CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION On December 5, 1945, Major General Patrick Jay Hurley (retired), ex-coal miner and cowboy, former Ambassador to China and onetime Secretary of War, appeared as the first and star witness at a hastily called hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Time reported: "A crowd jam-packed the big chamber. Ex-Ambassador Hurley had promised to pull no punches, to name names and dates and places, to expand his charges that career diplomats had done 'an inside job' of sabotaging U.S. foreign policy, particularly in China." The piece, subtitled "Hurley-Burley," continued with: "His audience was not disappointed in the show. Pat Hurley came out with a roar, both fists swinging, his white mustache bristled, his black-ribboned pince-nez wobbled on his nose." The Time story features a photograph of the former Ambassador, posing dramatically with a snarl and an upraised fist, over the caption, "The fuse fizzled into smoke . . . ." An adjacent photograph of Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, who was summoned to answer Hurley's accusations, depicts the gentlemanly Secretary with a calm mien. The caption reads ." . . but the smoke brought action." Patrick Hurley's accusations before the Senate Committee and the press coverage that had accompanied his resignation as United States (U.S.) Ambassador to China the previous week became the spark that ignited what was to become almost two decades of political turmoil over the conduct of American foreign policy. Hurley's pronouncements gave the Republican Party an issue with which they would batter the Truman Administration and Democrat candidates for years, even after the former Ambassador's name was all but forgotten by thepublic. An ambitious politician from Wisconsin would grasp Hurley's innuendoes, make them his own, and fashion a spectacular, albeit brief, career in the political spotlight before self-destructing. Right-wing activists Alfred Kohlberg, Walter Judd, George Sokolsky, Fu