中国近代史上我们这一代以上的年龄的人都应该熟悉白皮书这个名词，是毛泽东时代跟美帝国主义斗争时常常会挂在嘴边的词。在美国的外交官口述历史项目中，简单地提到这事。
来自China Confidential: American Diplomats and Sino-American Relations, 1945-1996。作者是唐耐心Compiled and Edited with Introduction and Conclusion by Nancy Bernkopf Tucker。出版信息：Published in cooperation with the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, and the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy series.Columbia University Press 2001。
P61 China White Paper
In the spring of 1949, President Truman endorsed the writing of an official document that would absolve his administration of responsibility for the fall of Chiang Kai-shek while clarifying the events in China for the American public.
Melby: I was aked to take charge of the White Paper. It took about five months to do. The White Paper was a decision on the part of the department, secretary of state, with the approval of the president, who was enthusiastic about it, to write the record of our relationship with China with special reference to the period 1944-1949. [We were to] set forth the record, and set it straight, no matter who got hurt. It was not to be a propoganda job, presenting one side.
P62 I must have gone over several hundred-thousand documents, picking out essential ones,and writing it, and getting people--I wrote about half of the White Paper myself. Other people wrote other chapters. We worked on it 18 hours a day, from March until August.
We produced this 1,500-page document, which came out August 8, 1949. George Kennan, who at this point had gone to the hospital with another attack of his stomach ulcers, took the White Paper with him to the hospital and read it straight through. He said that it was the greatest state document ever produced by the American government!
The purpose was to call the dogs off from the China lobby. And it didn't work.
里面采访的外交官是，John Melby，他写过《天命》（The Mandate of Heaven）一书，记录他在１９４９年前在中国的经历。唐耐心本书，实际上就是从外交官口述历史项目中各人的回忆录中摘下来的，所以这里的部分与Melby的回忆录中相关部分完全一样。Melby在他的《天命》一书中谈到他的中文名：梅尔璧。
