John Pomfret (1) (1961–)
Author of Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China
For other authors named John Pomfret, see the disambiguation page.
Works by John Pomfret
The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present (2016) 191 copies, 13 reviews
From Warsaw with Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance (2021) 53 copies, 15 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1961
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Stanford University (BA, East Asian Studies)
Stanford University (MA, East Asian Studies)
Nanjing University - Occupations
- journalist
- Short biography
- [excerpt from author's website]
Raised in New York City and educated at Stanford and Nanjing universities, I'm an award-winning journalist and author who's worked with the Washington Post for several decades. I'm currently a contributing writer to the Post's Global Opinions section. I routinely consult with multi-nationals and financial institutions on geostrategic issues. I am available to speak, virtually and in person, on geopolitics, US-China relations and European security.
I served as a foreign correspondent for 20 years and spent eight years covering big wars and small in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Sri Lanka and Iraq. I've been based in Warsaw, Vienna and Sarajevo. I've spent decades covering China—in the late 1980s during the Tiananmen Square protests, in the 1990s as the bureau chief for the Washington Post in Beijing and then back in DC.
In 2003, I won the Osborne Elliot Award for the best coverage of Asia. In 2007, I was awarded the Shorenstein Award from Harvard and Stanford universities for his lifetime coverage of Asia. In 1996, I was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for my work in Congo.
I speak, read and write Mandarin, having spent two years at Nanjing University in the early 1980s as part of one of the first groups of American students to study in China. I'm a Stanford grad with a BA and MA in East Asian Studies. - Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- New York, USA
Members
Reviews
From Warsaw with Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance by John Pomfret
Journalist John Pomfret has written a fascinating history of the relationship between Polish and U.S. intelligence agencies from the fall of communism to the present. It may surprise many to learn that spies from both countries have long had a respect for one another, more so than between the U.S. and other Eastern Bloc intelligence agencies. With a history reaching back to the Revolutionary War, Americans and Poles have often seen themselves as having a lot in common. Polish agents operated show more in the U.S. with relative ease during the latter days of the Cold War (it helped that the Poles were involved mostly in industrial espionage and not “wet work”). In exchange for providing the U.S. with information about Soviet intentions and movements in Eastern Europe as communism began to collapse, the U.S. provided Poland with support in its attempt first to straddle the line between East and West and later to move from an Eastern to a Western political orbit. This cooperation culminated in the invaluable assistance of the Poles with a daring rescue of six Americans trapped in Baghdad during the Gulf War. Nevertheless, the alliance was one that could suddenly become one-sided. As one Polish politician notes, “an alliance with the United States is like marrying a hippo. At first, it’s warm and cuddly. Then the hippo turns, crushes you, and doesn’t even notice.” This becomes apparent after 9/11 and during the invasion of Iraq, when the U.S. used Poland as a holding area for captured Al-Qaeda prisoners before deciding to move them to Guantanamo. The incident precipitated a governmental crisis in Poland. Pomfret keeps the narrative moving steadily, such that it resembles a spy novel at times. The Polish names can be a challenge for anyone not familiar with the language, but that can’t be helped. Recommended for anyone interested in the history of espionage, foreign relations, or the Cold War. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.From Warsaw with Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance by John Pomfret
On a Friday afternoon in December 1989, Major John Feeley was called to his boss’s office at U.S. Central Command in Tampa and told that General Schwarzkopf had a question. “What’s the worst thing that can happen in the Middle East?” Brig. Gen. Drewfs asked. Over the weekend, Feeley wrote his report with the seemingly out-of-left-field suggestion that Saddam Hussein might invade Kuwait and then proceed on to capture the Saudi oil fields. Feeley turned in his report Monday morning, show more the following Friday found himself briefing Schwarzkopf and the rest of CENTCOM’s command, and was then ordered to Washington to brief the Pentagon, the CIA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. By late July 1990, Feeley (with orders to keep the State Depatment and the CIA out of the loop) was on his way to Kuwait with a stack of satellite photographs to brief the Kuwait ruling dynasty about Iraq’s massing of troops on the Kuwaiti border.
And here’s the fascinating (fascinating because it’s so off-the-cuff) remark that John Pomert makes: With the Cold War ending and an expected peace dividend, “everybody and his brother,” [Feeley] observed, “was looking for something to do."
And heaven forbid that Major Feeley, Brig. Gen. Drewfs, Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency not find “something to do” that would create new foreign enemies, keep the appropriations flowing, and stir up a lovely little war that would end the Viet Nam Syndrome and keep the field open to promotions in an up-or-out officers’ corps.
Just one example of the Deep State at work. And this book contains many such, but with particular emphasis on the manipulation of American foreign policy by unelected agents of the Deep State conniving with Polish intelligence officers (many of the best being ex-Communists) to bring Poland into NATO notwithstanding that the U.S. had previously promised Gorbechev (but only orally) that if a unified Germany were allowed to be a NATO member, NATO would not expand its domain further eastward. And note that such a further eastward expansion of NATO was exactly what George Keenan (the architect of the Cold War containment policy in the 1950s) had warned against shortly before his death.
And of course, these Polish intelligence officers (who very sensibly, from their country’s point of view, sought an alliance with Washington as a protection against both Berlin and Moscow) understood that the path to America’s heart lay through Tel Aviv. Though Pomfret attributes this Polish-Israeli entente to Poland’s regrets over its own pre-WW2 anti-semitic history, a much more obvious motive of national interest doubtless motivated these actions that would draw the U.S. into what has led to our current-day confrontation with Russia in Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet republics as well as in the Middle East (especially Syria) and elsewhere.
Heaven forbid that a “peace dividend” might get in the way of a second Cold War for a U.S. empire with its multi-trillion-dollar military appropriations and foreign bases along with its multi-trillion-dollar wars wreaking worldwide devastation, death and misery to subject populations, and dead and maimed young American veterans of these wars.
Reading From Warsaw with Love with a skeptical eye will provide you with an insider's view of current-day American journalism that is too often a propaganda organ for our own Deep State, which serves its own interests rather than the America First interests of the American people. I'll give Pomfret 3½*** for this book, acknowledging his thoroughness but condemning his alliance with a Deep State that has put its own interests before the "peace dividend" that Ronald Reagan had hoped to deliver to the American people. show less
And here’s the fascinating (fascinating because it’s so off-the-cuff) remark that John Pomert makes: With the Cold War ending and an expected peace dividend, “everybody and his brother,” [Feeley] observed, “was looking for something to do."
And heaven forbid that Major Feeley, Brig. Gen. Drewfs, Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency not find “something to do” that would create new foreign enemies, keep the appropriations flowing, and stir up a lovely little war that would end the Viet Nam Syndrome and keep the field open to promotions in an up-or-out officers’ corps.
Just one example of the Deep State at work. And this book contains many such, but with particular emphasis on the manipulation of American foreign policy by unelected agents of the Deep State conniving with Polish intelligence officers (many of the best being ex-Communists) to bring Poland into NATO notwithstanding that the U.S. had previously promised Gorbechev (but only orally) that if a unified Germany were allowed to be a NATO member, NATO would not expand its domain further eastward. And note that such a further eastward expansion of NATO was exactly what George Keenan (the architect of the Cold War containment policy in the 1950s) had warned against shortly before his death.
And of course, these Polish intelligence officers (who very sensibly, from their country’s point of view, sought an alliance with Washington as a protection against both Berlin and Moscow) understood that the path to America’s heart lay through Tel Aviv. Though Pomfret attributes this Polish-Israeli entente to Poland’s regrets over its own pre-WW2 anti-semitic history, a much more obvious motive of national interest doubtless motivated these actions that would draw the U.S. into what has led to our current-day confrontation with Russia in Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet republics as well as in the Middle East (especially Syria) and elsewhere.
Heaven forbid that a “peace dividend” might get in the way of a second Cold War for a U.S. empire with its multi-trillion-dollar military appropriations and foreign bases along with its multi-trillion-dollar wars wreaking worldwide devastation, death and misery to subject populations, and dead and maimed young American veterans of these wars.
Reading From Warsaw with Love with a skeptical eye will provide you with an insider's view of current-day American journalism that is too often a propaganda organ for our own Deep State, which serves its own interests rather than the America First interests of the American people. I'll give Pomfret 3½*** for this book, acknowledging his thoroughness but condemning his alliance with a Deep State that has put its own interests before the "peace dividend" that Ronald Reagan had hoped to deliver to the American people. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.From Warsaw with Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance by John Pomfret
As the Soviet influence over Eastern Europe crumbled, people in the Polish government understandably worried that Germany and Russia would continue to contest for control of the region, with the Poles in the middle. Looking around, they found an unexpected ally - the US. In a change driven, surprisingly, from the Polish foreign intelligence service, the CIA moved from respected opponent to enthusiastic partner, forming a Special Relationship win many ways even more special than the one with show more Britain.
Pomfret tells a good story, clearly with access to some of those involved, documenting how the change occurred, how the Polish intelligence service led the way in operations like rescuing Americans trapped in Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, and even to the evil of secret prisons where the CIA was given free reign to torture prisoners. The story's got heroic moments, but also some pretty bad actors, showing once again how the American government can be the worst of friends. show less
Pomfret tells a good story, clearly with access to some of those involved, documenting how the change occurred, how the Polish intelligence service led the way in operations like rescuing Americans trapped in Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, and even to the evil of secret prisons where the CIA was given free reign to torture prisoners. The story's got heroic moments, but also some pretty bad actors, showing once again how the American government can be the worst of friends. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
Chinese lessons. Five classmates and the story of the New China is yet another book about the disaster known as modern Chinese history. In just over 300 pages, John Pomfret tells the story of modern China, basically from the late 1950s up till the present. Journalists are not historians, and typically, they lack distance to the object of their study, and with it any form of objectivity. As many long-term residents, Pomfret has a strong tendency to identify with the Chinese, and hence, the show more book seems a feeble attempt to write himself into Chinese history. The author's longing to be part of Chinese history seems more strongly so since he was evicted from the country, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Incident.
Both historians and journalists may make use of eyewitness accounts. Chinese lessons. Five classmates and the story of the New China is largely based on the stories told by Pomfret's former classmates, five Chinese students he befriended while Pomfret studied at Nanjing University. This also gives the book a fairly unique perspective, namely that from the city of Nanjng, while most other books tend to focus on either having a very general scope, collecting stories from all over China or being very focused on Beijing.
Nonetheless, the stories of each of these classmates are as shocking as any. They may have a somewhat more rural base, but the quintessential horror of the Cultural Revolution in present in each. Part 2 of the book tells the life experience of Pomfret's classmates during the 1970s and early 80s, the period when the author witnessed their lives as he studied in China.
In Part 3 of the book, Pomfret himself is the eye witness of the events in the capital in 1989. The narrative focuses on proximity and on-the-ground perspective, the author running through the hutongs to reach the square before the armoured vehicles, the author among the students, the author with his face pressed against the tarmac taking cover. What follows is interrogation, and eventually, expulsion.
The next part of the book is called "Into the Sea", a typical phrase for Chinese to have left the motherland. It shows once more how the author identifies with the Chinese. During the following years, Pomfret worked in Hong Kong, and a decade later he is enabled, with special permission to re-enter China and resume reporting on conditions in China. The final two parts of the book are about the 1990s and the early first decade of the new century, a time of economic development, but no less hardship and political repression.
Part memoir, part observation, but lacking distance, Chinese lessons. Five classmates and the story of the New China is a book that throws three parts of Chinese history together, that would heve been better presented if dealt with apart. For all of the author's closeness to China, the book lacks true sympathy. It is much more a harsh reckoning, than a warm memoir. The book would be of interest to people who are interested in Nanjing, and the history of the Cultural Revolution at Nanjing University, Chinese education and Chinese universities. The rest of the book is barely worth attention, as it is too distanced and too superficial. show less
Both historians and journalists may make use of eyewitness accounts. Chinese lessons. Five classmates and the story of the New China is largely based on the stories told by Pomfret's former classmates, five Chinese students he befriended while Pomfret studied at Nanjing University. This also gives the book a fairly unique perspective, namely that from the city of Nanjng, while most other books tend to focus on either having a very general scope, collecting stories from all over China or being very focused on Beijing.
Nonetheless, the stories of each of these classmates are as shocking as any. They may have a somewhat more rural base, but the quintessential horror of the Cultural Revolution in present in each. Part 2 of the book tells the life experience of Pomfret's classmates during the 1970s and early 80s, the period when the author witnessed their lives as he studied in China.
In Part 3 of the book, Pomfret himself is the eye witness of the events in the capital in 1989. The narrative focuses on proximity and on-the-ground perspective, the author running through the hutongs to reach the square before the armoured vehicles, the author among the students, the author with his face pressed against the tarmac taking cover. What follows is interrogation, and eventually, expulsion.
The next part of the book is called "Into the Sea", a typical phrase for Chinese to have left the motherland. It shows once more how the author identifies with the Chinese. During the following years, Pomfret worked in Hong Kong, and a decade later he is enabled, with special permission to re-enter China and resume reporting on conditions in China. The final two parts of the book are about the 1990s and the early first decade of the new century, a time of economic development, but no less hardship and political repression.
Part memoir, part observation, but lacking distance, Chinese lessons. Five classmates and the story of the New China is a book that throws three parts of Chinese history together, that would heve been better presented if dealt with apart. For all of the author's closeness to China, the book lacks true sympathy. It is much more a harsh reckoning, than a warm memoir. The book would be of interest to people who are interested in Nanjing, and the history of the Cultural Revolution at Nanjing University, Chinese education and Chinese universities. The rest of the book is barely worth attention, as it is too distanced and too superficial. show less
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