The journal was founded in 1937 by Frederick Vanderbilt Field,[1] who also chaired the editorial board,[2] and Philip Jaffe, a naturalized American born in the Ukrainian part of the Russian Empire near Poltava.
[4] Kenneth Wells, an analyst for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), noticed that an article printed in the January 26, 1945, issue of Amerasia was almost identical to a 1944 report he had written on Thailand.
The FBI's investigation indicated that Jaffe and Mitchell had probably obtained the documents from Emanuel Larsen, a State Department employee, and Andrew Roth, a lieutenant with the Office of Naval Intelligence.
Other suspects include freelance reporter Mark Gayn, whose coverage of the war in Asia appeared regularly in Collier's and Time magazine,[6] and State Department "China Hand" John S. Service.
[8] In carrying out its investigation, the FBI broke into the offices of Amerasia and the homes of Gayn and Larsen and installed bugs and phone taps.
Because no evidence was found indicating that any documents had been forwarded directly to a foreign power, the Justice Department decided not to seek an indictment under the Espionage Act.
Service, the only State Department officer arrested, had given Jaffe approximately eight documents, copies of his own reports on conditions in China, that represented non-sensitive intelligence that diplomats routinely shared with journalists.