Paul Child – Another Victim of the Who Lost China Fallout

I had no idea really what was going on in the film Julie and Julia - I could care less about cooking, American cooking personalities and even less about the Julie woman in the film (and unlike them I don’t care much for French food) but I was naturally interested to see how Julia Child’s husband Paul was portrayed. I posted ages back that the film might be interesting as Julia did serve with the OSS in China during the war where she met Paul and received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat. Paul was a officer with OSS in China, effectively a spy and a very good thing too as China did win the war eventually.

However, virtually all of those Americans who served in China during the war later came under the suspicions of McCarthy as part of the post-war Who Lost China? arguement. Owen Lattimore, a great China Hand was of course hounded intensely as were journalists such as John W Powell (who died not that long ago) and civil servants such as John Service. More than one career was derailed thanks to McCarthy.

The film makes a couple of references to the Child’s time in China – the rumour that they were both active spies (Paul it seems certainly was, Julia sort of) and does briefly show Paul’s questioning in Washington though focuses on the McCarthyites obsession with gays rather than China. Paul was apparently given a clean bill of health, unlike many others who had been in China, despite committing other sins the McCarthyites didn’t like such as being a poet, artist and speaking French!

Anyway, it’s a great performance by Stanley Tucci (below as Paul Child) and I liked the film (at least the Meryl Streep as Julia bits) despite having only the vaguest of ideas who the woman was. And, in a way, it’s a little footnote to the World War Two China story.

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