He eventually got to know numerous warlords, and dealt with them on a personal basis as he tried to expand American trade without taking sides in China's internal power struggles.

The personal relationships that Price built with powerful Chinese leaders provided an important counterbalance to Imperial Japan's growing military presence in China and the influence of Comintern agents like Mikhail Borodin.

While he was responsible for negotiating passage for the American businessmen though the territory of various Chinese warlords, Price was also charged with a secret mission of contacting the United States consul in Irkutsk, Russia.

Due to the chaos in Siberia caused by the Bolshevik revolution and the subsequent civil war in Russia, the American consul had not been heard from in many months.

[3][4] Price was successful in both tasks, and returned to China in the company of Roy Chapman Andrews, the well known archeologist and adventurer who is often cited as the inspiration for Indiana Jones.

[6] Here is how Andrews recalled one of their travel adventures: Price and I drove back to Panj-kiang to obtain extra food and water ... We had gone only five miles when we discovered that there was no more oil for our motor ... Just then the car swung over the summit of a raise, and we saw the white tents and grazing camels of an enormous caravan.

[6]Andrews also incorporated the true story of Price's hunt for a man-eating tiger in the mountains of southern China into his adventure novel Quest of the Snow Leopard.

While there, he began a lifelong friendship with a young law professor named Wayne Morse whom Oregonians later elected to four terms in the United States Senate.

Johns Hopkins awarded Price a PhD in political science in 1933,[2] and published his book, The Russo-Japanese Treaties of 1907-1916 Concerning Manchuria and Mongolia that same year.

His book along with a number of academic articles published in the mid-nineteen thirties when he was a fellow at the Brookings Institution highlighted the threat of Japanese imperialism in Manchuria and China.

Price spoke three European languages and at least three varieties of Chinese, so he was well suited to host the many distinguished foreign visitors who passed through International House.

[18] In 1944, he was released for duty with the United States Marine Corps,[2] and commissioned as a Captain to begin planning for an allied invasion of Japanese occupied China.

He was assigned as the civil affairs liaison officer on the personal staff of Major General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., commander of the 6th Marine Division.

The award cited his "keen sense of judgment particularly with regard to the diplomatic behavior demanded while acting in the capacity of liaison officer between high ranking Chinese officials and United States forces.

[1][2] Doctor Price's diplomatic dispatches, journals, correspondence, speeches, lecture material, and other papers are now in the Hoover Institute archives at Stanford University.