Congressional Investigations
The "Amerasia Affair" became a touchstone for those who wanted to raise alarms about espionage and the possible Communist infiltration of the State Department. Senator Joseph McCarthy often spoke of the case in these terms, maintaining it was a security breach and cover-up of immense proportions.
In 1946, a House Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Rep. Samuel F. Hobbs and, in 1950, the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Investigation of Loyalty of State Department Employees, commonly known as the Tydings Committee, investigated the Amerasia case. In 1955, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee sought the Amerasia materials from the Justice Department. The records were declassified and the Justice Department delivered 1,260 documents to the Subcommittee in 1956 and 1957.
The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee published a two-volume report, The Amerasia Papers: A Clue to the Catastrophe of China, in 1970. It ascribed the communist revolution in China in part to the Communist sympathies of the Chinese policy experts in the Foreign Service, known as the "China Hands".
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