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

From Our Own Correspondent

by Seymour Topping

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. In this riveting narrative, 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 -- who had served as an infantry officer in the Pacific -- 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. Crossing Nationalist lines, Topping was captured by Communist guerrillas and tramped for days over battlefields to reach the People's Liberation Army as it advanced on Nanking. The sole correspondent on the battlefield during the decisive Battle of the Huai-Hai, which sealed Mao's victory, Topping later scored a world-wide exclusive as the first journalist to report the fall of the capital.

In 1950, Topping opened the Associated Press bureau in Saigon, becoming the first American correspondent in Vietnam. In 1951, John F. Kennedy, then a young congressman on a fact-finding visit to Saigon, sought out Topping for a briefing. Assignments in London and West Berlin followed, then Moscow and Hong Kong for the New York Times. During those years Topping reported on the Chinese intervention in the Korean conflict, Mao's Cultural Revolution and its preceding internal power struggle, the Chinese leader's monumental ideological split with Nikita Khrushchev, the French Indochina War, America's Vietnam War, and the genocides in Cambodia and Indonesia. He stood in the Kremlin with a vodka-tilting Khrushchev on the night the Cuban missile crisis ended and interviewed Fidel Castro in Havana on its aftermath.

Throughout this captivating chronicle, Topping also relates the story of his marriage to Audrey Ronning, a world-renowned photojournalist and writer and daughter of the Canadian ambassador to China. As the couple traveled from post to post reporting on some of the biggest stories of the century in Asia and Eastern Europe, they raised five daughters. In an epilogue, Topping cites lessons to be learned from the Asia wars which could serve as useful guides for American policymakers in dealing with present-day conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

From China to Indochina, Burma to Korea and beyond, Topping did more than report the news; he became involved in international diplomacy, enabling him to gain extraordinary insights. In On the Front Lines of the Cold War, Topping shares these insights, providing an invaluable eyewitness account of some of the pivotal moments in modern history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

488 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2010

About the author

Seymour Topping is currently San Paolo Professor Emeritus of International Journalism at Columbia University. He is one of the most respected journalists in the world, having worked as a foreign correspondent in many different parts of the world for I.N.S., A.P. and the New York Times. He subsequently held several editorial positions within the New York Times Company while concurrently engaging in further writing of newspaper and magazine articles as well as both fiction and non-fiction books.

Reviews

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seymour Topping is arguably the most respected foreign correspondent in the world of English-language journalism. From the end of World War II (in which he served as an officer of the U.S. Army) through the end of the cold war, he covered wars, political developments and a multitude of other stories. From his early years in China (where he briefly shared lodgings with the late David Galula, a French Army officer then serving as assistant military attaché at the French embassy in Peking, who later became famous for his books on counter-insurgency warfare), covering the Civil War for I.N.S. & eventually for A.P., through the French Indo-China conflict and later posted in the East-West flashpoint of West Berlin, Mr. Topping was one of the leading journalists of the time; in 1950 he became the very first American journalist based in Saigon. Later, he was a correspondent and eventually held several editorial positions at The New York Times, where he continued with his already extremely successful career.
Seymour Topping is one of those legendary journalists who, almost literally, has been everywhere and knows everyone. This book, a memoir of his long career, is one of the best books I have ever read in this category- perhaps even better than the memoir of Mr. Topping's late colleague Malcolm W. Browne (1931-2012), which was an extremely good book.
I would recommend this excellent book to anyone with an interest in journalism, the cold war era, China, or the wars in Indo-China.

[John Albers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seymour Topping was a reporter for the Associated Press, and later a reporter and editor for the New York Times and was a witness to the events in east Asia from the Civil War in China in the late 1940's to the end of the Vietnam conflict in 1975. The book is well written, detailed, and well researched. The epilogue shall be read to understand how the United States became involved in conflicts it could not control.

[Dhevarajan · Rating 5 out of 5]

a vivid account of the various Asian cold war conflicts that's a joy to read. there's plenty of background info to provide context to the author's personal recollections.

[Anne Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seymour Topping is a legendary journalist, as well as the author of two fascinating novels based on his experiences in China and Vietnam. These are his memoirs, and they take the reader behind the scenes in some of the most compelling moments of 20th century history. Topping watched, dismayed, at the diplomatic missteps that contributed to the bloody conflicts in Asia over the decades of the mid-century. This is also a remarkable love story, as Topping undertakes many of his adventures in the company of his brilliant and beautiful wife Audrey, who grew up in China as the blond daughter of a Canadian diplomat, to become an accomplished photographer and history-making journalist herself. As managing editor at the New York Times, Topping was also at the center of the Pentagon Papers case, and adds new details to that ground-breaking moment in U.S. journalism. Throughout the book, Topping's wise voice dispenses compassion and common sense. One only wishes that more statesmen had bothered to listen.