Alone in China

Chapter 1

Montreal, Canada

7:00 a.m.

Sammy Green was walking to campus at McGill University.

Five Lincoln Navigators driven by men in charcoal suits rolled past. But Sammy didn't notice. He was preoccupied by rap music playing in his headphones:

...First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal to brothers

Give 'em guns, step back, watch 'em kill each other

'It's time to fight back,' that's what Huey said

Two shots in the dark, now Huey's dead.. 

Sammy smiled as he rapped along, shaking and waiving his hands like Tupac, the song's author. It was winter. And for his path to campus, Sammy chose the snowiest one. Sammy loved snow. He loved to feel it crunch beneath his boots. He loved to see it piled on roofs and treetops. Born and raised in Agoura Hills, California, Sammy loved snow more than the Canadians with whom he attended university.

...Don't let 'em jack you up, back you up,

Crack you up and pimp smack you up...

Continued Tupac and Sammy. Sammy was unprepared for his exam tomorrow in Corporate Taxation, but he didn't care. Normally diligent, Sammy had focused exclusively on one course this semester: American Foreign Policy after World War II. The subject was new to Sammy, exotic, like snow. Moreover, the professor was captivating. A Yale PhD and college football star, Professor Leo Moore had worked as a Navy SEAL before settling into the Mearsheimer Chair of Foreign Policy at McGill University. Since his appointment, Moore had become a campus celebrity. First, he became known inside his faculty for his riveting lectures and no-bullshit demeanor. Next, he gained notoriety outside his faculty, after he debated a handsome but intellectually inferior news anchor on CNN. A nine-minute, YouTube clip, titled 'DUMB Sean Reilly DESTROYED by Prof', had over 12 million views.

Plodding through snow, Sammy recalled his first class with Professor Moore:

'Bavaria, Germany in the spring of 1945,' Moore started, speaking softly but clearly, 'is where our story, the story of American foreign policy, begins. No treaties were signed there. No meetings held. No hands shaken. Our story begins more modestly, with two American servicemen, fighting for their country. The first is Lieutenant Colonel Felix Sparks. Lieutenant Colonel Sparks and his battalion raided the Dachau concentration camp on April 29. Upon taking the camp, he and his men discovered thirty two thousand prisoners: two thousand were dead, stuffed into boxcars; thirty thousand were alive, though starved and skeletal. The smell of decaying corpses and the sight of living ones stunned the young Americans. And in a fit of rage, Sparks and his battalion executed many of the Nazis whom they had captured that day.'

'The second American in our story is Captain John R. Boker. As Dachau was being liberated, Captain Boker met with the former Nazi General and current prisoner of war Reinhard Gehlen. Reinhard Gehlen, Boker knew, was a torture artist, whose duty it was to locate Jews, Communists and other enemies, for the Einsatzgruppen death squad. Boker did not meet with Gehlen to chastise him, however. Boker came to hire him. Gehlen would soon lead a CIA spy ring in American Occupied Germany. In exchange for pay and protection, the Nazi-run Gehlen Organization provided Americans with information on the Soviet Union. The Organization would come to include war criminals like Klaus Barbie, who, as head of the Lyonnaise Gestapo, personally tortured children, using methods such as electrocution and sexual abuse, sometimes with dogs.'

'In retrospect, we see great contradiction in the tale of these two Americans. While Lieutenant Colonel Sparks was exterminating Nazis, Captain Boker was protecting them. Yet their story was not a wartime anomaly. It was instead an omen of American foreign policy. Since World War II, the United States has promoted more freedom and prosperity than perhaps any great power in history. It has also ensured more oppression and poverty than its citizens care to know. What explains this contradiction? What were we trying to achieve? What did we actually achieve? And where may we end up? These are the questions that this course invites you to contemplate.'

All at once Sammy felt jaded and intrigued and stimulated and confused. His grandparents had survived the Holocaust. Hating Nazis was a family tradition more closely guarded than the Sabbath. That his government worked with Nazis, Sammy couldn't process.

Sammy eyed the lecture hall to gauge the reaction of his peers. His rightmost neighbor was scrolling through Facebook while the one in front was shopping online. A third, down the aisle, had folded his hand on PokerStars.net. The brightest of my generation, Sammy lamented. But there was little time for lamentation. Professor Moore was resuming his lecture:

'When I was your age, I believed that America should not have worked with Nazis. Now, I'm not so sure. Let me explain. Here's what else happened that spring of 1945. In Iran, occupation. As American troops withdrew from the south of that oil-rich country, Soviet troops advanced from the North. In Eastern Europe, expansion. Joseph Stalin, his ambitions matched only by his brutality, annexed the Ukraine, Estonia and Lithonia, as well as parts of Finland, Poland and Romania. Without American intervention, he would have swallowed the rest of Europe too. Meanwhile, in Washington, there was succession. Vice President Harry Truman replaced his deceased president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Unfortunately, Truman was woefully unprepared for office. Roosevelt had told him little of world affairs and nothing of the atom bomb; indeed the two had only met twice since election. Now, put yourself in the shoes of Vice President Truman. How would you manage the Soviet threat? Would you seek help from Nazis?'

The class went silent. Sammy timidly raised his hand.

'Yes?' said Professor Moore, looking at Sammy invitingly.

'I would not, Professor,' Sammy replied. 'I understand that Stalin was a threat. I understand that he would have recruited Nazis if we hadn't. But I believe America is strongest, not just because of its military, but because of its values. Compromising those values may help us defeat our enemies in the short term. In the long term, though, it would surely make us weaker.'

Professor Moore smiled approvingly at Sammy. 'What is your name?' he asked.

'Samson Green,' Sammy replied. 'But I prefer Sammy.'

The smile dissolved from Professor Moore's face. 'Samson Green. . . ' he muttered to himself. He then walked to Sammy's seat, and, stooping down, he said, 'Come to my office this afternoon. I have some extra-reading you may enjoy.' Then he walked back and resumed his lecture.

Since that class, Moore had been unusually kind to Sammy. They met almost every week during office hours. They worked together on Sammy's law school applications. And when Sammy was wait-listed at Yale, Moore even made a call on his behalf. This very morning, in fact, Sammy was heading to Professor Moore's office to give him the good news: Yale had accepted his application.

Finally, Sammy reached the political science building in which Moore kept his office. He stared at the heavy, glass doors. His reflection stared back—a mop of curly, black hair, a boyish face and small, brown eyes. I should have worn a hat, Sammy sighed, entering the building. As the doors closed behind him, a new reflection appeared in the glass surface: Five Lincoln Navigators slowing to a park. The cars stopped, a door opened and a passenger emerged. He wore a dirty, torn charcoal suit. His disheveled hair was thick and black. So too was his moustache.