On the Front Lines of the Cold War: An American Correspondent's Journal from the Chinese Civil War to the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam (review)

The threat of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War occasionally pushed journalists into becoming unorthodox couriers between the superpowers. The best known, albeit contrived, example was the role that the ABC News correspondent John Scali supposedly played at the height of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Many later assumed that Scali's "back-channel" contacts with a Soviet foreign intelligence official in October 1962 were crucial in facilitating a settlement of the crisis. Archival evidence has debunked this notion, but the myth lives on.

Yet nearly a decade before the Scali episode, another journalist genuinely did assist communication between Communist China and the United States at a time when the two countries had no direct way of talking to each other because of the absence of diplomatic relations. The event occurred at the Geneva conference of 1954 aimed at ending the warfare in Indochina. As weeks dragged on, China became concerned that the United States might intervene militarily in Vietnam, possibly with nuclear weapons. The Chinese delegation wanted to signal Beijing's readiness to accept partition.

The messenger in this case was Seymour Topping who carried the word as an Associated Press (AP) correspondent from an agitated Chinese official, Huang Hua. Topping writes, "In the hope of reaching an agreement that afternoon, Huang Hua wanted me to convey the Chinese terms for an agreement to the American delegation even if I would do it in the form of a dispatch to the Associated Press. He was employing this device out of desperation because [Secretary of State John Foster] Dulles had banned any bilateral contacts between the Chinese and American delegations in the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries. . . . I wrote and filed my dispatch and at the same time gave a copy to the American delegation. I reported that the Chinese were prepared to sign an agreement, already approved in principle by Britain and France, based on the partition of Vietnam. I quoted Huang Hua as saying that a cease-fire agreement could be reached two days hence—when the deadline would expire for [French Premier Pierre] Mendès France to either end the war or resign."

How Topping developed this trusting relationship with Huang Hua, the adversary, recalls how The Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward became friendly with Mark Felt, a high official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who later became known as the key source "Deep Throat" during the Watergate scandal. The story is remarkably the same: cub reporter meets low-level official; both men grow in their jobs, remain in contact, and find a critical link at a crucial moment in history.

In Topping's case, his first acquaintance with Huang dated to 1946, eight years before the Geneva conference. At that time he was leaving the U.S. military in the Far East after World War II. He was determined to become a reporter and got a job with the International News Service covering the Communist side of the Chinese civil war. Traveling to the cave city of Yenan, Topping almost immediately met Huang and became friendly with him. They would spend time together satisfying Huang's curiosity about the United States, its history, and its possible intentions.

Topping's work as a Cold War correspondent made for a fabulous career. His devotion to foreign affairs took him to China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Germany (both West and East), the Soviet Union, Cuba, New York, and Washington. I knew "Top" personally when we both served in Moscow during the Cuban missile crisis. His book is a notable contribution to the history of the Cold War as seen by an astute observer.

One of the things I found intriguing about this highly experienced reporter was his bemusement that high U.S. political and military officials would...