Dixie Mission - Origin

Origin

Prior to the Dixie Mission, the U.S considered military interventions into CPC held China, such as an unimplemented idea by the Office of Strategic Services to send agents into north China. The Dixie Mission began with John Paton Davies, Jr.'s memo of January 15, 1944. Davies, a Foreign Service Officer serving in the China Burma India Theater (CBI), called for the establishment of an observers' mission in Chinese Communist territory. Davies argued that: the communists offered attractive strategic benefits in the fight against Japan; and that the more the U.S. ignored the communists, the closer Yan'an - the 'capital' of CPC held China - would move to Moscow. With the support of Davies' superior, General Joseph Stilwell, this memorandum successfully convinced the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to put the plan into motion.

The Roosevelt Administration asked Chinese Nationalist president Chiang Kai-shek's permission to send U.S. observers to visit the CPC. Initially, Chiang was hostile to the proposal and delayed action. The Generalissimo consented after foreign correspondents that he had permitted to visit Yan'an reported on the CPC to U.S. readers. Chiang agreed after American Vice-President Henry Wallace made a state visit to Chungking, the nationalists' capital, in late June 1944. John Carter Vincent, an experienced State Department China expert, assisted Wallace in persuading Chiang to allow the U.S. to visit the CPC in Yan'an without Nationalist supervision. In exchange, the U.S. promised to replace the American commander of the Burma India Theater, General Stilwell. He was removed from command in October 1944.