I was drawn into it, ... I felt I had a ringside seat at this mixture of the theater of the absurd and theater of cruelty.

I was drawn into it. I felt I had a ringside seat at this mixture of the theater of the absurd and theater of cruelty.

It was the espionage intelligence center of the Far East. It's a very colorful and exotic arena. Shanghai in that period was in some ways an attractive and sinister place.

[Therefore, Shanghai was also something else:] It was the espionage intelligence center of the Far East, ... It's a very colorful and exotic arena. Shanghai in that period was in some ways an attractive and sinister place.

(He) was a Russian, born in Latvia, who was an actor, singer, gangster and ran a whole network of agents in Shanghai for the Japanese during the war, ... He ended up, though, working for the Americans after the war. Before the war, he worked for the British, fell out with the British, and then turned for the Japanese.

The real wars were between the Japanese and the Germans, the British and the Americans, and the different factions of Chinese,