Two-Gun Cohen

Levy, a reporter for Time magazine, has written an evocative biography of an unusual character, one Morris Cohen, a Polish Jew who grew up impoverished in London and became the bodyguard and confidant of the Chinese Nationalist leader Sun Yat-Sen, who died in 1925. Levy relates Cohen's improbable and obscure story with finesse and with considerable attention to historical detail. The result is a gripping yarn glinting with insights into China in the roaring 1920s. ""Morris Cohen's shindigs were legendary,"" according to Levy, ""as was the life of this chunky battler. He lived within the flames of early 20th-century China, battling the military and diplomatic forces of Russia, Japan, Chinese warlords, communists and mercenaries."" In fact, Cohen seems to have been a shadowy figure, glimpsed mainly through off-hand travelers' reports, diplomatic correspondence and the testimony of Sun's other employers, who both admired and disliked him. One British official noted, ""He does not appear to be a man of very high type, but he is an adventurer and, I understand, a radical."" Cohen's personal life is marked with so much intrigue--glutton and womanizer, self-advertising, cunning, loyal and extravagant--that his story is an interesting entertainment. Photos. (Sept.)