Adventures of the Ping-Pong Diplomats

About the Book

This story reads like an adventure novel.  The only difference is that the events in a novel are made up; these adventures really happened; the people are real; and the political effects of their actions have produced 40 years of peaceful coexistence between the Peoples Republic of China and the United States.

 This is the only historically complete narrative which covers the actual ping-pong diplomacy events, provides the background foreign policy information to explain why these events happened, & shows what could have happened if there were no ping-pong diplomats.

 The world news media was prevented from general coverage of the U.S. World Table Tennis Team to China,  while U.S. publicity about the return visit of the Chinese World Team to the U.S. on the “Grand Tour” was largely controlled to serve the political aims and objectives of the Nixon administration.

 For those average Americans who became our “Cold-War Warriors” willingly taking the risks involved, and those who worked behind the scenes to make their risks worthwhile; such experiences occur only once in a lifetime.  America and the world are a lot better off because of their efforts.

 It’s time to read the real story of “ping-pong diplomacy!’

About the Author

Fred Danner – the author of this book was Director of Junior Development for the U.S. Table Tennis Association and is a certified coach & umpire. He has represented the United States as Captain of the U.S, Womens International Team in matches with Canada; was the Team Leader for the first table tennis Pan American Games in 1979, and became the first table tennis Delegate for North America serving on the Executive Board of the United States Olympic Committee. His book “The National School Table Tennis Guide” was used to teach courses in 6 universities & distributed to physical education instructors throughout the U.S. Later, as a Vice-President of the USTTA, he negotiated with the Peoples Republic of China to bring China and the sport of Table Tennis into the 1988 Summer Olympic Games. His work to establish the National Jr. and National Table Tennis Foundations has helped to fund many Association programs. In 1993 he was inducted into the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame and in 2010 he received the Mark Matthews Lifetime Table Tennis Award as an administrator. His longtime goal for table tennis is to introduce it into the education curricula of our national school systems.