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

Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. xv, [3], 435, [1] pages. A Note on Chinese Language Romanization. Maps. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. In the years following World War II, the United States suffered its most severe military and diplomatic reverses in Asia while Mao Zedong laid the foundation for the emergence of China as a major economic and military world power. As a correspondent for the International News Service, the Associated Press, and later for the New York Times, Seymour Topping documented on the ground the tumultuous events during the Chinese Civil War, the French Indochina War, and the American retreat from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Topping chronicles his extraordinary experiences covering the East-West struggle in Asia and Eastern Europe from 1946 into the 1980s, taking us beyond conventional historical accounts to provide a fresh, first-hand perspective on American triumphs and defeats during the Cold War era. At the close of World War II, Topping reported for the International News Service from Beijing and Mao's Yenan stronghold before joining the Associated Press in Nanking, Chiang Kai-shek's capital. He covered the Chinese Civil War for the next three years, often interviewing Nationalist and Communist commanders in combat zones. Topping was captured by Communist guerrillas and tramped for days over battlefields to reach the People's Liberation Army. The sole correspondent on the battlefield during the decisive Battle of the Huai-Hai, Topping scored a world-wide exclusive as the first journalist to report the fall of the capital. Seymour Topping (born December 11, 1921) is an American writer best known for his long association with The New York Times as a foreign correspondent and editor. Since 2002, he has served as the San Paolo Professor Emeritus of International Journalism at Columbia University. During his career, Topping covered historical events all over the world including the Chinese Revolution and the French Indochina War, and he reported from countries and regions including China, Vietnam, Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Tibet, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Iran, South Africa, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Australia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. After graduating from the University of Missouri School of Journalism (B.J. '43) and subsequent military service as an infantry officer in the Pacific during World War II, he joined the Associated Press in 1948 as a foreign correspondent in China and Southeast Asia. He joined The New York Times Company in 1959; over the next thirty-four years, he held positions such as chief correspondent in both Moscow and Southeast Asia, foreign editor, assistant managing editor (1969-1976), deputy managing editor (1976) and managing editor (1977-1987) of The New York Times. Following the reorientation of his duties toward the Times Company's regional publications at the behest of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger in 1985, Topping was appointed director of editorial development for The New York Times Company in 1986; in this capacity, he "focused exclusively on improving the journalistic quality of the regional papers." He left the Times Company in 1993 to administer the Pulitzer Prizes as the nonvoting secretary of the Pulitzer Prize Board; from 1994 until his retirement in 2002, he was also affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism as the San Paolo Professor of International Journalism. He has also served in various administrative capacities, including President of the International Advisory Board of the School of Journalism at Tsinghua University, President of Emeritus Professors In Columbia, President of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (1992-1993), and Chairman of the ASNE's Committee on International Communication. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Asia Society, the Century Association, and the National Committee on United States-China Relations.