Why is this evil? Most countries draw the line at aiding and abetting foreign harm to your own country, no matter how justified. I would expect no different if it happened in America or Europe.
On the books maybe. But for instance, America defines treason so narrowly that nobody has been convicted of it since WW2. Americans are free to sing praise of China, Russia, North Korea, whoever they like no matter how unjustified. Unless Congress has declared a war, which hasn't happened since WW2, you can talk as much smack about America or praise opposing regimes as much as you like.
They gave the Soviets the atomic bomb designs, permanently changing the global power balance!
The west could conceivably have liberated the Soviet block after WW2 and the post war world would have been a much better place, including a non communist China. That's my guess at least. Impossible to know, of course.
In reality, the Rosenberg documents wasn't very decisive. Stalin already had the Manhattan Project blueprints from Klaus Fuchs.
I don't think that the West had any chance to liberate the Soviet bloc (I'm assuming what you meant is the Warsaw Pact countries). The Red Army was simply too big, too powerful, and too experienced at the end of WW2. Even using the few atomic bombs available between 1945-1949 (when the Soviets exploded their first atomic weapon), the USSR was just too big a country, with too many people.
And if you look at the willingness to take casualties that the Red Army demonstrated while fighting the Nazis, trying to take on the USSR would have been folly.
The West was spent after WW2 (as were the Soviets), with no appetite for further conflict. Even the US was tired of war, and only the drumbeat against the Red Menace did much to motivate the populace.
But I agree that turning on an ally, sacrificing millions more of your soldiers etc at that point would have been a very hard sell. I'm sure I would have been opposed to it at the time.
> The west could conceivably have liberated the Soviet block after WW2
This is dubious, for several reasons: Public sentiment, starting another major war immediately after they thought they'd catch a break from war for a while. The premise of America building enough nukes to actually get the Soviets on their knees instead of provoking them to steamroll the rest of Europe instead. The ability of American forces, in the late 40s and early 50s, to get nuclear armed bombers over the appropriate targets in Russia.
Japan was already defeated, and two bombs proved enough to make them admit it. That context doesn't hold true for the Soviets; they may well have tanked several bombs to major cities then proceeded to fight a conventional war instead of surrender.
Almost as fascinating is how often in the late 40's and early 50's we threatened the USSR with nuclear weapons. Don't leave Iran quickly enough? We'll blast you. Amazing and scary how the world has survived so far...
Perhaps, but what you cannot do in over thirty states is criticise Israel and then do business with a government organisation.
Also, if Lai genuinely believed (as I think he must have done) that the US was going to help in any way then he was delusional. In almost every case, "freedom" fighters end up relying on the resources of hostile foreign governments to continue their activities. There is no way that the US was going to offer anything other than a publicity stunt.
[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3017868...