been digitized and they are on the internet if you're interested in reading them. along the same lines, i just heard a website recently where i putting some of his writings that you can't find anywhere else. so if you're interested in reading about homer lea's geopolitical thinking, you can look at his book and you can look at the articles on the website. >> any other questions from the audience? yes, please. >> ms. joyner, would you say

that john service has been fully rehabilitated at this point? and if so, if not, what have we learned from it in terms of where we are today, you know, in the whole political international sphere, particularly as it relates to china? >> good question, thank you. i won't go as long as i would like you, rose, i promise. >> take your time. >> he continues to this day to be a lightning rod of controversy. there's been in the last decade some revisionist history about good old joe mccarthy. one of the things i should mention is the for known of files, has anyone heard of the venona project? just briefly during the war the u.s. was worried that the soviet union might sue for a separate peace with the g