Doing Transnational Intelligence History, Reflections on Writing “Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA’s Covert War in China”

From Mao Zedong’s founding of the People’s Republic of China in October 1949 until Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in February 1972, US-China political relations were by definition sub rosa. The two governments refused to interact as equal, sovereign entities, and—with a few notable exceptions—barely spoke to one another in public. As a result, reconstructing US-China relations before normalization forces historians to grapple with the history of the covert. In this talk, John Delury will share reflections from the process of researching and writing transnational (US-China) intelligence history, and the unique challenges involved in obtaining and analyzing ‘subversive’ source material. Given the current trends in Sino-US relations, amidst of talk of ‘decoupling’ and a ‘new Cold War’, the lessons of the 1950s and 1960s might unfortunately have added salience in the years to come.

John Delury is Professor of Chinese Studies in the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University.

Co-sponsored by the Department of History and the International Studies Program.

This event is a part of the East Asian Studies Speaker Series. Each semester, the East Asian Studies Program invites several prominent scholars from a variety of disciplines to present research talks. We welcome faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, and others to join us for these talks. This semester, all talks will be in person (although the location will vary).