The Old China Hands

Monday, Aug. 02, 1971

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Steam Traps. For Service and Davies, the next years were a time of torment. Seven times in seven years, Davies was called before a State Department loyalty review board, then once before a Civil Service Commission board, and each time he was cleared.

But in August 1951, the late Senator Joseph R. McCarthy pointed his accusing finger at Davies and at last succeeded in getting him condemned—not for disloyalty but for "disregard of proper forbearance and caution in making known his dissents" from existing policy. Davies refused to resign; Secretary of State John Foster Dulles fired him in 1954.

The case of Service was more complicated. He had given copies of some of his official memorandums to an editor of Amerasia, a pro-Communist sheet. But a federal grand jury voted 20-to-0 against indicting him. Then, after going through half a dozen loyalty inquisitions, he emerged unscathed only to be axed by the Civil Service Commission Loyalty Review Board on the grounds of "reasonable doubt as to his loyalty." It took six years for Service to be partly rehabilitated; by a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court overturned the loyalty board's action in 1957.

In the interval between dismissal and reinstatement, Service worked for an engineering firm in New York City and devised improvements in steam traps for radiators. After retiring, he went to the University of California for an M.A. in political science, then settled in at U.C.'s Center for Chinese Studies at Berkeley. Its press has just published his Amerasia Papers: Some Problems in the History of U.S.-China Relations, which fully records his early talks with Mao.

For Davies, the road back was longer. He had been stationed in Peru just before his dismissal. He returned to Lima and opened a furniture-making business. After eleven years, during which his family increased to seven, he returned to Washington. "I thought our children should grow up in this country," he says. His Foreign and Other Affairs was published in 1964.

The two old China hands' testimony at Senator William Fulbright's closed hearing last week contained no surprises. They endorsed President Nixon's plans to normalize relations with Peking. Davies recalls that although there is no supporting text in State Department files, Mao and Chou En-lai appeared to make a bid early in 1945 to be invited to Washington.

Stupid Period. In interviews with TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angelo, both men contrasted their earlier appearances before congressional committees with the present occasion. Said Davies: "It's like the difference between being held up by assailants and being invited to dinner." Neither was vindictive. Pressed to relive the pains of excommunication, Davies said wearily: "That was a stupid period. That's the worst thing you can say. But I've always believed it's futile to think about the past when you can't do anything about it. Some in a similar situation did keep thinking about it and it ate them up. You have to learn to survive."