On June 30, 1976, I moved from New York City to Los Angeles to do various tasks in Hollywood. I had in 1973–74 been a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon and had become friends with him in a small way…
One of the advantages of being an oldster who still subscribes to a newspaper — four of them, actually! — is having the opportunity to scan obituaries. It’s a bit morbid. On the sad side, I’ve discovered long-ago friends among…
I It is the morning of July 1, 1958, and a bleary-eyed Chairman Mao Zedong is rising from his double bed, having passed a restless night in his official residence at the Zhongnanhai’s Library of Chrysanthemum Fragrance. The 64-year-old Great…
It’s been only a month since China’s Xi Jinping strode forth as a master of the universe. He had vanquished his enemies and secured a third term as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary general. The 69-year-old likely was set to…
El horror del progreso sólo puede medirlo el que ha conocido un paisaje antes y después que el progreso lo transforme. The horror of progress can only be measured by someone who has known a landscape before and after progress…
Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has again taken to the pages of Foreign Affairs to warn the West that President Xi Jinping has brought back Marxism to China. Rudd’s article, “The Return of Red China,” contends that Xi at…
The timing couldn’t have been better. Democratic Party foreign-policy “expert” Joseph Nye, who served in the Carter, Clinton, and Obama administrations and who teaches at Harvard University, wrote an article in Project Syndicate extolling the virtues of post–Cold War engagement…
Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden: Two Sisters Separated by China’s Civil War (W.W. Norton/368 pages/$27.95) The outcome of China’s civil war between 1945 and 1949 continues to have both global and individual repercussions. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) victory…
What drives and motivates America’s most dangerous adversary, Chinese President Xi Jinping? As war clouds gather over the western Pacific, it would be helpful to know what makes Xi tick. Two of the world’s most interesting and provocative strategic analysts…
Dead Man Doddering doddered his way through the State of the Union, thanks to dosing Razadyne and Aducanumab, and I would pay good money to hear him try to get that word out of his mouth. He even managed…