PRAISE FOR
On the Front Lines of the Cold War
“All old Asia hands have their stories. Seymour Topping’s were gathered at the most important crossroads of two epochal civil wars into which our country blundered. He tells them with authority and, as if they happened yesterday, an eyewitness’s sense of immediacy. We can all be grateful.”
—JOSEPH LELYVELD, former executive editor of the New York Times
“Seymour Topping was a preeminent foreign correspondent of his time, often filing exclusive stories that chronicled pivotal events at the onset of the Cold War and during the decades following as they shaped the history of the major powers following World War II. Top was everywhere in Asia, from the Chinese Civil War through the Korean Conflict to the fall of Vietnam and Mao’s Cultural Revolution. On the Front Lines of the Cold War engages us with precise detail, eloquent writing, and authoritative insights.”
—BOB GILES, curator of The Nieman Foundation
“For half a century, Seymour Topping chronicled the rise of Communism as it swept across Asia from China down through the Indochinese peninsula, ensnared capitals from Berlin to Havana, enslaving much of Eastern and Central Europe. Now, in this magisterial book, Top, as he’s known to friends and colleagues alike, has brought it all together—weaving a compelling and intricate tale of global events, where he had a ringside seat, with personal stories of heroism and humor. The sweeping photo gallery alone is worth the price of admission. Of all the books on Communism and the Cold War, journalistic careers, and daring-do, this is the one worth reading.”
—DAVID A. ANDELMAN, editor, World Policy Journal
“For the romance, for the history, for the political lessons learned (or not), this is a book to savor. To witness so many world-changing events, to know so many world-changing people, and to have such an impact on them all—I think no journalist is likely ever again to have quite such an adventure as Seymour Topping has had. What a life! Topping fell in love with journalism (by reading Edgar Snow). He fell in love with Audrey (the beautiful and brilliant daughter of an ambassador). He stacked up ‘firsts’—first American correspondent stationed in Saigon, his kids the first Americans in Moscow to attend a Russian school—with every career move. And now he shares it all with us.”
—GENEVA OVERHOLSER, director of the School of Journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication
ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE COLD WAR
From Our Own Correspondent
John Maxwell Hamilton, Series Editor
Illuminating the development of foreign news gathering at a time when it has never been more important, “From Our Own Correspondent” is a series of books that features forgotten works and unpublished memoirs by pioneering foreign correspondents. Series editor John Maxwell Hamilton, once a foreign correspondent himself, is dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University.
Previous books in the series:
Evelyn Waugh, Waugh in Abyssinia
Edward Price Bell, Journalism of the Highest Realm: The Memoir of Edward Price Bell, Pioneering Foreign Correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, edited by Jaci Cole and John Maxwell Hamilton
William Howard Russell and Others, The Crimean War: As Seen by Those Who Reported It, edited by Angela Michelli Fleming and John Maxwell Hamilton
ALSO BY SEYMOUR TOPPING
The New York Times Report from Red China. With Tillman Durdin and James Reston. Photographs and additional articles by Audrey Ronning Topping (1971).
Journey Between Two Chinas (1972)
The Peking Letter: A Novel of the Chinese Civil War (1999)
Fatal Crossroads: A Novel of Vietnam 1945 (2004)
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
SEYMOUR TOPPING
Published with the assistance of the V. Ray Cardozier Fund
Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright © 2010 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing
Designer: Laura Roubique Gleason
Typefaces: Minion Pro text with Franklin Gothic display
Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc.
The frontispiece photo of Seymour Topping was taken in Berlin in 1958.
Photographer unknown.
The maps in this book were drawn by Robert Paulsell.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Topping, Seymour, 1921–
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 / Seymour Topping.
p. cm. — (From our own correspondent)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8071-3556-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Military history—20th century—Anecdotes. 2. Cold War—Anecdotes. 3. Topping, Seymour, 1921– —Travel. 4. Topping, Seymour, 1921– —Diaries. 5. War correspondents— United States—Diaries. I. Title.
D431.T67 2010
909.82’5—dc22
2009028555
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
FOR AUDREY
And for our daughters: Susan, Karen, Lesley, Robin, and Joanna, who shared in our adventures
CONTENTS
Author’s Note
Prologue: China Bound
1. Peking: Covering the Civil War
2. Yenan: At Mao Zedong’s Headquarters
3. Battle for Manchuria
4. Fall of Manchuria
5. Nanking
6. Battle of the Huai-Hai
7. The Jesuits
8. Crossing of the Yangtze
9. The Fall of Nanking
10. Communist Occupation
11. Huang Hua and J. Leighton Stuart
12. The Purge of My China Deputies
13. The Last Battle: Hainan Island
14. Saigon
15. The China Frontier
16. Burma: The CIA Operation
17. The Kennedy Brothers in Saigon
18. Hanoi
19. On the Diplomatic Beat and the Korean War
20. Geneva Accords: Partition of Vietnam
21. Berlin: Cold War
22. Moscow: The Sino-Soviet Split and the Cuban Missile Crisis
23. An Evening with Fidel Castro
24. President Kennedy
25. Operation Rolling Thunder
26. Smallbridge: Mission to Hanoi
27. Cambodia
28. Sihanouk Besieged
29. The B-52 Bombings
30. The Indonesian Holocaust and the Downfall of Sukarno
31. China Watching: The Cultural Revolution
32. Foreign Editor
33. The Pentagon Papers
34. Maoist Purge of the Party and Government
35. Zhou Enlai and the Future of Taiwan
36. Battle of the Pentagon Papers
37. The Trial
38. Fall of Indochina: America in Retreat
Epilogue: Lessons of the Asian Wars
A Note on Chinese Language Romanization, by Lawrence Sullivan
Bibliography
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS
China, ca. 1946
The Battle of the Huai-Hai
Frontier Route Coloniale 4: The French “Road of Death”
Korean War, 1950–51
Indochina, ca. 1965
Communist Logistics in Cambodia, 1969–70
PHOTOGRAPHS
following page 110
Author in Nanking shortly before the city fell to Mao Zedong’s forces in April 1949
Nationalist cavalry company retreating from Pengpu on the Huai River, November 1948
A suicide attack squad of the People’s Liberation Army during the Battle of the Huai-Hai
Defeated Nationalist commanding general, Tu Yu-ming, captured during the Battle of the Huai-Hai
General Chiang Wei-kuo, who commanded the Nationalist Armored Corps during the Battle of the Huai-Hai
Lin Biao, Liu Bocheng, and Chen Yi, field commanders of the People’s Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek on Chinese New Year’s Day, 1949, shortly before his resignation and retreat to Taiwan
Execution of captured Communist agents in Shanghai’s Chapei Park, November 1948
American Ambassador J. Leighton Stuart chatting with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in Nanking, 1947
Mao Zedong reviewing his troops in Peking’s Tiananmen Square
Liu Shaoqi, head of state of China, eventually purged from the Communist Party and placed under house arrest
Jiang Qing, wife of Mao Zedong and driving force in the Cultural Revolution
Edgar Snow, author of the epic Red Star over China, with interpreter Huang Hua, 1970
Author traveling with a Foreign Legion convoy to the Vietnam-China frontier, 1950
Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, commander of the French forces in the French Indochina War, 1951
Graham Greene in the author’s Saigon apartment, 1951
Tiger hunt in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, 1950
Ho Chi Minh, president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Major General Charles Willoughby accepting the surrender of Japanese troops in the Philippines in 1945
Douglas MacArthur being briefed on the advance of American troops in the Korean War, September 1950
Chinese Communist troops crossing the Yalu River border into North Korea, October 1950
following page 224
Correspondents at Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie, 1957
Author meeting with captive American servicemen in Dresden, Communist East Germany, 1958
U.S. Ambassador Lewellyn Thompson with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Jane Thompson, and Nina Khrushchev, 1960
Khrushchev with Leonid Brezhnev at a Kremlin reception on November 7, 1962
Author’s daughters being outfitted for attendance at a Russian school
Author interviewing Fidel Castro in Havana, 1983
The Topping family on Hong Kong’s Repulse Bay
American briefing in Saigon during the Vietnam War, 1964
Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia on arrival at Phnom Penh airport in 1964
Author with Cambodian defense minister General Lon Nol, checking out reports of North Vietnamese bases on the Cambodia border
James Reid, decorated U.S. military intelligence officer, at a base in South Vietnam in 1967
Indonesian president Sukarno meeting with President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson in 1961
Chinese premier Zhou Enlai with Canadian ambassador Chester Ronning and his daughter Audrey Topping, 1973
Audrey Topping riding with the Kazaks, 1975
Henry Kissinger visiting former Chinese foreign minister Huang Hua in a Beijing hospital, 2008
Audrey Topping’s missionary grandparents
The author’s parents, Joseph and Anna Topolsky, 1916
Menfolk of the author’s family in Kobryn, on the Polish-Russian border
The Topping daughters
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am indebted to numerous wise and generous individuals who contributed to the creation of this book. Foremost, Audrey, my wife and journalistic partner, for her recollections of our life experience and for sharing her field reporting as a photojournalist and writer on behalf of such publications as the New York Times and National Geographic magazine. I am also grateful to her for making available the extensive private papers of her father, Chester Ronning, ambassador-at-large for Canada, a central figure in the diplomacy which reordered Asia. My profound thanks to my editor, John Maxwell Hamilton, for his vision and devoted editing of my book in form and content. I am also indebted to Professor Lawrence Sullivan of Adelphi University for his painstaking reading and many useful suggestions, particularly in the China sections of the book, and to Grace Carino for her meticulous, thoughtful line editing of my manuscript. I extend my gratitude also to Henry Graff, professor emeritus of history at Columbia University and editor of The Presidents: A Reference History, for lending his unique historical perspective. My appreciation also to Donald Shanor for his encouraging early read. I am very much indebted to Professor Li Xiguang, executive dean of Tsinghua University’s School of Journalism, and his staff for facilitating my research during my tours of China. I feel most fortunate in that the distinguished Louisiana State University Press, directed by MaryKatherine Callaway, elected to publish my book and provide the valued services of Catherine Kadair, senior editor, and the designer, assistant director Laura Gleason. Patiently, during the years of composition, my friend and computer wizard Sonal Vaidya faithfully transcribed sections of my manuscript, and I offer her my thanks once again. The reader will find in my Notes and Bibliography lists of others who were most helpful together with citations of books and documents which I consulted.
ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE COLD WAR
PROLOGUE
CHINA BOUND
The artillery thundered through the night but now at dawn fell silent. It was January 7, 1949. I lay awake beneath the cotton blanket atop the sacks of grain in the Chinese peasant hut listening, wondering what the silence portended. Then, I groped in the darkness toward the doorway but retreated when I came face to face with a soldier, his carbine leveled. I was a prisoner of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), held in a hut near the battlefield where 130,000 of Chiang Kai-shek’s troops were encircled by 300,000 of Mao Zedong’s forces. I would soon learn that the abrupt halt in the gunfire meant that the trapped Nationalists had surrendered. It was the end of the Battle of the Huai-Hai. In running engagements across the frozen Huaipei Plain of Central China, Chiang Kai-shek had in sixty-five days lost more than a half million of his troops. Mao Zedong’s triumph in the decades-long Civil War had thus become a certainty.
A correspondent for the Associated Press, I had ventured across the Nationalist front lines into the no-man’s-land of the Huaipei Plain bent on reaching Mao’s headquarters, to seek an interview and cover the advance of his armies on Nanking, Chiang Kai-shek’s capital. Intercepted by Communist guerrillas, I was led on foot and horseback to the hut on the edge of the battlefield, put under guard, my typewriter and camera confiscated. On that morning when the gunfire ceased, the Communist political commissar who had interrogated me upon my arrival two days earlier reentered the hut. “We ask you to return,” he said. “The horses are outside the door.” When I protested, demanding to know the outcome of my request for an interview with Mao Zedong, the commissar shook his head impatiently and stalked out. I paced the hut and in frustration beat my fist against a stack of grain stalks. So, Mao would not receive me. The victor was no longer talking to Americans.
That was the defining moment for me in the tumultuous years of 1946–80 when I covered the East-West struggle in Asia and Eastern Europe. Mao’s victory in the Battle of the Huai-Hai marked the onset of an era in which East Asia would be engulfed in war, revolution, and genocide. Tens of millions would die in China, Korea, Indochina, and Indonesia in wars, political purges, and sectarian violence. The United States would suffer in the region its worst military and political defeats. And at the end of the era, with the collapse of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, China would reconstitute itself and be launched on the path toward becoming the leading powe
r in East Asia. In the Epilogue of this journal I advance my thesis that the White House can derive lessons from the American reverses in China and the Indochina wars which would be of significant value in coping with other foreign conflicts such as those current in Iraq and Afghanistan.
During those decades of turmoil I worked as a correspondent in turn for the International News Service, the Associated Press, and the New York Times. I covered the turning points in the Chinese Civil War, the events leading to the Chinese intervention in the Korean conflict, Mao’s Cultural Revolution and monumental ideological split with Nikita Khrushchev, the French Indochina War, America’s Vietnam War, and the genocides in Cambodia and Indonesia.
The first American correspondent to be stationed in French Indochina after World War II, I traveled with the Foreign Legion along the embattled China frontier and briefed John F. Kennedy in Saigon when he visited Vietnam as a young congressman in 1951. At the 1954 Geneva Conference, which divided Vietnam into the North and the South, I was thrust into the role of a participant, more than a reporter, in the negotiations between the major powers. Decades later, as a senior editor of the Times, I delved into the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department’s history of the Vietnam War, extracts of which the paper published, and found revealed there the top-secret political decision making which led to events that I had witnessed earlier on the ground.
From posts in Eastern Europe I reported on America’s Cold War with the Soviet Union. Working for the Associated Press I covered the Soviet threats to divided, isolated West Berlin from 1956 to 1959. Based in Moscow for the Times from 1960 to 1963, I was in the Kremlin reception hall on the night when Nikita Khrushchev, vodka glass in hand, told those of us gathered about him that thermonuclear war in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis had been averted. I would spend an evening with Fidel Castro in November 1983 and talk with him about his ties to the Russians.
Transferred from Moscow to Hong Kong as chief Southeast Asia correspondent, I traveled to Indonesia, where I covered the dethroning of Indonesian president Sukarno after the 1965 leftist putsch that brought on the retaliatory purge coup by army generals in which an estimated 750,000 people died. Bill Moyers, press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson, tells of the summer of 1966 when Johnson kept copies of my Indonesia dispatches about the army coup and the genocide that followed “in his pocket and on his desk so that he could show them to reporters and visiting firemen.” Johnson was contending then that his stand in Vietnam had emboldened the Indonesian generals to crush the Communist bid for domination of the archipelago.
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