Diplomatic Black Hole: Conspiracy and Political Fear in Mid-20th Century America

Cassella-Blackburn and Langone provide an account of the ways in which the small group of zealots known as the China Lobby conspired to create a hysterical fear of the threat of Soviet imperialism and the dangers of communism in the minds of the American public and Western leaders. The China Lobby included business leaders, publishers, and members of the United States congress, state department, and military as well as Chinese nationalists. Their work led to a diplomatic black hole, a total failure in diplomacy between the United States and the other Western nations with first the Soviet Union, then China and eventually Korea, Vietnam and even the African nations engaged in decolonization. Their conspiracy was a fight against an insidious enemy that was both outside and inside America.

Through exploration of the speeches, congressional testimony, personal correspondence, and articles published in early mainstream publications such as in Henry Luce's Time and Life magazines as well as in the far-reaching Reader's Digest and The New York Times, the authors guide the reader through a large and interwoven ideological movement based on political fear and accusations of conspiracy. The China Lobby's diplomatic black hole, a distortion of reality, led the American public to believe the Soviet Communists' stated plan for world domination was viable and in so doing was able to justify multiple wars in the East Asia, the overthrow of democratically elected leaders, and the diversion and stunting of post-war leftist social and economic movements.