PORT ANGELES – Peninsula College History Professor Michael Casella-Blackburn will offer a lecture and reading focusing on his latest book: “Diplomatic Black Hole: Conspiracy and Political Fear in Mid-20th Century America,” at Peninsula College’s Studium Generale on Thursday.

The free lecture will begin at 12:35 p.m. at the Little Theater on the college’s Port Angeles campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd. It also will be on Zoom at https://pencol-edu.zoom.us/j/83024542567. The meeting ID is 830 2454 2567.

”The use of political fear and conspiracy can work wonders to ensure a certain foreign policy or direction the nation should go, but what about the consequences of half-truths and distortions to get what you want?” the author said in a press release.

“In the 1940s and 1950s a powerful group called the China Lobby not only pushed to ‘save’ China from Communism, but also encouraged confrontation with the Soviet Union, pushing to the brink use of nuclear war. The consequences were many needless wars and deaths, and an order to the world many hoped to change,” the author said.

Cassella-Blackburn joined the Peninsula College faculty in 2003 as a history professor. He received his doctorate from Syracuse University, and his latest field of study is Sino-Soviet-American relations.

In 2004, Praeger published his book, “The Donkey, the Carrot and the Club: William C. Bullitt and Soviet American Relations, 1917-1948.”

In 2018, Mellon published his “Radical Anti-Communism in Postwar America, 1945-1950: William C. Bullitt and the Case for Saving China.”

Cassella-Blackburn lives in Port Townsend with his wife Lynne.