Overview

Part memoir, part diplomatic history, Born a Foreigner traces Ambassador CrossAIs personal odyssey as a boy born in Beijing to missionary parents, a teenager under the Japanese occupation of North China, a Japanese-speaking Marine Corps officer in WWII, and as a diplomat posted to sensitive areas throughout the world. CrossAIs authoritative and invaluable account of his Vietnam experience as chief of CORDS in I Corps adds significantly to the literature on the Vietnam War. Covering the long sweep of historical events in Asia from revolutionary China in the 1920s and 1930s to the full normalization of Sino-American diplomatic relations in 1979 and their aftermath in Taiwan, CrossAIs memoir will interest anyone seeking an insiderAIs view of U.S. relations with Asia.

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9780847694686

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Reviews

This is a remarkable and highly personal account of a half century of Chinese-American engagement a mosaic of affection and insight, friendship and hostility, cross-purposes and adjustment, public posturing and private pain. As he moves from parental pacifism and missionary moralism to Marine Corps patriotism and Foreign Service discipline, the author s 'internal turmoil' is repeatedly tested over four decades in a half dozen key assignments on the periphery of China itself. Amid life-threatening situations from Iwo Jima to Vietnam, and career-threatening ones from McCarthy to Agnew, Cross gives us memorable glimpses of politicians, diplomats, generals, and bureaucrats in their often fateful mismatches with one another and with history.--Thomas L. Hughes

This is a most unusual and informative book that combines gripping and intensely personal reminiscences with authoritative diplomatic and foreign policy history. It is must-reading for its close-up views on our China policies; intimate descriptions of a privileged existence in Peking before WW II; candid glimpses of life in the Foreign Service; authoritative diplomatic history about the author's part in policymaking in several areas of the world; and an especially moving and detailed picture of his work in shoring up American and Vietnamese efforts to prevent a communist takeover. No other work I have seen amalgamates the personal and the official in such a satisfying way.--Arthur Hummel

Author Information

During the course of his thirty-two year diplomatic career, Charles T. Cross served in posts throughout the world, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Cyprus, London, Vietnam (1967-1969) where he was chief of the pacification efforts in I Corps. He was also ambassador to Singapore (1969-1972), consul general in Hong Kong (1974-1977), and the first director of the American Institute in Taiwan (1979-1981). Most recently he was a distinguished lecturer in international studies at the University of Washington.

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