The United States Army Observation Group (), commonly known as the Dixie Mission (), was the first US effort to gather intelligence and establish relations with the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army, then headquartered in the mountainous city of Yan'an, Shaanxi. The mission was launched on 22 July 1944, during World War II, and lasted until 11 March 1947. The goals of the mission were to investigate the Communists politically and militarily and to determine if the US would benefit from establishing liaison.
John S. Service, of the US Department of State, was responsible for political analysis, and Colonel David D. Barrett, of the US Army, performed the military analysis. Initially, they reported that the Chinese Communists might be a useful wartime and postwar ally and that the atmosphere in Yan'an was more energetic and less corrupt than in Nationalist-held areas. After the war, the Dixie Mission's reports and Service and Barrett were condemned by pro-Kuomintang factions in the American government. In the subsequent debate over the "loss of China", many put the blame on wartime China Hands. Service was fired from the State Department, and Barrett was denied a promotion to brigadier general.
Origin Prior to the Dixie Mission, the US considered military interventions into Communist-held China, such as an unimplemented idea of the Office of Strategic Services to send agents into northern China. The Dixie Mission began, according to John Paton Davies Jr.'s memo, on 15 January 1944. Davies, a Foreign Service Officer who was serving in the China Burma India Theater (CBI), called for the establishment of an observers' mission in Communist territory. Davies argued that the Communists offered attractive strategic benefits in the fight against Japan and that the more the US ignored them, the closer that Yan'an, the capital of Communist-held China, would move to Moscow.John Paton Davies to Secretary of State, 24 January 1944, "Observers' Mission to North China." State Department, NARA, RG 59. With the support of Davies' superior, General Joseph Stilwell, the memorandum successfully convinced the administration of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to put the plan into motion.John P. Davies, Jr., Dragon by the Tail: American, British, Japanese, and Russian Encounters with China and One Another (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), 303.
The Roosevelt administration asked Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek for permission to send US observers to visit the Communists. Initially, Chiang was hostile to the proposal and delayed action. He consented after foreign correspondents whom he had permitted to visit Yan'an reported on the Communists to US readers.Carolle J. Carter, Mission to Yenan: American Liaison with the Chinese Communists, 1944 – 1947(Lexington, KY: U of Kentucky Press, 1997), 20. Chiang agreed after American Vice-president Henry A. Wallace made a state visit to Chongqing, the Nationalists' capital, in late June 1944. John Carter Vincent, an experienced State Department China expert, assisted Wallace in persuading Chiang to allow the US to visit the Communists in Yan'an without Nationalist supervision. In exchange, the US promised to replace the American commander of the Burma India Theater, General Stilwell,Carter, Mission to Yenan, 23. who was removed from command in October 1944.
Arrival in Yan'an First arrivals The first members of the Dixie Mission arrived in Yan'an on 22 July 1944, on an Army C-47. This team consisted of Colonel David D. Barrett, John S. Service, Major Melvin A. Casberg, Major Ray Cromley, Captain John G. Colling, Captain Charles C. Stelle, Captain Paul C. Domke, 1st Lieutenant Henry S. Whittlesey, and Staff Sergeant Anton H Remenih.David D. Barrett, Dixie Mission: The United States Army Observer Group in Yenan, 1944(Berkeley, CA: U of California, China Research Monographs, 1970), 13.
The second half of the team arrived on 7 August and consisted of Raymond P. Ludden, Lieutenant Colonel Reginald E. Foss, Major Wilbur J. Peterkin, Major Charles E. Dole, Captain Brooke Dolan, Lieutenant Simon H. Hitch, 1st Lieutenant Louis M. Jones, Sergeant Walter Gress, and Technician 4th Class George I. Nakamura. Later, other members, including Koji Ariyoshi, joined the mission.
At work in Yan'an Service, while under Stilwell's command, served as a diplomatic observer for both Stilwell and the American embassy in Chongqing. Over the next three months, he sent a series of reports to Chongqing and sparked controversy immediately. Service praised the Communists and compared them to European socialists, rather than the feared Soviet Union.John Service, Report No. 5, 8 March 1944, to Commanding General Fwd. Ech., USAF – CBI, APO 879. "The Communist Policy Towards the Kuomintang." State Department, NARA, RG 59. Service credited the Communists for a clean and superior society, in stark contrast to the corruption and chaos that he saw in the Nationalist areas, which were controlled by Chiang. However, Service was accused of being biased by the Senate Committee of the U.S. Congress.U.S. Congress. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and the Other Internal Security Laws. The Amerasia Papers: A Clue to the Catastrophe of China. Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1970), 406 – 407. After visiting Yan'an, Service advocated that the US should work with the forces opposed to the Nationalists, such as the Communists, but he did not advocate abandoning Chiang.John Service, Report No. 40, 10 October 1944, to General Stilwell, Commanding General, USAF – CBI."The Need for Greater Realism in Our Relations with Chiang Kai-shek." State Department, NARA, RG 59. That opinion was shared by John Paton Davies, a position that ruined both careers.
Colonel David Barrett evaluated the communists' military potential by observing war games between Communist troops and visiting war schools set up to train the Chinese officer corps. Barrett felt the Communists emphasized indoctrinating their soldiers over military training, but he believed that American advisors could train the Communist soldiers to become excellent fighters.Barrett, Dixie Mission, 37.
The Americans were impressed by the Communists' attacks on the Japanese, often in guerrilla raids.John Service, Report No. 16, 29 August 1944, to Commanding General, USAF – CBI, "Desirability of American Military Aide to the Chinese Communist Armies." State Department, NARA, RG 59.Page one, two, three, four. The last significant Communist military campaign against the Japanese had occurred four years earlier in the successful Hundred Regiments Campaign by the Chinese Communist 8th Route Army. However, due to subsequent retaliatory measures by the Japanese, the Communists avoided further large campaigns and restricted their activities to guerrilla warfare.J.A.G. Roberts, A Concise History of China, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U Press, 1999), 247.
Diplomacy Hurley Mission
On 7 November 1944, General Patrick Hurley arrived in Yan'an.Davies, Dragon by the Tail, 365. Hurley had been in the CBI Theater since August as part of an agreement between Wallace and Chiang to provide a liaison for Chiang to communicate directly with Roosevelt and to circumvent Stilwell. Successful in negotiating in the private sector, Hurley was sent to China to improve operations in the China Theater, which he extended to uniting the Nationalists and the Communists in a unified government. Hurley approached the Communists and the Nationalists without knowledge of either political group, and he believed that their differences were no greater than those between the Republican and Democratic Parties in the United States.Russel D. Buhite, Patrick J. Hurley and American Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U Press, 1973), 160 – 162. The first postwar peace negotiation was attended by both Chiang and Mao in Chongqing from 28 August 1945 and concluded on 10 October 1945 with the signing of the Double Tenth Agreement.Xu, Guangqiu. (2001). War Wings: The United States and Chinese Military Aviation, 1929–1949. Greenwood Publishing Group. . p. 201. Hurley failed at reconciling the Nationalists and Communists and blamed Dixie Mission staff, John Service and John Paton Davies, and others.
Marshall and Wedemeyer Missions
Following the Japanese surrender, the Nationalists and the Communists resumed the Chinese Civil War, which they had set aside in the United Front to fight the Japanese in 1937. In December 1945, US President Harry S. Truman sent General George C. Marshall to China to negotiate a ceasefire and to form a unified government between the Communists and the Nationalists.Carter, Mission to Yenan, 178. While Marshall spent most of his time in Chongqing, the Dixie Mission hosted Marshall in Yan'an so he could speak with the Communist leadership. Like Hurley, Marshall failed to develop a lasting compromise, and the Chinese Civil War resumed.
Truman then sent another representative to China, General Albert Wedemeyer, who had commanded US troops in China during the war, on a factfinding mission.Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports! (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1958), 382. Again, the Dixie Mission in Yan'an hosted the presidential mission. Wedemeyer reported that US interests were best served by continued support for the Nationalist government, but Truman suppressed the report because he wanted to see who would win and refused to expand aid the Nationalists to avoid being involved in the Chinese Civil War. After Wedemeyer's visit, the US packed up operations in Yan'an and liquidated everything that could not be transported aboard a C-47. On 11 March 1947, the last members of the Dixie Mission left Yan'an.Carter, Mission to Yenan, 198.
Question of Communist Party subterfuge Dixie Mission participants such as John Service were criticized for viewing the Communist leadership as socialist agrarian reformers, who claimed that China under their rule would not follow the violent path of the Soviet Union under the Bolsheviks. Instead, socialism would come to China only after economic reforms that preserved capitalism to mature the society to a point that it would be prepared for a peaceful transition to a communist society. That belief was disseminated to the American people prior to and during the war by the popular authors Edgar Snow and Agnes Smedley. In his 3 August 1944 report, "The Communist Policy Towards the Kuomintang," Service underlined his opinion of the Communists as such and stated: And the impressive personal qualities of the Communist leaders, their seeming sincerity, and the coherence and logical nature of their program leads me, at least, toward general acceptance of the first explanation – that the Communists base their policy toward the Kuomintang on a real desire for democracy in China under which there can be orderly economic growth through a stage of private enterprise to eventual socialism without the need of violent social upheaval and revolution.John Service, Report No. 5, 8/3/1944, to Commanding General Fwd. Ech., USAF – CBI, APO 879. "The Communist Policy Towards the Kuomintang." State Department, NARA, RG 59. Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
After the Dixie Mission, Colonel Barrett reflected upon this position and wrote in his memoir: In addition, I had fallen to some extent, not as much perhaps as did some other foreigners, for the "agrarian reformer" guff. I should have known better than this, particularly since the Chinese Communists themselves never at any time made claim to being anything but revolutionaries – period.Barrett, Dixie Mission, 47.