In the years following World War II, the United States suffered its most severe military and diplomatic reverses in Asia while Mao Zedong laid the foundation for the emergence of China as a major economic and military world power. As a correspondent for the International News Service, the Associated Press, and later for the New York Times, Seymour Topping documented on the ground the tumultuous events during the Chinese Civil War, the French Indochina War, and the American retreat from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. In this riveting narrative, Topping chronicles his extraordinary experiences covering the East-West struggle in Asia and Eastern Europe from 1946 into the 1980s, taking us beyond conventional historical accounts to provide a fresh, first-hand perspective on American triumphs and defeats during the Cold War era. At the close of World War II, Topping--who had served as an infantry officer in the Pacific--reported for the International News Service from Beijing and Mao's Yenan stronghold before joining the Associated Press in Nanking, Chiang Kai-shek's capital. He covered the Chinese Civil War for the next three years, often interviewing Nationalist and Communist commanders in combat zones. Crossing Nationalist lines, Topping was captured by Communist guerrillas and tramped for days over battlefields to reach the People's Liberation Army as it advanced on Nanking. The sole correspondent on the battlefield during the decisive Battle of the Huai-Hai, which sealed Mao's victory, Topping later scored a world-wide exclusive as the first journalist to report the fall of the capital. In 1950, Topping opened the Associated Press bureau in Saigon, becoming the first American correspondent in Vietnam. In 1951, John F. Kennedy, then a young congressman on a fact-finding visit to Saigon, sought out Topping for a briefing. Assignments in London and West Berlin followed, then Moscow and Hong Kong for the New York Times. During those years Topping reported on the Chinese intervention in the Korean conflict, Mao's Cultural Revolution and its preceding internal power struggle, the Chinese leader's monumental ideological split with Nikita Khrushchev, the French Indochina War, America's Vietnam War, and the genocides in Cambodia and Indonesia. He stood in the Kremlin with a vodka-tilting Khrushchev on the night the Cuban missile crisis ended and interviewed Fidel Castro in Havana on its aftermath. Throughout this captivating chronicle, Topping also relates the story of his marriage to Audrey Ronning, a world-renowned photojournalist and writer and daughter of the Canadian ambassador to China. As the couple traveled from post to post reporting on some of the biggest stories of the century in Asia and Eastern Europe, they raised five daughters. In an epilogue, Topping cites lessons to be learned from the Asia wars which could serve as useful guides for American policymakers in dealing with present-day conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. From China to Indochina, Burma to Korea and beyond, Topping did more than report the news; he became involved in international diplomacy, enabling him to gain extraordinary insights. In On the Front Lines of the Cold War, Topping shares these insights, providing an invaluable eyewitness account of some of the pivotal moments in modern history.

在第二次世界大战后的几年里，美国在亚洲遭受了最严重的军事和外交挫折，而毛泽东则为中国作为世界主要经济和军事大国的崛起奠定了基础。作为国际新闻社、美联社以及后来的《纽约时报》的记者，西摩-托平在实地记录了中国内战、法属印度支那战争以及美国从越南、柬埔寨和老挝撤退期间的动荡事件。在这篇引人入胜的叙述中，托平记录了他从1946年到20世纪80年代在亚洲和东欧报道东西方斗争的非凡经历，带领我们超越了传统的历史叙述，为美国在冷战时期的胜利和失败提供了新鲜的第一手资料。二战结束时，曾在太平洋地区担任步兵军官的托平在北京和毛泽东的延安据点为国际新闻社进行了报道，之后在蒋介石的首都南京加入美联社。在接下来的三年里，他一直在报道中国内战，经常在战区采访国民党和共产党的指挥官。越过国民党的防线，托平被共产党的游击队俘虏，在战场上跋涉数日，当人民解放军向南京挺进时，他到达了南京。在决定性的淮海战役中，托平是战场上唯一的记者，这场战役决定了毛泽东的胜利，后来托平作为第一个报道首都沦陷的记者，获得了全世界的独家报道。1950年，托平在西贡设立了美联社分社，成为驻越南的第一位美国记者。1951年，当时还是年轻国会议员的约翰-F-肯尼迪在对西贡进行事实调查访问时，找托平做了一次简报。随后，他被派往伦敦和西柏林，然后是莫斯科和香港的《纽约时报》。在那些年里，托平报道了中国对朝鲜冲突的干预、毛泽东的文化大革命及其之前的内部权力斗争、中国领导人与尼基塔-赫鲁晓夫的重大意识形态分裂、法国印度支那战争、美国的越南战争以及柬埔寨和印度尼西亚的种族灭绝事件。在古巴导弹危机结束的当晚，他和喝着伏特加的赫鲁晓夫一起站在克里姆林宫，并在哈瓦那就危机的后果采访了菲德尔-卡斯特罗。在这部引人入胜的编年史中，托平还讲述了他与奥黛丽-朗宁的婚姻故事，后者是世界知名的摄影记者和作家，是加拿大驻中国大使的女儿。当这对夫妇从一个岗位到另一个岗位报道本世纪亚洲和东欧的一些重大事件时，他们养育了五个女儿。在后记中，托平列举了从亚洲战争中吸取的教训，这些教训可以作为美国政策制定者处理当今阿富汗和伊拉克冲突的有益指南。从中国到印度支那，从缅甸到朝鲜，再到其他地方，托平所做的不仅仅是报道新闻；他参与了国际外交，使他获得了非凡的洞察力。在《冷战前线》中，托平分享了这些见解，为现代历史中的一些关键时刻提供了宝贵的目击者。

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