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Secret War in Shanghai: An Untold Story of Espionage, Intrigue, and Treason in World War 11. By Bernard Wasserstein. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999. ISBN 0-395-98537-4. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. vi, 354. $26.00.
This lively account does not live up to the author's claims. Wasserstein calls Shanghai "the cockpit" of the Pacific War-a throbbing center of important intelligence work. But he simply cannot support this. The Japanese neutralized local British and American agents within months of Pearl Harbor. The Germans and the Japanese, like all good allies, spent a lot of time spying on each other, while everybody worried about the Soviets. But the espionage was apparently of little consequence to the war beyond the confines of downtown Shanghai. The author has nothing substantive to say regarding American clandestine activity in the city, beyond one oblique hint regarding a bombing at the Park Hotel (p. 248).
Wasserstein discusses institutional and culturally linked collaboration. In 1942, the Japanese successfully coopted the British-dominated Municipal Council and Shanghai Municipal Police....