Sinologist and defender of civil liberties, born in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He studied at Harvard before being sent to China to do research. He published narratives of his journeys, notably Inner Asian Frontiers of China (1940). He was made political adviser to Jiang Jieshi by Franklin D Roosevelt (19412), and became director of Pacific operations in the office of war information. His Ordeal by Slander (1950) refers to his being wrongly named as a top Russian agent by Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 – May 31, 1989) was a U.S. author and educator, the most influential American scholar of Central Asia in the 20th Century.
He was accused by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy as being "a top Russian spy." Some people credit Lattimore with coining the term McCarthyism, but Herbert Block was first to use the term, in a cartoon in the Washington Post.
Early life
Although born in America, Lattimore was raised in Tianjin, China, where his parents, David and Margaret Lattimore, were teachers of English at a Chinese university. After doing research at Harvard University from 1928 to 1929, Lattimore returned to China to participate in business and newspaper work.
WWII period, and after
From 1938 to 1950, Lattimore was the director of the Page School of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University.
At President Roosevelt's request, he accompanied US Vice-President Henry Wallace to the USSR in 1944, for the US Office of War Information.. Lattimore's account of this visit, which overlapped the D-Day landings, in the National Geographic magazine, has been criticised as pro-Soviet propaganda, and thoroughly misleading about the gulag, leading to a label as Soviet apologist;
Accusations
In 1950 he was accused by McCarthy of being a spy for the Soviet Union. The Senate McCarran Committee investigation claimed that:
In 1952 Lattimore was indicted for perjury on seven counts.
Later life
From 1963 to 1970, Lattimore was the first professor of Chinese studies at Leeds University in England, where he taught Chinese History, strongly illustrated with personal reminiscences. Lattimore had a lifelong dedication to establishing research centers to further the study of Mongolian history and culture.
Lattimore's Theory on the Reciprocation between Civilization and the Environment
In An Inner Asian Approach to the Historical Geography of China (1947), Lattimore explored the system through which humanity affects the environment and is changed by it, and concluded that civilization is molded by its own impact on the environment.
User Comments Add a comment…