Haldore Hanson; Lost State Dept. Post During ‘Red Scare’

Haldore Hanson, 80, a former war correspondent for the Associated Press who was hounded out of government service during the McCarthy era because of his writings on China. Hanson wrote for the wire service in China from 1934 to 1939, and in 1937 was briefly imprisoned by the Japanese as a suspected spy. In 1950, U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy charged that Hanson’s 1939 book on the China war, “Humane Endeavour,” promoted the Communist cause of Mao Tse-tung. Although Hanson was cleared of all charges, he was forced out of his job with the State Department in 1953. On Sept. 24 in Mexico City of heart failure.