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DANGER FROM THE EAST by Richard E. Lauterbach Kirkus Star

DANGER FROM THE EAST

By

Pub Date: Nov. 12th, 1947
Publisher: Harper

This is the most important book Lauterbach has done. It has the vividness of fine reporting, characteristic of his These Are The Russians, the human touches of his Through Russia's Back Door, and scholarship, objectivity and yet enough of the crusading seal that is evidence of growing maturity. On a mission for Life magazine, he has spent many months of intensive investigation into the conditions in Japan, Korea and China, under American policy. The resultant picture is a grim one. He sees Japan being regimented into a emblance of a democracy which has no roots -- MacArthur accepting surface as the real thing, his own infallibility unshaken- the Allied Council and idlogical debating forum....He sees Korea, under the inept Hodges, a pawn in the international chess game between the Soviet and the USA, with Russia proving a better player, and the Joint Commission ignoring practical politics and economic reforms by bogging down in international semantion...He sees China very much as the current Wedermeyer report it, victimized by the venality, graft, corruption of Chiang's Kuomintang. He reviews the course of civil war- the Marshall mission- the sacrifice of America's prestige in our actions belying our words- the loss of faith. A challenging, grim story.