1969.11 当美国 "失去 "中国

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When America "Lost" China: The Case of John Carter Vincent
America lost its way in Asia in the 1960s in part because we pretended for twenty years that China was ours to “lose" to Communism. This is the story of a State Department China Hand who refused to play “let’s pretend” about America’s Mission in the Far East, who was purged for his realism, but whose assessments and spirit have survived the inroads of Dulles, Joe McCarthy, Time, and time.

By Ross Terrill
NOVEMBER 1969 ISSUE
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It is just twenty years since China was “lost.” In October, 1949, Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the People’s Republic of China in Peking, while “our" Chinese licked their wounds on Taiwan. At that time, U.S. foreign policy was in anguished transition. The great victory of 1945 bred a sense of grandeur. But the postwar years brought a deepening awareness of intractable problems and hostile powers in Europe and Asia alike.

Fear of Communist power remolded the content, style, and process of formulation of American foreign policy. Ideological anxiety became a bridge which linked domestic politics and international politics as never before. A past history of U.S. idealism toward China made Communist success there more shocking than in Eastern Europe. The postmortems on China policy, spurred by Republican resentment at tlie long Democratic dominance and by the anger of the China Lobby (supporters of Chiang Kai-shek in the United States), were bitter and zealous. Partisanship on China policy began in earnest after the congressional elections of November, 1946, which brought Republican majorities in both House and Senate. In early 1947 General George Marshall’s Mission to Chinn, which had aimed at a peaceful settlement of the civil war between Chiang and Mao, ended without success. Meanwhile, as Chiang sank deeper into military and political failure, there came in 1948 a string of Communist scares, including Klaus Fuchs’s confession of atomic espionage and Whittaker Chambers’ charges against Alger Hiss of the State Department. By 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy had pounced on China policy as a natural weapon for his crusade against the whole U.S. foreign-policy establishment. When the North Koreans moved south in June, 1950, the time of troubles for U.S. Far Eastern policy seemed complete. Since the Korean attack, which stimulated the U.S. commitment to Chiang that exists to this day, relations between Washington and Peking have made little progress. In some ways they have gotten worse, as the United States has spread some 900,000 men under arms in an arcclose to China.

True, the wistful Dulles line that the Communist regime may “pass away” has been abandoned. There have been occasional ambassadorial talks between China and the United States. Mail and literature flow between the two countries (though Washington will not permit Peking to settle the bill for Chinese materials bought by Americans) . Last July, President Nixon eased the travel restrictions on Americans visiting China, and on the importation of Chinese merchandise. Within the United States, a certain cut and thrust has returned to public discussion of China policy. Yet the basic policy remains unchanged. Washington maintains diplomatic ties with Chiang Kai-shek and his remnant, who lost the Chinese civil war, not with Mao Tse-tung and his government in Peking, -who won it. Our frozen China policy is an echo of a rankling past, of an inability to reckon with it in terms of facts rather than myths.

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One myth about the loss of China was that “blame” lay largely with the “China Hands.” Of the twenty-two Officers who belonged to the elite China Service in the State Department before World War II, and who remained with the Department in mid-1952, only two still worked on Chinese affairs. The other twenty were scattered in a variety of posts unconnected with China.

The principal China Hand attacked was John Carter Vincent. He was number two of McCarthy’s famous list of eighty-one State Department officials alleged to have Communist leanings. Born in 1900 and raised in Georgia, Vincent joined the Foreign Service at twenty-four. Beginning as ViceConsul in Changsha, he served in various China posts for a total of thirteen years, the last as Counselor of Embassy in Chungking, 1941-1949.

Promoted rapidly under several Secretaries of State, Vincent became Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (FE) in 1945 (the equivalent position today is Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs) . In 1945 he attended, as Far Eastern specialist, the conferences at San Francisco (UN), Potsdam, and Moscow.

Vincent is a sharp, proud, elegant man, with piercing blue eyes and a straightforward manner. As a diplomat, he was an independent, even obstinate, spirit; the facts as he saw them were sovereign: ideas were not squeezed out by bureaucratic formality.

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Politically, he had been a Wilsonian Democrat, and later grafted onto his Wilsonianism a kind of social liberalism, or social democracy, as the Depression, Fascism, and the failure of the corrupt, upper-class Ivuomintang government in China thrust the economic factor to the center of any consideration of political forms. He wrote in a letter to his wife from Chungking:

I am an advocate of no particular form of government. The stale of development, education, and temperament of any social group determines what form of government is possible. But I do believe that the primary function of government is to insure, so far as possible, that the people shall live in security and freedom; as Spinoza says, that they shall “in security develop soul and body to make free use of their reason.” The Kuomintang, as the governing party of China, has failed in this task.

In 1947 Vincent was transferred from Director of FE to the remoter airs of Switzerland and then to Tangiers (1951-1953), as U.S. Minister. As the antiCommunist fever built up in Washington over the issue of China, Vincent, to his amazement, found himself under challenge. In 1952, he returned from Tangiers to face a grueling week-long interrogation by the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose chairman was Senator Patrick McCarran. The subcommittee oscillated between trying to demonstrate that Vincent knew nothing about Communism and trying to insinuate that he was a Communist. It was assisted by assorted ex-Communists, who fiddled scholastically with Communist myths and texts. Never once, however, did it turn the discussion to American ideals and traditions, about which Vincent knew and cared somewhat more than McCarran’s ex-Communists. Vincent evaded questions out of fear of committing perjury on some detail of time or place; counsel for the subcommittee asked caustically, since Vincent had forgotten so much, had he perhaps forgotten that he had been a member of the Communist Party? It is hard to say which annoyed McCarran most: Vincent’s evasions and vagueness concerning doctrinal niceties, or his gentlemanly hearing and individualistic spirit.

He was cleared by the State Department Loyalty Board. But he then had to face a Civil Service Loyalty Review Board, whose chairman, ex-Senator Hiram Bingham, evidently aware that two of its three members saw no case against Vincent, added two new members to the review board, which arrived at the conclusion, by a majority of three to two, that there was a “reasonable doubt as to Vincent’s loyalty to the U.S.”In Tangiers, he read of this decision in the newspapers. Secretary of State Dean Acheson consulted with President Truman, and the two of them agreed not to follow’ the review board’s recommendation, hut rather to set up a further group of five, chaired by Judge Learned Hand, to review the whole matter.

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Before the new group finished its work, however, John Foster Dulles replaced Acheson as Secretary of Slate. Telling Judge Hand his services were no longer necessary, Dulles decided in March, 1953, that although there was no “reasonable doubt as to the loyalty” of Vincent, he had shown “a failure to meet the standard which is demanded of a Foreign Service Officer of his experience and responsibility at this critical time. I do not believe that he can usefully continue to serve the U.S. as a Foreign Service officer.” Vincent had talked with Dulles in February and was given the choice of retiring or being fired. He “applied for retirement,” returned from Tangiers, and settled down in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from where he view’s with a stoic eye the Far Eastern scene and the course of U.S. foreign policy which he shared in making and executing for thirty years.

A letter in his files from the then Deputy Undersecretary of State tells him he was “completely cleared by the Department of State, on all the evidence, in regard to charges as to your loyalty to the United Slates and as to your security.” But it was a Pyrrhic victory, for though he was loyal, as even Dulles did not dispute, he had committed an ultimate transgression. He had remained a mere professional diplomat, looking at the facts as he saw them, at a time of national hysteria, when it had become necessars to look at the facts as the ideology of anti-Communism construed them.

Dulles once pulled down from (he shelves in his house Stalin’s Problems of Leninism and asked Vincent it he had read it. Vincent had not. “If you had read it,” mused Dulles, “you would not have advocated the policies you did in China.” Since Stalin failed in China no less than Truman, one may wonder whether Stalin read his own book, lie that as it may, Communist dialectics was not Vincent’s forte.

Had he understood more of Communist theory (as formulated by die Chinese rather than by Stalin) , he might have understood the Nationalist (KMT)-Communist (CCP) relationship more subtly than he did. A better knowledge of the U.S.S.R., too, might have made him more wary of postwar Soviet foreign policy. But Vincent knew China intimately. Like John Davies, John Service, and many other China Officers, he had built up the substantial perception of China that George Kennan, Charles Bolden, Llewellyn Thompson, Foy Kohler, and other “Russian” Officers had built up of Russia, and that no one in the State Department possessed after the Dulles purges took place. He knew China well enough to doubt that the Russians and the Chinese woidd get on well for long; to be sure that the United States could not possibly fashion a liberal democratic China; to see in 1943 that a KMT-CCP civil war would break out after the defeat of Japan; to grasp the truth that the peasantry was the indispensable base for political power in China (lacked by the KMT).

One sees the importance of these insights by a glance at the observations of those who destroyed the China Hands. “The Chinese,” Dulles wrote, “through their religious and traditional habits of thought have become an individualistic people.” Not one China specialist in five hundred would agree with that. “There is little patriotism in China,” he observed in 1950. Failure to understand patriotism and nationalism has perhaps been no less disastrous for U.S. China policy than failure to understand Problems of Leninism. Vincent’s papers and the public record of what he said reveal little sentimentality about China. His memoranda (whatever errors they may contain) are models of “national interest” thinking about Far Eastern affairs. He enjoyed the company of Chinese, but the naturalness of his relations with them excluded zealous Sinophilism. He wrote from Chungking in May, 1942:

Had dinner with Madame Sun Yat-sen. Dick Smith was the other foreigner present; the rest, about ten, were Chinese. Madame C[hiang] and Madame k[uug] were there. Also father H. H. K[ung], Good Chinese food. I was literally encompassed by Soong sisters. Sitting opposite Madame Sun,1 in Chinese fashion, between Madame C and Madame K. We played bad bridge afterwards until very late. . . . Dick is foolish but the Chinese like him. I am not so foolish but they seem to like me.

The common denominator is, I suppose, that we both like the Chinese and they recognise it. More than tiiat: there is no conscious or subconscious feeling ol superiority and they recognise it. There is no question of “using” each other’s company. We are simply enjoying each other’s company.

That is hardly normal in China. Even the missionaries “love” with a purpose.

He was neither arrogant nor effusive toward the Chinese. Another letter from Chungking reads: “I try to do my job and these Soong sisters are part of it; and a pleasant part. But my bones have not been reduced to jelly nor my sight beclouded. The Ambassador will admit that and he admits little, and so will the sisters, I think.” Nor did Vincent build up exaggerated Sinophilic myths when he returned to the United States. He remembers without enthusiasm the gatherings of Old China Hands: “the sentimental cocktail parties at the Plaza in New York, where people wrapped themselves around each other who had hardly been acquaintances in Shanghai.”

Vincent strove to look at China from the point of view of overall U.S. interests in the Far East. While be was its director, FE had some disagreement with the European Division over the attitude to adopt toward the nationalist movements then seeking an end to British, Dutch, and French colonial rule in Asia. FE was generally sympathetic toward struggles such as that of Sukarno and Sjahrir against the Dutch; the European Division (which enjoyed higher prestige in the Department than FE) was opposed. Vincent’s argument was that it was foolish for the U.S. to get on the wrong side of the emerging Asian nationalist regimes. It was, characteristically, a “national interest” argument. He remembers George Kennan remarking: “John Charter, your views on Asian policy are quite sound from the traditional LTS. standpoint, but the immediate problem is to maintain the morale of Europe and its will to resist the Communist challenge.”

On one vital policy issue Vincent was prophetic. He urged the United States to oppose Japanese militarism in the mid1930s, arguing that the sooner if was opposed the less terrible would be the consequences. When Japan attacked China in 1937, Tokyo probably considered Russia the only serious threat to Japanese plans. The United Slates, despite rich talk about China’s integrity and nonaggression, had its arms firmly folded. Its interest was focused upon Europe, and it was unprepared, as the Chinese recall today, even to put an end to the supplies of U.S. fuel with which Japanese planes were devastating China. The Open Door was a splendid principle, but it did not seem to he much more.

Vincent had been U.S. Consul in Mukden when the Japanese went into Manchuria in 1931. “When Consul at Dairen in 1934, he attended a dinner given by the Japanese military, and noticed on the wall a map which showed Japanese authority extending from Manchuria all the way down to the Yellow River. From the time he came to FE in 1935, after ten years in Changsha, Hankow, Peking, Tsinan, Mukden, Dairen, and Nanking, he increasingly favored strong support for Chiang against the Japanese threat. “From the long viewpoint,” he argued in a memorandum of July, 1938, “our involvement in the Far Fast may not be avoided unless Japanese militarism is defeated.” He did not believe, nor did he think the Japanese themselves believed, that “Japanese aggression, if successful in China, [would] stop there.” He saw Japanese militarism as an “aggressive force which should not be expected to become satiated on successful aggression or deterred from aggression by normal economic and political considerations.” He judged that “American rights and interests may not be preserved unless China’s sovereignty is preserved.” He urged withholding of loans, material credits, and trade that assisted Japan; a clear statement that the doctrine of nonrecognition applied to any regime Japan set up; financial aid to Chiang; and collective action with other interested governments to deter Japan. All of these measures were eventually taken. Few would deny they were taken far too late.


October 15th. 1942
Mes enfants!
This is a photograph-game-present, and this is how you play the game, Give your friends three guesses to guess which one is your father (first be sure to ask your mother which one is your father). If they can guess right in three guesses then give them a piece of candy; if they cannot guess make them give yon a piece of candy. If anybody guesses that I am the old man with the long beard, make him pay two pieces of candy.
The picture was taken on October 3rd when we went to present Mr. Wendell Willkie, the man who ran for President of the United States in 1940 and still thinks he is running even though Mr. Roosevelt outran him and is already there. . . . After the presentation we had a lunch of fifteen courses and four wines and alter that we had the picture taken. The luncheon lasted for over two hours. . . . We had birds’ nest soup. We had little suckling pig. We had sharks’ fins. We had pigeons eggs. We had fish with sweet-sour sauce (this for your mother). We had pigs feet. We had deers tendons. Well that’s enough to remember. We also had champagne. .So by the time we had this picture taken we were pretty full. We don’t usnally eat so well in Chungking hut this was a very special occasion on account of Mr. Willkie.
These are the people in the photograph going from left to right:
First step: Admiral Cien Shao-kwan in the white navv uniform. He doesn’t have much of a navy in China but he is a nice man and is useful because he is a connais seur [sic] of good food—a gourmet—and likes to invite people for dinner, Yu Yujen, the old man with the long heard, He is President of the Control Yuan, a department of the government that controls officials. Dr. H. H. Kung, Vice President of the Executive Yuan and Minister of Finance. The Executive Yuan runs the Government. Mr. Wendell Willkie who needs no introduction probably even to you two. He would be disappointed if he did. He loves children. He kissed several while he was here. Dr. Lin Sen (his last name is Lin and his first name is Sen: the Chinese put their hist name first which is all right. No reason why you should not he called Vincent John Carter or Vincent Elizabeth .Sheila) : Dr. Lin as I told you is Chairman of the Chinese Government and doesn’t have much to do. He is a nice old man, though, and shouldn’t be made to work very hard. Ambassador Gauss who, as you may have heard, is head of the Embassy in which I work. He feels pretty badlv but not as badlv as he looks. Mr. Chit Chen, President of the Judicial Yuan which looks after laws which isn’t a vers hard job because nobody cares much about laws anyway. General Ho Yitigchin, Chief of Staff of the Chinese Armies and Minister of Military Administration. He is a pretty clever man although he doesn’t look like it in this picture. He doesn’t fight much anymore but he looks after a lot of things. , . .
I want to come home soon because I love yon—and your Mother.
PA.

Now Mr. Dulles was hardly in the vanguard of those urging support for Chiang against Japan. True, he thought it a glorious thing, in retrospect, that Chiang had resisted Japan, that Chiang decided to “base his policy on the historic friendship of the U.S. toward China.” True, he became a great champion of Chiang. True, he accused Vincent of insufficient support for Chiang. But in the 1930s, when the Generalissimo was in need and alone, Dulles had not yet begun to talk of “massive retaliation.” In 1938 he went to China and urged Chiang to compromise with the Japanese.

In 1939 Dulles wrote War, Peace and Change, in which there is a truly astonishing absence of any advocacy of “massive retaliation” against either Germany or Japan. The major theme of its empirical sections is a call to appreciate the “interplay of cause and effect” behind German, Italian, and Japanese aggression. “There is room for much difference of opinion and of choice of emphasis.” His emphasis fell this way: “The Japanese are a people of great energy. They possess to a marked degree those qualities which we have referred to as requiring an adequate national domain. Their own territory is meager in quantity, and quality. Some enlargement of their national domain seemed called for.” Mr. Dulles was a great man for peace in 1939.

It is clear that Vincent was not absolutely opposed to American intervention in Asia. It was a question of whether U.S. interests were importantly at stake; whether the intervention could be effective; and whether the Asian elements the United States would intervene to support were stable, progressive, and actively helping themselves. He thought the case for intervention against Japan in the late 1930s strong. He thought the case for direct U.S. intervention in the Chinese civil war a decade later weak. His criteria were the same. U.S. interests were not importantly at stake in the Kuomintang-Communist struggle; U.S. intervention could not be effective; and Chiang, by the late 1940s, was no longer strong, progressive, or an effective fighter for his own cause. In recent years, these same criteria have been among the factors leading him to oppose the Vietnam War.

George Kennan has observed:

It was not . . . communist efforts which destroyed the old order in Europe itself in the thirties and forties and eventually delivered the eastern half of the continent into communist hands; it was Hitler who did this. And, similarly, in East Asia, it was not Moscow, and least of all Washington, which really delivered China into the hands of the communists; it was the Japanese.

If Kennan is right, we confront a strange irony. Vincent was removed by Dulles for having helped lose China to the Communists. Yet it was Vincent, and not Dulles, who wanted the United States to try and stop Japan’s thrust into China, at a time when stopping Japan might have saved Chiang from his rapid decline, and prevented Mao from drawing the enormous political capital he did from the anti-Japanese struggle.

Vincent thought strategically about the Far East. He saw the weakness of China as a fundamental evil for the Asian situation. “The situation in China during the two decades prior to the last war,” he said in a lecture series named for Madame Chiang Kai-shek at Wellesley College in 1946, “gave a strong encouragement to, if it did not actually make possible, Japan’s war upon us in 1941.” Dulles on the other hand thought ideologically about the Far East. Before the war his theme might be summarized as “moral fiber.” After the war it was “opposition to Communism.” In neither period did his mind seem to work along strategic lines, as his views on Japan in 1939 and China in 1950 make all too plain.

Vincent was no more “anti-Japan,” in any moralistic or absolute sense, than he was pro-China. That is clear from the views he gave on postwar Japan, in off-the-record remarks at a Foreign Policy Association luncheon in December, 1944.

I am not a Japanese expert. I simply know them at their worst from four years in Manchuria. There is much serious thought being given to treatment of Japan after its defeat. There is the “stew in their own juice” school of thought; there is the “stability under the Emperor or anybody and get out quickly” school; there is the school that foresees a long and difficult period of military administration; and there is the school that believes the Japanese people would support a liberal democratic government if given a chance. I belong to none of these schools but I have a leaning toward the latter. . . . My point is that the rank and file of the Japanese seem capable of making an intelligent choice through the ballot if given the opportunity.

It is a judgment that does not look too bad twentyfive years later.

What could the United States have done in China in the 1940s that was not done? Much criticism of the China Hands centered on the Marshall Mission to China of 19451947. Senator Joseph McCarthy, in his defense of an “uncontaminatedly American foreign policy,” claimed that the policy embodied in the Marshall Mission “turned 450,000,000 friends of America into 450,000,000 foes.” Dulles said to Vincent, after the event: “I just don’t see how you and Acheson and Truman could possibly have been so shortsighted as to send Marshall to China.”

The argument against the Mission was that it was unreasonable, even suicidal, to urge that Chiang cooperate with the Communists, given his own weakness, and given the abyss of convictions that separated them. The alternative suggested was massive American intervention on the side of Chiang, without any attempt to bring about some kind of cooperation or coalition between the contending parties. But was massive U.S. intervention politically and militarily feasible?

Republicans offered no clear alternative policy at the time. The basic reason was that people were sick of war. And influential opinion thought European affairs more important than Far Eastern affairs (hence the emergency in Greece and Turkey was allowed to kill Vincent’s plan to spend half a billion dollars in Korea). As Truman points out in his memoirs, the public as a whole was in no mood at all to have hundreds of thousands of Americans go and fight in China.

Accusers of the China Hands claimed that “proCommunists” in the State Department drew up a directive to Marshall which put impossible demands upon Chiang. Yet a detailed study by Herbert Feis, in The China Tangle, uncovered no dissension within the various arms of the government over the directive. Vincent prepared an early draft. The Pentagon prepared its own draft. I he final version of the directive show’s little change from the basic lines of Vincent’s draft. Vincent had placed slightly more emphasis upon the attainment of a further degree of unity in China as a precondition of U.S. economic aid. But the differences were small, and they were resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.

The conclusion of Dean Acheson in his “Letter of Transmittal” of the China White Paper has not been overturned by twenty years of further digestion of the evidence: Chiang could have been saved from defeat only by American intervention beyond the “reasonable limits of its capabilities.” Whether Chiang could ever have won, in the full political sense, was highly doubtful even then. He was not short of arms {in the sense that he could have effectively used more), as he and the China Lobby claimed: and much of what he was given was captured by the Communists.

When a spokesman for the CIA was sent to brief a private discussion on China at the State Department in October, 1949, he reported: “The Communist forces that took over Tientsin were so completely equipped with American equipment that they appeared to be American equipped units.” The Vietnam experience of the United States raises a further doubt. If U.S. intervention to aid Saigon against the NLF and Hanoi has brought such loss, escalation, frustration, so many incalculable twists and turns, could an effective intervention in China, thirty times as Dig as Vietnam, with twenty-five times the population, have been made without precipitating a third world war?

In a devilish moment, Vincent observed years later: “What a pity Dewey was not elected in 1944, so that Dulles could have had a chance to ‘save China.’ ” Actually, there was a weakness in Vincent’s own position as an architect of the Marshall Mission which has seldom been focused upon (perhaps only by Walter Li ppm an n, reviewing the China White Paper in 1949). If it was true that nothing the United States could have done would have determined the outcome of the Chinese civil war, why did Vincent continue for so long to back Chiang, whom he had known could not win against the Communists?

The American ideal of self-determination, and with it the American awareness ol the potency of nationalism, all but disappeared after the “Loss of China.” Vincent recalls that when lie headed FE, one of his toughest tasks was to allay congressional, press, and public fear that U.S. ground troops might be sent to China. “People forget, he says today, “that there was a time when you simply did not go into an Asian country and take over.

In 1952, the House Un-American Activities Committee interrogated former Ambassador to China Clarence Gauss and Vincent. HUAC’s concern was that a leftish paper called The Voice of China had been published in Shanghai by an American, at a time when Gauss was U.S. Consul-General in that city and Vincent was working on China affairs in Washington. Gauss and Vincent tried to suggest that the reason why they did not suppress The Loice of China was that the wretched paper was being published not in the United States but in China, and that the State Department had no power to suppress it. HUAC was utterly unimpressed by such a petty jurisdictional quibble. Representative Harold Velde pinpointed its concern:

. . . if American authorities operating in foreign countries, apparently diplomats, do not have any legal way of stopping the circulation of subversive material, I think it is high time that the Congress made available some way to our American diplomats operating in foreign countries to do just that.

We can see in the story of Vincent how interests and desires came to be confused in U.S. China policy. It is easier to indulge in dreams when you have few responsibilities. That was true of America’s first perceptions of China. For almost a century from the Opium Wars, it was Britain that did the necessary military dirty work, and established, with whatever fragments of cooperation they could induce from the Chinese, the institutions indispensable to trade and religion on the China coast. America was free to be idealistic about China. The legacy of idealism continued into the period of heavy U.S. responsibility in China, which reached its climax in the 1940s. It continues now, even more confusedly, into a period when the United States has no possibility of exercising moral influence upon China, but has a profound interest in coming to certain businesslike understandings with China. The problem is that U.S. policy is still built too much on desires for China, and too little on U.S. interests in relation to China.

In the first years of the cold war there seemed to be a historical creedal struggle unfolding, comparable with that which brought on the religious wars of the sixteenth century. This made it easy for the ideologues to portray the Chinese civil war as one act in a global creedal drama. Instead of analyzing U.S. interests, they bewailed the shattering ol a U.S. dream. It proved easier to blur the issues than to admit that a Communist regime had come to power after its opponents had failed to govern China with strength and justice. It proved more satisfying to say that the United States could have stopped Mao, if the China Hands had not betrayed their country—and thus sustain the image of an omnicompetent and innocent America—than to admit that the world was a very complicated place, diverse in culture, polycentric in power, in which prudence and tolerance might be worth as much as zeal.


The Vincents had met Henry Luce of Time and Life at dinner parties in Georgetown. After China went Communist, Luce’s magazines attacked Vincent and others responsible for the State Department’s “pro-Communist" line. From Tangiers, where Vincent was U.S. Minister, Mrs. Vincent wrote to Luce in February, 1953, remonstrating against Time’s coverage. Luce wrote to Mrs. Vincent an analysis of the China tragedy as he saw it:

The China business has been in every sense a tragedy—especially lor the millions and millions of Chinese who have been killed, brutalised and brainwashed. As to America’s relation to this problem, opinions and judgments differ. That America had an important relation cannot be disputed: the most eminent presence of the most eminent George Marshall attested to our involvement. Marshall failed. He. of course, will say it wasn’t his fault— it was Chiang Kai-shek’s or somebody else’s or “fate.” In any case Marshall, and the strategy he pursued failed. I was astounded that Marshall, when he got to China, pursued the strategy he did.

I believed it was a hopeless strategy based on a hideous error in evaluation of all the factors.

Luce evidently had a deep humanitarian concern for China. But neither in his long letter nor in Time does he say upon what conception of U.S. interests in the Far East his attack on the “hideous error in evaluation of all the factors” is based. He had clear desires for China, but there is no clue as to what he thought U.S. interests toward China were. In her letter to Luce, Mrs. Vincent criticized the “pro-Chiang or pro-Mao” approach of Time. “That to me is a contrived issue,” she wrote. “The real one is what was pro-American and what was anti-American.” From the point of view of American interests, it was vital to He clear under what conditions the United States could intervene effectively. To have desires or political preferences which could not be furthered by effective intervention was pipe-dreaming.

It is curious how policyless was the policy of Dulles himself toward China. His book War or Pence, which begins with a chapter on “The Danger" and ends with one entitled “Our Spiritual Need,”is more like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress than a book on foreign policy. The idea of an “evertightening noose” runs through its pages. Biblical texts are jerked directly into a political application. Thus St. Paul is pitted against Mao and Stalin: “Under the pressure of faith and hope and peaceful works, tlie rigid, top-heavy and overextended structure of Communist rule could readily come into a state of collapse.” Policy and missionary activity seem to be one and the same thing. But is “policy” die right word? Is it a policy to hope that fate or God or Chiang Kai-shek will bring down tlie government in Peking?

Dulles applied Christian morality directly to the world of nations. He thought governments should carry out biblical injunctions. And he analyzed U.S. foreign policy toward the U.S.S.R. from the starting point that Soviet Communism was godless. Vincent, however, appraised Communists on the basis of what they did rather than what they were supposed to believe. And he saw morality entering foreign policy indirectly, mediated through the choices made by a democratic people. The epitaph for his efforts to shape U.S. China policy could well have been Lord Palmerston’s remark about British foreign policy: “We have no eternal enemies, only eternal interests.”

John Canter Vincent’s main fault lay in being an unideological man in a period which called for ideological swagger. After World War II, there came a period of panic. America had rather suddenly emerged from comparative isolationism to world leadership. The transition was accompanied by intense ideological self-consciousness. Perhaps ideological chauvinism helped conceal self-doubts in the face of enormous responsibilities.

Be that as it may, there seemed to be a momentary loss of confidence in the real traditions of America. “The only ones we can believe are those who were in the know,” observed Senator Homer Ferguson at the McCarran Subcommittee Hearings, “the ex-party boys.” It was no longer enough to be an ordinary American. Best ol all was to be an ex-Communist. In her 1953 letter to Henry Luce, Mrs. Vincent observed: “To the McCarran Committee, honor lies only with ex-communists.” And she added these poignant, bewildered words: “I find at this moment in our career our greatest difficulty is that we are not ex-anything, still Christians, still diplomats, still loyal Americans.”

A further issue reflected into the present by the mirror of the past is that of loyalty in the Foreign Service. Vincent paid a price for being an unideological man in an ideological period; in this way the State Department lost its best China men. But it also lost morale. When William Rogers became Secretary of State in 1969, he greeted the Foreign Service with a message that had a deep impact. “I hope to lead a receptive and open establishment, where men speak their minds and are listened to on merit, and where divergent views are fully and promptly passed on for decision.” It was contrasted in the Department with the comparable message of Dulles on his first day as Secretary of State, when he called for “positive loyalty.”

Vincent observed years later: “Any young Foreign Service Officer who read through the McCarran Hearings may not be edified but he would certainly be troubled.” Young men considering the Foreign Service as a career would also be deterred. (In 1949, 1128 candidates took the Foreign Service examinations: in 1950 only 807 did; and in 1951 only 760.) Good reporting from the field depends heavily upon there being in Washington what Rogers called a “receptive and open establishment”; an establishment which docs not equate “error” with “disloyalty.” It depends also upon the richness of the contacts the Officer is able to cultivate at his post. Vincent’s bitter experience of the consequences of being an acquaintance of Madame Sun was small encouragement to the cultivation of contacts.

Within the Department of State, distrust grew as Senator Joseph McCarthy and his helpers sought out damaging information, sometimes setting Officer against Officer in the process. While in Switzerland, Vincent discovered that McCarthy had dispatched an agent named Charles Davis there to try and get “evidence” against him. He received a telegram, sent from within Switzerland, above a signature he did not recognize, asking him to meet at such and such a place “concerning a matter of interest to us both.” Presumably the plan was to produce a copy of this telegram at a later date, as proof of the subversive contacts Vincent maintained in Switzerland, for the signature on the telegram was that of a Swiss Communist official. Davis had sent the telegram, signing it with the name of the Swiss Communist. The diligent Swiss police quickly discovered this, and Davis was imprisoned. From prison he wrote to Vincent admitting his treachery and apologizing.

Dulles meant by “positive loyalty” a kind of “right-thinking,” Vincent considered that loyalty in the Foreign Service should mean loyalty in carrying out government policy. That may not mean one agrees with all of it, or that reports from the field may not, at any point of time, present views that cast doubt on it. The other view is that loyalty is not just a matter of conduct. In addition to carrying out its policy, you must think tire way the government seems to think, and certainly not reveal any contrary thoughts—or facts which call the government view in question—in a field report. Mr. Rogers appears to have proclaimed the obsolescence of positive loyalty.

The issues over which Vincent was attacked have remained pivotal: the distinction between national interests and ideological desires; the importance of self-determination in Asia; realistic assessment of what the United States can and cannot achieve, especially by force, in Asia; a Foreign Service in which officers are encouraged to report what they see and believe.

Sitting in his Cambridge garden in the summer of 1969, his grandson on one side and a cat on the other, Vincent offered his reflections on the way U.S. Far Eastern policy has evolved since the McCarthy hysteria and the Dulles secretaryship.

In sixteen years of retirement, he has remained a close observer of the scene, sharing Ins views and experience in a seminar at Radcliffe, and at Harvard’s East Asian Research Center, where he has been an Associate (the Center will publish his Extraterritorial System in China in December).

In some ways he sees Dean Rusk as more of an ideologue than Dulles. “Dulles was a smart baby, and unscrupulous. Rusk was neither, but he was even more inflexible about bis mistaken convictions than Dulles.” Vincent sees Rogers and Elliot Richardson, whom Rogers chose as Undersecretary of State, as pragmatists who may be able to reduce tensions in the Far East.

Vincent favors an important role for the United States in Asia: “T his country couldn’t be isolationist if it tried.” Vietnam he considered a mistake, for reasons which go to the heart of his experience as a China Hand. One is that it “smacks too much of colonialism to prop up a government against a widely supported uprising from within the country itself.” He sees Dulles’ support for the French in Indochina in 1954 as a crucial step toward what Johnson did in Vietnam. And the 1954 policy was erected on the ashes of his own unsuccessful attempt, in the immediate postwar years, to keep U.S. policy moderately anticolonialist. Another reason is that anti-Communism as an ideology was elevated to the center of U.S. policy, which made it impossible to appraise Vietnamese politics in sophisticated terms. Vincent thinks that Truman (whose signed photo sits in the Vincent home, with a notation visible on the presidential deskpacl: “See Joint Carter Vincent about China”) was anti-Communist above all out of narrowness. Like other China Hands, Vincent had seemingly become immune to an anti-Communism based on narrowness—on mere suspicion of the unfamiliar —by many years of living amidst other cultures. He sees some hope in the wide experience of the world which Nixon now has behind him. He likes the President’s recent statement “Political philosophies cannot permanently divide the peoples of the world”; “admission of error,” he muses, “is the beginning of wisdom.”

A third issue which concerns Vincent is “respect for Asians.” Like General Joseph Stilwell, Vincent treated Chinese just as he treated Westerners. The soberest of men, Vincent tends to become mildly excited on this topic. “Asians are perfectly capable of handling their own affairs. The trouble with Dulles, and with Luce, too, was that they never doubted they knew what was best for Asians. They were patronizing.”

Of course there is a vast difference of scale between the China and Vietnam issues. China policy could seldom be effectively backed up with action. I he tragedy of Vietnam policy was that massive intervention—which re as an option, and was tried—loundered upon a faulty analysis of the East Asian scene. This is where the lessons learned from the China case could have affected Vietnam policy. But the China Hands were not in Washington to speak their minds.

On China policy, Vincent finds little to praise; it is really a case of ‘no policy,’ just prejudices on both sides.” The July measures of Mr. Nixon were welcome, but hardly more than a gesture. “They are good because they will put some pressure on the Chinese, who can’t refuse visas to Americans forever.” He thinks Peking has had plenty of reason over the years to be hostile to the United States. “Just think ol Dulles saying we could bomb Hankow out of existence; and Radford too, and Vice President Nixon, who had a hand in those attitudes. The Democratic Administrations missed opportunities. Perhaps if Kennedy had had a big majority, he would have stood up to conservative pressures on China. Johnson had the majority but no wisdom.”

Vincent’s social philosophy was very liberal. It was not a social philosophy (like that of the next generation of liberals) that was oriented around an attitude toward Communism. Communism did not come into the picture of his social philosophy; he thought the hill of social injustice could be breasted by another path entirely, which, broadly speaking, could be called social democratic. He was a non-Communist rather than an anti-Communist.

When that is said, it remains true that it was Vincent the forthright diplomat, rather than Vincent the social liberal, that the McCarthyites were infuriated by and fired tHeir poisoned darts at. He was really a very orthodox diplomat, an embodiment, indeed, of the traditions of American diplomacy. That was his trouble. The fatal charge against John Carter Vincent was that he did not, and could not, become an ideologue to fit a sudden fashion of crusading anti-Communism.

But (he fatal charge of 1952 looks today more like a badge of honor in 1969. The heartening thing about Vincent today, amidst the trauma of Vietnam, is that he reminds a younger generation of some admirable features of American diplomacy, when at its best and when allowed to be itself. When young people have come up the leafy path of his Cambridge home to ask his advice about entering the Foreign Service, he has never urged them not to enter, but encouraged them to go in and do their best and make the Service as good as it should be.

ACHESON ON VINCENT
Mr. Dean Acheson, in a book of memoirs just published by Norton, Present at the Creation ($12.50), recalls the Vincent case.
Of the finding of the President’s Loyalty Review Board, which reversed the State Department’s own judgment and found Vincent’s loyalty suspect:
I knew John Carter and the charges against him well enough to know the imputation of disloyalty was unfounded and that the charges were in reality based upon the policies that he had recommended and the valuations of situations he had made and that largely I had accepted. I also had high regard for the Department's board and its chairman and none for the President’s board and its chairman. Senator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut. . . . I cotdd disregard its advice and restore Vincent to active duty. This, however, would do him little good since Senator McCarthy would delight in renewing charges against him and demand that my successor act upon the presidential Review Board’s decision. After consulting with the President, we decided that the better course would be to appoint a group of unimpeachable authority and reputation to review the record and the two conflicting recommendations. . . . I had no doubt what a fair and judicial decision would be.

On Dulles’ final condemnation of Vincent:
Mr. Dulles’ six predecessors, under all of whom Mr. Vincent had served in the China field, did not find his judgment or services defective or substandard. On the contrary, they relied upon him and promoted him. Mr. Dulles’ administration was later to find the morale of the State Department personnel in need of improvement.
Of Acheson’s farewell at the State Department in 1955.
Few experiences have so moved me. They had been through three years of bitter persecution and vilification, largely at the hands of fools and self-seeking blackguards, touted by the press. The worst, I feared, was still ahead of them, 'when what protection the President and I had been able to interpose against abuse would be withdrawn.
Ross Terrill, an Australian, currently Frank Knox Fellow in Political Science at Harvard, has talked extensively with John Carter Vincent in his preparation of this study. Since visiting Peking five years ago, Mr. Terrill has written on China and Communist politics in the Political Science Quarterly, China Quarterly, and other scholarly journals.
One day toward the end of the war, when Vincent was hack in Washington from Chungking, he chanced to meet a friend in the street who was about to go to China. He “sent his regards,”— orally, through this friend to Madame Sun Vat-sen. Madame Sun was later to be a high, if largely honorary, official in Peking. However, she was at this time still in the circle of her sisters in Chungking. One of those sisters was none other than Madame Chiang Kai-shek; the other was the wife of H. H. Rung, one of Chiang’s highest aides. The McCarran Subcommittee found it worthwhile to spend thirty minutes trying to draw out the sinister inner meaning of this trifling social amenity. The Subcommittee might have boggled had they known that when Vincent left Chungking in May, 1943, Madame Sun gave him an antique bamboo brush holder, inscribed with a charming poem in Chinese characters. ↩




当美国 "失去 "中国。约翰-卡特-文森特的案例
20世纪60年代，美国在亚洲迷失了方向，部分原因是我们假装了20年，认为中国是我们要 "输 "给共产主义。这是一个关于国务院中国事务官员的故事，他拒绝对美国在远东的使命玩 "让我们假装 "的游戏，他因为现实主义而被清洗，但他的评估和精神在杜勒斯、乔-麦卡锡、《时代》和时间的冲击下依然存在。

作者：罗斯-泰瑞尔
1969年11月号
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中国的 "失落 "仅仅过去了二十年。1949年10月，毛泽东在北京宣布成立中华人民共和国，而 "我们 "的中国人则在台湾舔着伤口。当时，美国的外交政策正处于痛苦的转型期。1945年的伟大胜利孕育了一种宏伟的感觉。但战后的几年里，人们对欧洲和亚洲的棘手问题和敌对势力的认识不断加深。

对共产主义力量的恐惧重塑了美国外交政策的内容、风格和制定过程。意识形态上的焦虑成为连接国内政治和国际政治的桥梁，这是前所未有的。美国过去对中国的理想主义历史使得共产党在中国的成功比在东欧更令人震惊。在共和党人对民主党长期主导地位的不满和中国游说团（美国境内蒋介石的支持者）的愤怒的刺激下，对中国政策的事后分析是痛苦和狂热的。1946年11月的国会选举后，关于中国政策的党派斗争开始认真进行，共和党在众议院和参议院都取得了多数席位。1947年初，乔治-马歇尔将军的访华团，旨在和平解决蒋介石和毛泽东之间的内战，最终没有成功。同时，随着蒋介石在军事和政治上的失败越来越深，1948年出现了一连串的共产主义恐慌，包括克劳斯-福克斯对原子间谍活动的供认和惠特克-钱伯斯对国务院的阿尔杰-希斯的指控。到1950年，参议员约瑟夫-麦卡锡把中国政策作为他讨伐整个美国外交政策机构的天然武器来看待。当朝鲜在1950年6月南下时，美国远东政策的麻烦时间似乎已经完成。自从朝鲜袭击事件刺激了美国对蒋介石的承诺，直到今天，华盛顿和北京之间的关系仍然没有什么进展。在某些方面，它们变得更糟糕了，因为美国在靠近中国的地方散布了大约90万名武装人员。

诚然，杜勒斯关于共产党政权可能 "消失 "的俏皮话已经被放弃了。中国和美国之间偶尔会有大使级会谈。两国之间有邮件和文献往来（尽管华盛顿不允许北京为美国人购买的中国材料结账）。去年7月，尼克松总统放宽了对美国人访问中国的旅行限制，以及对中国商品进口的限制。在美国国内，关于中国政策的公开讨论已经恢复了某种切入点和主旨。然而，基本政策仍然没有改变。华盛顿与输掉中国内战的蒋介石及其残余势力保持外交关系，而不是与赢得内战的毛泽东及其在北京的政府保持外交关系。我们的冻结中国政策是一个令人不安的过去的回声，是一个无法从事实而不是神话的角度来看待它。

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关于中国战败的一个神话是，"责任 "主要在于 "中国之手"。在二战前属于国务院中国事务处精英的二十二名官员中，到1952年中期仍在国务院工作的只有两人仍在从事中国事务。其他20人则分散在与中国无关的各种岗位上。

被攻击的主要中国之手是约翰-卡特-文森特。他是麦卡锡著名的八十一名国务院官员名单中的第二号人物，被指有共产主义倾向。文森特出生于1900年，在佐治亚州长大，24岁时进入外交部工作。从长沙的副领事开始，他在中国的各个岗位上共工作了13年，最后一次是在1941-1949年担任驻重庆大使馆参赞。

在几位国务卿的领导下，文森特迅速晋升，1945年成为远东事务办公室主任（相当于今天负责远东事务的助理国务卿）。1945年，他作为远东专家参加了在旧金山（联合国）、波茨坦和莫斯科举行的会议。

文森特是一个敏锐、骄傲、优雅的人，有一双刺眼的蓝眼睛和直率的态度。作为一名外交官，他是一个独立的，甚至是顽固的精神；他所看到的事实是有主权的：思想不会被官僚的形式主义所挤压。

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在政治上，他曾是威尔逊式的民主党人，后来在威尔逊式的基础上嫁接了一种社会自由主义或社会民主，因为大萧条、法西斯主义和中国腐败的上层社会伊武民党政府的失败，将经济因素推到了任何政治形式考虑的中心。他在重庆写给妻子的一封信中说

我不主张任何特定形式的政府。任何社会群体的发展、教育和气质决定了什么形式的政府是可能的。但我确实认为，政府的主要职能是尽可能确保人民生活在安全和自由之中；正如斯宾诺莎所说，他们应 "在安全中发展灵魂和身体，以自由使用他们的理性"。国民党作为中国的执政党，没有完成这一任务。

1947年，文森特从对外关系部主任调到瑞士的偏远地区，然后到丹吉尔（1951-1953），担任美国公使。随着华盛顿在中国问题上掀起的反共热潮，文森特惊奇地发现自己受到了挑战。1952年，他从丹吉尔回来，面对参议院司法委员会国内安全小组委员会为期一周的艰苦审讯，该委员会主席是帕特里克-麦卡伦参议员。小组委员会在试图证明文森特对共产主义一无所知和试图影射他是一名共产主义者之间摇摆不定。它得到了各种前共产党员的协助，这些人对共产主义的神话和文本进行了学术性的研究。然而，它从未将讨论转向美国的理想和传统，而文森特对这些理想和传统的了解和关心比麦卡伦的前共产党员要多一些。文森特回避了一些问题，因为他害怕在一些时间或地点的细节上做伪证；小组委员会的律师尖锐地问道，既然文森特忘记了这么多，他是否忘记了他曾经是一名共产党员？很难说哪一个让麦卡伦最恼火。文森特对理论上的细枝末节的回避和含糊不清，还是他绅士般的听力和个人主义精神。

他被国务院忠诚度委员会批准了。但他随后不得不面对一个公务员忠诚度审查委员会，该委员会的主席，前参议员海勒姆-宾汉姆，显然意识到其三名成员中的两名认为文森特没有问题，于是为审查委员会增加了两名新成员，该委员会以三比二的多数得出结论，"对文森特对美国的忠诚度存在合理怀疑。国务卿迪安-艾奇逊与杜鲁门总统进行了磋商，他们两人同意不遵循审查委员会的建议，而是再成立一个由五人组成的小组，由Learned Hand法官担任主席，审查整个事件。

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然而，在新小组完成其工作之前，约翰-福斯特-杜勒斯（John Foster Dulles）取代了艾奇逊（Acheson）成为石板部长。杜勒斯告诉汉德法官他的服务不再有必要，他在1953年3月决定，尽管对文森特的 "忠诚度没有合理的怀疑"，但他表现出 "没有达到在这个关键时刻对他这种经验和责任的外交官员所要求的标准。我不相信他能作为一名外交官员继续为美国服务。" 文森特在2月与杜勒斯谈过，他被告知可以选择退休或被解雇。他 "申请退休"，从丹吉尔返回，并在马萨诸塞州的剑桥市定居，在那里他以一种坚毅的眼光看待远东的景象和美国外交政策的进程，他参与制定并执行了30年。

在他的档案中，当时的副国务卿的一封信告诉他，"根据所有的证据，国务院对你对美国的忠诚度和你的安全的指控完全没有问题"。但这是一个不折不扣的胜利，因为尽管他是忠诚的，甚至杜勒斯也没有异议，但他犯了一个最终的错误。他仍然是一个纯粹的专业外交官，在国家歇斯底里的时候，按照反共主义的意识形态来看待事实已经成为必要。

杜勒斯有一次从他家的书架上取下斯大林的《列宁主义问题》，问文森特他是否读过这本书。文森特没有。"如果你读过，"杜勒斯想，"你就不会主张你在中国的政策了。" 由于斯大林在中国的失败并不亚于杜鲁门，人们可能会怀疑斯大林是否读过他自己的书，尽管如此，共产主义辩证法并不是文森特的强项。

如果他对共产主义理论有更多的了解（由死亡的中国人而不是斯大林制定），他可能会比他更巧妙地理解国民党（国民党）和共产党（中国共产党）的关系。如果对美国和苏联有更多的了解，可能会使他对战后的苏联外交政策更加警觉。但文森特对中国的了解非常深刻。像约翰-戴维斯、约翰-斯维尔和其他许多中国事务官员一样，他建立了对中国的实质性认识，而乔治-肯南、查尔斯-博尔登、卢埃林-汤普森、福伊-科勒和其他 "俄罗斯 "官员对俄罗斯也建立了这种认识，在杜勒斯清洗事件发生后，国务院里没有人拥有这种认识。他对中国的了解足以让他怀疑俄国人和中国人是否能长久相处；确信美国不可能塑造一个自由民主的中国；在1943年看到日本战败后会爆发国民党和中国共产党的内战；掌握农民是中国政治权力不可缺少的基础（国民党缺乏）这一事实。

只要看一眼那些破坏 "中国之手 "的人的观察，就能看出这些见解的重要性。"杜勒斯写道："中国人，"通过他们的宗教和传统思想习惯，已经成为一个个人主义的民族。" 五百个中国专家中没有一个会同意这一点。"在中国几乎没有爱国主义，"他在1950年观察到。不了解爱国主义和民族主义对美国中国政策的灾难性影响也许不亚于不了解《列宁主义问题》。文森特的文件和他所说的话的公开记录显示，他对中国没有什么感情。他的备忘录（不管其中有什么错误）是对远东事务进行 "国家利益 "思考的典范。他喜欢与中国人为伴，但他与中国人的自然关系排除了狂热的恋国主义。1942年5月，他从重庆写信说

与孙中山夫人共进晚餐。迪克-史密斯是在场的另一个外国人；其余的人，大约有十个，都是中国人。蒋夫人和库格夫人也在那里。还有父亲H.H. K[ung]，好的中国食物。我简直是被宋氏姐妹包围了。坐在孙夫人对面，1按中国人的习惯，坐在C夫人和K夫人之间。之后我们玩了很晚的桥牌，直到很晚。. . . 迪克很傻，但中国人都喜欢他。我没那么傻，但他们似乎也喜欢我。

我想，共同点是，我们都喜欢中国人，而且他们也承认这一点。不仅仅是这样：没有自觉或潜意识的优越感，他们也认识到了这一点。不存在 "利用 "对方公司的问题。我们只是在享受对方的陪伴。

这在中国很难说是正常的。即使是传教士也是有目的的 "爱"。

他对中国人既不傲慢，也不盛气凌人。另一封来自重庆的信中写道 "我努力做好我的工作，这些宋氏姐妹是我工作的一部分；而且是令人愉快的一部分。但我的骨头还没有变成果冻，我的视线也没有被遮住。大使会承认这一点，他承认的不多，姐妹们也会承认，我想。" 文森特回到美国后也没有建立起夸张的国学神话。他毫无热情地回忆起老中国手的聚会。"在纽约广场举行的多愁善感的鸡尾酒会上，人们互相拥抱在一起，而他们在上海几乎不相识"。

文森特努力从美国在远东的整体利益的角度来看待中国。在文森特担任主任期间，在对待当时寻求结束英国、荷兰和法国在亚洲的殖民统治的民族主义运动的态度上，FE与欧洲司有一些分歧。对外关系部普遍同情苏加诺和斯亚里尔反对荷兰人的斗争；而欧洲司（在该部享有比对外关系部更高的威望）则反对这种斗争。文森特的观点是，美国站在亚洲新兴民族主义政权的对立面是愚蠢的。这是一个具有特色的 "国家利益 "论点。他记得乔治-肯南曾说过 "约翰-查特，从传统的LTS观点来看，你对亚洲政策的看法是非常正确的，但眼前的问题是要保持欧洲的士气和抵抗共产主义挑战的意愿。"

在一个重要的政策问题上，文森特具有预见性。他敦促美国在1930年代中期反对日本军国主义，认为越早反对，后果越不可怕。当日本在1937年进攻中国时，东京可能认为俄国是对日本计划的唯一严重威胁。美国尽管对中国的完整性和不侵略性大谈特谈，但它的双臂却紧紧抱着。它的兴趣集中在欧洲，而且正如中国人今天所回忆的那样，它甚至没有准备好终止日本飞机用来破坏中国的美国燃料的供应。门户开放是一个很好的原则，但它似乎并没有更多的意义。

1931年日本人进入满洲里时，文森特曾担任美国驻穆克顿领事。"1934年在戴仁担任领事时，他参加了日本军方举办的晚宴，并注意到墙上的地图显示日本的权力从满洲里一直延伸到黄河。从1935年他来到FE，在长沙、汉口、北京、济南、穆克顿、戴仁和南京呆了十年之后，他越来越倾向于强烈支持蒋介石对抗日本的威胁。"他在1938年7月的一份备忘录中说："从长远来看，除非日本军国主义被打败，否则我们在远东的介入是无法避免的。" 他不相信，他也不认为日本人自己相信，"日本的侵略，如果在中国取得成功，[将]止于此。" 他认为日本军国主义是一种 "侵略性的力量，不应该指望它在成功的侵略中得到满足，也不应该通过正常的经济和政治考虑来阻止它的侵略。" 他判断，"除非中国的主权得到维护，否则美国的权利和利益可能无法得到维护"。他敦促扣留帮助日本的贷款、物资信贷和贸易；明确声明不承认原则适用于日本建立的任何政权；向蒋介石提供财政援助；以及与其他有关政府采取集体行动来阻止日本。所有这些措施最终都被采取了。很少有人会否认它们采取得太晚了。


10月15日。1942
孩子们!
这是一张照片-游戏-礼物，游戏的玩法是这样的，给你的朋友们三次猜测，猜出哪个是你的父亲（首先一定要问你的母亲哪个是你的父亲）。如果他们能在三次猜测中猜对，那么就给他们一块糖；如果他们猜不到，就让他们给你一块糖。如果有人猜出我是那个长胡子的老人，就让他付两块糖。
这张照片是10月3日拍摄的，当时我们去介绍温德尔-威尔基先生，这个人在1940年竞选美国总统，尽管罗斯福先生超过了他，已经在那里了，但他仍然认为自己在竞选。. . . 演讲结束后，我们吃了十五道菜和四种葡萄酒的午餐，并改变了我们的照片。午宴持续了两个多小时。. . . 我们吃了燕窝汤。我们吃了小乳猪。我们吃了鱼翅。我们吃了鸽子蛋。我们吃了甜酸酱鱼（这是给你母亲的）。我们吃了猪脚。我们吃了鹿腱子。好了，这就足以让人记住。我们还喝了香槟。所以当我们拍下这张照片时，我们已经很饱了。在重庆，我们通常不会吃得这么好，但由于威尔基先生的缘故，这是一个非常特殊的场合。
照片中的这些人从左到右依次是。
第一个步骤。穿着白色海军制服的陈绍宽上将。他在中国没有什么海军，但他是个好人，而且很有用，因为他是个美食家，喜欢请人吃饭，于玉珍，那个长着长耳的老人，他是监察院院长，政府控制官员的一个部门。孔祥熙博士，行政院副院长兼财政部长。行政院管理政府。温德尔-威尔基（Wendell Willkie）先生，他不需要介绍，可能连你们两个都不知道。如果他介绍了，他会很失望的。他喜欢孩子。他在这里时亲吻了几个。林森博士（他姓林，名森：中国人把自己的名字放在前面，这很好。你没有理由不叫他文森特-约翰-卡特或文森特-伊丽莎白-希拉）。我告诉过你，林博士是中国政府的主席，没有什么事情可做。不过，他是个不错的老人，不应该让他工作得很辛苦。高斯大使，你可能已经听说了，他是我所工作的大使馆的负责人。他感觉很糟糕，但不像他看起来那么糟糕。陈捷先生，司法院院长，负责处理法律问题，这并不是什么难事，因为无论如何没有人关心法律。何毅钦将军，中国军队的参谋长和军事管理部长。他是一个相当聪明的人，尽管他在这张照片上看起来并不像。他已经不怎么打仗了，但他照顾着很多事情。, . .
我想尽快回家，因为我爱你和你的母亲。
PA。

现在，杜勒斯先生几乎不在那些敦促支持蒋介石抗日的先锋队中。诚然，他认为蒋介石抵制日本是一件光荣的事，蒋介石决定 "把他的政策建立在美国对中国的历史友谊之上"。诚然，他成为了蒋介石的伟大支持者。的确，他指责文森特对蒋的支持不够。但在20世纪30年代，当总司令处于困境和孤独时，杜勒斯还没有开始谈论 "大规模报复"。1938年，他去了中国，敦促蒋介石向日本人妥协。

1939年，杜勒斯写了《战争、和平与变革》，其中没有任何针对德国或日本的 "大规模报复 "的主张，确实令人吃惊。其经验性章节的主要主题是呼吁理解德国、意大利和日本侵略背后的 "因果关系的相互作用"。"在意见和重点的选择上有很多不同的空间"。他的强调是这样的。"日本人是一个精力旺盛的民族。他们在很大程度上拥有我们所提到的需要一个适当的国家领域的那些品质。他们自己的领土在数量和质量上都很有限。似乎需要对他们的国土进行某种程度的扩大。" 杜勒斯先生是1939年和平的伟大人物。

很明显，文森特并不绝对反对美国对亚洲的干预。问题是美国的利益是否受到严重威胁；干预是否能够有效；以及美国要干预支持的亚洲元素是否稳定、进步，并积极地帮助自己。他认为在20世纪30年代末对日本进行干预的理由很充分。他认为美国在十年后直接干预中国内战的理由不充分。他的标准是一样的。美国的利益在国民党和共产党的斗争中并不重要；美国的干预不可能有效；而且蒋介石在1940年代末已经不再强大，不再进步，也不再是他自己事业的有效斗士。近年来，这些标准也是导致他反对越南战争的因素之一。

乔治-肯南曾指出。

不是......共产党的努力破坏了欧洲本身在30年代和40年代的旧秩序，并最终将欧洲大陆的东半部落入共产党手中；是希特勒干的。同样，在东亚，真正把中国送到共产党人手中的不是莫斯科，更不是华盛顿；而是日本人。

如果肯南是对的，我们面临着一个奇怪的讽刺。文森特被杜勒斯免职，因为他帮助中国输给了共产党。然而，正是文森特，而不是杜勒斯，希望美国努力阻止日本对中国的进攻，而此时阻止日本可能会挽救蒋介石的迅速衰落，并阻止毛泽东从抗日斗争中获得巨大的政治资本。

文森特对远东进行了战略性的思考。他认为中国的软弱是亚洲局势的一个根本性弊端。"1946年，他在韦尔斯利学院举办的以蒋介石夫人命名的系列讲座中说："在上一次战争之前的20年里，中国的局势对日本在1941年对我们的战争给予了强有力的鼓励，即使它实际上没有使之成为可能。" 另一方面，杜勒斯从意识形态上考虑远东问题。战前，他的主题可以概括为 "道义"。战后则是 "反对共产主义"。在这两个时期，他的思想似乎都不是按照战略路线进行的，正如他在1939年对日本的看法和1950年对中国的看法一样，都很明显。

在任何道义上或绝对意义上，文森特的 "反日 "并不比他的亲中更多。这一点从他1944年12月在外交政策协会午餐会上的非正式发言中可以看出。

我不是一个日本专家。我只是从在满洲的四年中了解他们最糟糕的情况。人们对日本战败后的待遇问题进行了很多认真的思考。有 "用他们自己的汁液来炖 "的学派；有 "在天皇或任何人的领导下保持稳定并迅速脱身 "的学派；有预见到一个漫长而艰难的军事管理时期的学派；还有相信日本人民如果有机会会支持自由民主政府的学派。我不属于这些流派，但我倾向于后者。. . . 我的观点是，如果有机会，日本的普通民众似乎有能力通过投票做出明智的选择。

这是一个在25年后看起来还不算太坏的判断。

20世纪40年代，美国在中国能做什么而没有做什么？对 "中国之手 "的许多批评集中在1945-1947年的马歇尔访华团上。参议员约瑟夫-麦卡锡在为 "不受污染的美国外交政策 "辩护时声称，马歇尔使团所体现的政策 "把450,000,000个美国的朋友变成了450,000,000个敌人"。杜勒斯在事后对文森特说。"我只是不明白，你和艾奇逊以及杜鲁门怎么可能如此短视，把马歇尔派到中国来。"

反对代表团的论点是，鉴于蒋介石自身的弱点，鉴于将他们分开的信念深渊，敦促他与共产党合作是不合理的，甚至是自杀性的。建议的替代方案是美国在蒋介石一边进行大规模干预，而不试图在竞争各方之间实现某种合作或联合。但美国的大规模干预在政治和军事上是否可行？

共和党人当时没有提出明确的替代政策。基本原因是，人们已经厌倦了战争。而有影响力的舆论认为欧洲事务比远东事务更重要（因此希腊和土耳其的紧急情况被允许扼杀文森特在朝鲜花费5亿美元的计划）。正如杜鲁门在其回忆录中指出的那样，整个公众根本没有心情让数十万美国人去中国作战。

对 "中国之手 "的指责者声称，国务院的 "亲共分子 "给马歇尔起草了一份指令，对蒋介石提出了不可能的要求。然而，赫伯特-费斯在《中国纠葛》中的详细研究发现，政府各部门内部对该指令没有异议。文森特准备了一份早期草案。五角大楼准备了自己的草案。该指令的最终版本与文森特草案的基本内容没有什么变化。文森特稍微强调了在中国实现进一步的统一，作为美国经济援助的前提条件。但这些分歧很小，它们的解决令各方都很满意。

艾奇逊院长在《中国白皮书》的 "送文函 "中的结论，并没有因为二十年来对证据的进一步消化而被颠覆。只有通过美国超出 "合理能力范围 "的干预，才能使蒋介石免于失败。即使在当时，蒋介石是否能在完全的政治意义上取得胜利也是非常值得怀疑的。他并不像他和中国游说团所说的那样缺乏武器（从他可以有效地使用更多武器的意义上来说）：而且他得到的大部分武器都被共产党人缴获。

1949年10月，美国中央情报局的一位发言人被派去向国务院的一次关于中国问题的私下讨论作简报时，他报告说。"接管天津的共产党部队完全装备了美国的设备，以至于他们看起来是美国装备的部队"。美国的越南经验又引起了一个疑问。如果美国为援助西贡对抗北大荒和河内而进行的干预带来了如此大的损失、升级、挫折、如此多的不可估量的曲折，那么在中国，比越南大三十倍的挖，二十五倍的人口，能不能进行有效的干预而不引发第三次世界大战？

多年后，文森特在一个魔鬼般的时刻指出 "杜威没有在1944年当选真是太可惜了，这样杜勒斯就有机会'拯救中国'了。"实际上，作为马歇尔使命的设计者，文森特自己的立场有一个弱点，而这个弱点很少被关注（也许只有Walter Li ppm一个人在1949年回顾中国白皮书的时候才关注）。如果美国所做的一切真的不能决定中国内战的结果，那么文森特为什么还要长期支持他明知无法战胜共产党的蒋介石？

美国的自决理想，以及随之而来的美国对民族主义力量的认识，在 "失去中国 "之后几乎消失殆尽。文森特回忆说，当他领导FE时，他最艰难的任务之一是消除国会、媒体和公众对美国可能向中国派遣地面部队的恐惧。"人们忘记了，他今天说，"曾经有一段时间，你根本不可能进入一个亚洲国家并进行接管。

1952年，众议院非美活动委员会审问了前驻中国大使克拉伦斯-高斯和文森特。众议院非美活动委员会关注的是，一份名为《中国之声》的左派报纸由一个美国人在上海出版，当时高斯是美国驻上海的总领事，文森特在华盛顿从事中国事务工作。高斯和文森特试图表明，他们没有压制《中国之声》的原因是，这份可恶的报纸不是在美国而是在中国出版的，国务院没有权力压制它。HUAC对这种小规模的管辖权争论完全不以为然。众议员哈罗德-维尔德（Harold Velde）准确地指出了他的担忧。

. ......如果在外国活动的美国当局，显然是外交官，没有任何合法的方式来阻止颠覆性材料的流通，我认为现在是国会为我们在外国活动的美国外交官提供某种方式来做这件事的时候了。

我们可以从文森特的故事中看到，在美国的中国政策中，利益和欲望是如何被混淆的。当你没有什么责任时，更容易沉溺于梦想。美国最初对中国的认识就是如此。从鸦片战争开始的近一个世纪里，是英国做了必要的军事脏活累活，并在他们能从中国人那里引来的任何零星合作下，建立了对中国沿海贸易和宗教不可或缺的机构。美国可以自由地对中国抱有理想主义。理想主义的遗产一直延续到美国在中国承担重大责任的时期，在1940年代达到高潮。现在，它甚至更混乱地延续到美国不可能对中国施加道德影响，但却对与中国达成某些商业上的谅解有着深厚的兴趣。问题是，美国的政策仍然过多地建立在对中国的欲望上，而对美国与中国的利益则考虑得太少。

在冷战的最初几年，似乎有一场历史性的信条斗争正在展开，与导致16世纪宗教战争的斗争相类似。这使得思想家们很容易将中国内战描述为全球信条剧中的一幕。他们没有分析美国的利益，而是哀叹美国梦想的破灭。事实证明，模糊问题比承认一个共产党政权在其反对者未能以力量和正义治理中国后上台更容易。事实证明，说美国本可以阻止毛泽东，如果 "中国之手 "没有背叛他们的国家--从而维持一个全能和无辜的美国形象--比承认世界是一个非常复杂的地方，文化多样，权力多中心，其中谨慎和宽容可能和热情一样重要更令人满意。


文森夫妇在乔治敦的晚宴上认识了《时代》和《生活》的亨利-卢斯。中国走向共产主义后，卢斯的杂志攻击文森特和其他对国务院的 "亲共 "路线负责的人。1953年2月，在文森特担任美国公使的丹吉尔，文森特夫人写信给卢斯，对《时代》的报道提出异议。卢斯在给文森特夫人的信中分析了他眼中的中国悲剧。

中国事务在任何意义上都是一场悲剧--特别是对那些被杀害、被残害和被洗脑的数百万中国人来说。至于美国与这个问题的关系，意见和判断各不相同。美国有着重要的关系，这一点不容置疑：最杰出的乔治-马歇尔的存在证明了我们的参与。马歇尔失败了。当然，他将说这不是他的错--是蒋介石或其他人或 "命运 "的错。在任何情况下，马歇尔，以及他所追求的战略都失败了。我对马歇尔到了中国后所采取的战略感到震惊。

我认为这是一个无望的战略，是建立在对所有因素的评估的一个可怕的错误上的。

卢斯显然对中国有着深切的人道主义关怀。但在他的长信和《时代》杂志中，他都没有说他对美国在远东的利益的看法是建立在 "对所有因素的评估的可怕错误 "之上的。他对中国有明确的愿望，但没有线索表明他认为美国对中国的利益是什么。在给卢斯的信中，文森特夫人批评了《时代》杂志的 "亲蒋或亲毛 "的做法。她写道："对我来说，这是一个被设计好的问题，"她说。"真正的问题是什么是亲美，什么是反美"。从美国利益的角度来看，明确美国在什么条件下可以有效地进行干预是至关重要的。拥有不能通过有效干预来推进的愿望或政治偏好是白日做梦。

令人好奇的是，杜勒斯本人的对华政策是多么的没有政策。他的《战争还是和平》一书以 "危险 "一章开始，以 "我们的精神需要 "一章结束，与其说是一本关于外交政策的书，不如说是班扬的《朝圣者的进步》。一个 "不断收紧的绳索 "的想法贯穿于书中。圣经》中的文本被直接用于政治应用。因此，圣保罗与毛泽东和斯大林对立起来："在信仰、希望和和平工作的压力下，共产主义统治的僵化、头重脚轻和过度扩张的结构很容易陷入崩溃状态。政策和传教活动似乎是同一件事。但是 "政策 "这个词对吗？希望命运、上帝或蒋介石打倒北京政府是一种政策吗？

杜勒斯将基督教的道德观直接应用于国家的世界。他认为政府应该执行《圣经》中的指令。他从苏联共产主义是不敬神的出发点来分析美国对美苏的外交政策。然而，文森特评价共产党人的依据是他们的行为，而不是他们应该相信什么。他认为道德是间接进入外交政策的，是通过民主人民的选择进行调解的。他为塑造美国的中国政策所做的努力的墓志铭很可能是帕默斯顿勋爵关于英国外交政策的评论。"我们没有永恒的敌人，只有永恒的利益。"

约翰-坎特-文森特的主要错误在于，在一个需要意识形态张扬的时期，他是一个没有意识形态的人。二战后，出现了一个恐慌期。美国突然从相对孤立主义走向了世界领导地位。这一转变伴随着强烈的意识形态自我意识。也许意识形态上的沙文主义有助于掩盖在巨大责任面前的自我怀疑。

尽管如此，人们似乎对美国的真正传统一时失去了信心。"我们唯一能相信的是那些知情者，"参议员霍默-弗格森在麦卡伦小组委员会听证会上说，"那些前党员。" 做一个普通的美国人已经不够了。最好的办法是成为一名前共产党员。文森特夫人在1953年给亨利-卢斯的信中指出 "对麦卡伦委员会来说，荣誉只属于前共产党员"。她还补充了这些凄美的、令人困惑的话语。"我发现在我们事业的这个时刻，我们最大的困难是，我们不是前任何东西，仍然是基督徒，仍然是外交官，仍然是忠诚的美国人。"

由过去的镜子反映到现在的另一个问题是外交部门的忠诚度问题。文森特为在一个意识形态时期成为一个非意识形态的人付出了代价；这样一来，国务院失去了最好的中国人。但它也失去了士气。当威廉-罗杰斯在1969年成为国务卿时，他向外交部门发出了一个影响深刻的信息。"我希望领导一个接受和开放的机构，在这个机构中，人们可以说出自己的想法，并根据实际情况听取他们的意见，而且不同的意见会被充分和迅速地传递，以便作出决定。" 在该部，这句话与杜勒斯在担任国务卿的第一天发出的类似信息形成对比，当时他呼吁 "积极的忠诚"。

文森特多年后指出。"任何年轻的外交官员如果读完麦卡伦听证会，可能不会受到启发，但他肯定会感到不安。" 考虑将外交事务作为一种职业的年轻人也会被吓到。(1949年，有1128名候选人参加了外交事务考试：1950年只有807人参加；1951年只有760人参加）。来自实地的良好报告在很大程度上取决于华盛顿是否有罗杰斯所说的 "接受和开放的机构"；一个不把 "错误 "等同于 "不忠诚 "的机构。这也取决于官员在其岗位上能够培养出的丰富的联系。文森特对成为孙夫人的熟人所带来的后果的痛苦经历，对培养人脉的鼓励很小。

在国务院内部，由于参议员约瑟夫-麦卡锡和他的助手们在寻找破坏性的信息，有时在这个过程中让官员与官员对立起来，不信任感越来越强。在瑞士时，文森特发现麦卡锡在那里派遣了一个名叫查尔斯-戴维斯的特工，试图获取对他不利的 "证据"。他收到一封从瑞士境内发出的电报，上面有一个他不认识的签名，要求他在这样那样的地方见面，"关于我们双方都感兴趣的事情"。据推测，他们的计划是在晚些时候出示这份电报的副本，作为文森特在瑞士保持颠覆性接触的证据，因为电报上的签名是一位瑞士共产党官员的签名。戴维斯发出了这份电报，并在电报上签上了这位瑞士共产党人的名字。勤奋的瑞士警察很快发现了这一点，戴维斯被关进了监狱。他在狱中给文森特写信，承认自己的背叛行为并表示道歉。

杜勒斯所说的 "积极的忠诚 "是指一种 "正确的思维"，文森特认为，在外交部门的忠诚应该是指在执行政府政策方面的忠诚。这可能并不意味着一个人同意所有的政策，或者说，来自实地的报告可能不会在任何时候提出对其产生怀疑的观点。另一种观点是，忠诚不仅仅是一个行为问题。除了执行其政策外，你还必须按照政府的想法去思考问题，当然也不能在实地报告中透露任何相反的想法--或对政府的观点产生质疑的事实。罗杰斯先生似乎已经宣布了积极忠诚的过时。

文森特受到攻击的问题仍然很关键：国家利益和意识形态欲望之间的区别；亚洲自决的重要性；对美国在亚洲能够和不能实现的目标的现实评估，特别是通过武力；鼓励官员报告他们所看到和相信的东西的外交部门。

1969年夏天，文森特坐在剑桥的花园里，一边是他的孙子，另一边是一只猫，他对美国远东政策自麦卡锡时期的歇斯底里和杜勒斯担任秘书以来的演变方式进行了思考。

在退休后的16年里，他一直是现场的密切观察者，在拉德克利夫的研讨会上和哈佛大学东亚研究中心分享他的观点和经验，他一直是该中心的协理（该中心将在12月出版他的《中国的治外法权制度》）。

在某些方面，他认为迪安-罗斯克比杜勒斯更像一个思想家。"杜勒斯是个聪明的孩子，而且不择手段。罗斯克两者都不是，但他对之二错误的信念比杜勒斯更加灵活。" 文森特认为罗杰斯和罗杰斯选择的副国务卿埃利奥特-理查森是实用主义者，他们可能能够减少远东的紧张局势。

文森特赞成美国在亚洲扮演一个重要的角色。"他的国家即使想孤立也不可能了"。他认为越南是一个错误，原因是他作为中国之手的核心经验。其中一个原因是，"支持一个政府反对一个得到广泛支持的国家内部的起义，太有殖民主义的味道了。" 他认为杜勒斯1954年在印度支那对法国人的支持是朝着约翰逊在越南的做法迈出的关键一步。而1954年的政策是建立在他自己在战后不久试图保持美国政策适度反殖民主义的不成功的灰烬上的。另一个原因是，反共作为一种意识形态被提升到美国政策的中心，这使得它不可能用复杂的术语来评估越南政治。文森特认为杜鲁门（他的签名照片就放在文森特的家里，总统办公桌上可以看到一个注解："关于中国问题，请见联合卡特-文森特"）之所以反共，首先是出于狭隘。像其他中国之手一样，文森特似乎已经对基于狭隘的反共主义产生了免疫力--仅仅是对陌生事物的怀疑--通过多年来在其他文化中的生活。他从尼克松现在所拥有的广泛的世界经验中看到了一些希望。他喜欢总统最近的声明："政治哲学不能永久地分裂世界人民"；"承认错误，"他想，"是智慧的开始"。

文森特关注的第三个问题是 "对亚洲人的尊重"。像约瑟夫-史迪威将军一样，文森特对待中国人就像对待西方人一样。作为最清醒的人，文森特在这个问题上往往会变得温和地激动。"亚洲人完全有能力处理自己的事务。杜勒斯和卢斯的问题在于，他们从不怀疑自己知道什么对亚洲人是最好的。他们是爱理不理的。"

当然，中国和越南问题的规模有很大的不同。中国政策很少能得到有效的行动支持。越南政策的悲剧在于，大规模的干预--这也是一种选择，并被尝试过--是建立在对东亚局势的错误分析之上的。这正是从中国案例中吸取的教训可以影响越南政策的地方。但 "中国之手 "并没有在华盛顿说出他们的想法。

关于中国政策，文森特发现没有什么值得称赞的；这实际上是一个'没有政策'的案例，只是双方都有偏见"。尼克松先生的7月措施是受欢迎的，但几乎没有超过一个姿态。"它们是好的，因为它们会给中国人带来一些压力，他们不可能永远拒绝给美国人发放签证。" 他认为北京多年来有足够的理由敌视美国。"只要想想杜勒斯说我们可以把汉口炸掉；拉德福德也是，还有尼克松副总统，他对这些态度也有影响。民主党政府错过了机会。如果肯尼迪有一个大的大多数，他也许会在中国问题上顶住保守派的压力。约翰逊拥有多数席位，但没有智慧。"

文森特的社会哲学是非常自由的。这不是一个围绕着对共产主义的态度的社会哲学（像下一代自由主义者的哲学）。共产主义没有出现在他的社会哲学中；他认为社会不公的山头完全可以通过另一条道路来解决，广义上讲，这可以称为社会民主。他是一个非共产主义者，而不是一个反共产主义者。

说到这里，麦卡锡派被激怒并向其发射毒镖的仍然是文森特这个直率的外交家，而不是文森特这个社会自由主义者。他确实是一个非常正统的外交家，确实是美国外交传统的体现。这就是他的麻烦。对约翰-卡特-文森特的致命指控是，他没有，也不可能成为一个思想家，以适应突然出现的反共十字军的时尚。

但是（1952年的致命指控今天看来更像是1969年的荣誉勋章。今天，在越南的创伤中，文森特令人振奋的是，他让年轻一代想起了美国外交的一些令人钦佩的特点，在它最好的时候，在允许它自己的时候。当年轻人沿着他在剑桥的家门前的绿荫小路来询问他关于进入外交部门的建议时，他从来没有劝他们不要进入，而是鼓励他们进去，尽自己最大的努力，使外交部门达到应有的水准。

艾奇逊谈文森特
迪安-艾奇逊先生在诺顿公司刚刚出版的一本回忆录《创造时的存在》（12.5美元）中，回忆了文森特案。
关于总统的忠诚度审查委员会的调查结果，该委员会推翻了国务院自己的判断，认为文森特的忠诚度可疑。
我很了解约翰-卡特和对他的指控，知道对他不忠诚的指责是毫无根据的，这些指控实际上是基于他所建议的政策和他对情况的评价，而这些评价基本上是我所接受的。我对该部的董事会及其主席也有很高的评价，对总统的董事会及其主席则没有评价。康涅狄格州的参议员希拉姆-宾汉姆。. . . 我决定无视委员会的建议，恢复文森特的职务。然而，这对他没有什么好处，因为麦卡锡参议员会很高兴再次对他提出指控，并要求我的继任者按照总统审查委员会的决定行事。在与总统协商后，我们决定，更好的办法是任命一个具有无可指责的权威和声誉的小组来审查记录和两个相互矛盾的建议。. . . 我毫不怀疑一个公平和司法的决定会是什么。

关于杜勒斯对文森特的最后谴责。
杜勒斯先生的六位前任，文森特先生都曾在中国战场上任职，他们并没有发现他的判断力或服务有缺陷或不合格。相反，他们信赖他并提拔他。杜勒斯先生的政府后来发现国务院人员的士气需要改善。
关于艾奇逊1955年在国务院的告别。
很少有经历能让我如此感动。他们经历了三年痛苦的迫害和中伤，主要是在新闻界吹捧的傻瓜和自以为是的黑手的手中。我担心，最糟糕的情况还在后面，"届时，总统和我所能提供的防止虐待的保护将被撤消。
罗斯-泰瑞尔，澳大利亚人，目前是哈佛大学政治学的弗兰克-诺克斯研究员，在准备这份研究报告时与约翰-卡特-文森特进行了广泛的交谈。自从五年前访问北京以来，泰瑞尔先生在《政治学季刊》、《中国季刊》和其他学术期刊上撰写了关于中国和共产党政治的文章。
在战争结束前的一天，当文森特在华盛顿从重庆出发时，他偶然在街上遇到一位即将去中国的朋友。他通过这位朋友向孙中山夫人 "致以问候"--口头的。孙夫人后来成为北京的一位高级官员，尽管基本上是荣誉性的。然而，此时她仍在重庆的姐妹圈中。这些姐妹中的一个正是蒋介石夫人；另一个是蒋介石的最高助手之一H.H.Rung的妻子。麦卡伦小组委员会认为值得花30分钟时间，试图找出这种微不足道的社交活动的阴险的内在含义。如果小组委员会知道文森特在1943年5月离开重庆时，孙夫人送给他一个古色古香的竹制笔筒，上面刻着一首迷人的汉字诗，他们可能会大惑不解。