John Paton Davies Jr.

John Paton Davies Jr.
Born	April 6, 1908 Sichuan, China
Died	December 23, 1999(1999-12-23) (aged 91) Asheville, North Carolina
Allegiance	United States of America
Rank	Political Attaché
Awards	Medal of Freedom
Other work	Furniture Manufacturing

John Paton Davies Jr. (April 6, 1908 – December 23, 1999) was an American diplomat and Medal of Freedom recipient. He was one of the China Hands, whose careers in the Foreign Service were ended by McCarthyism and the reaction to the loss of China.

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Last year we opened the papers of John Paton Davies, a State Department official who’s the center of this story. The Davies papers had been donated to the Truman Library by Davies’ daughter. Davies himself passed away in 1999. The papers contained some interesting drawings that were kind of mysterious to us. And in the papers themselves we found the answers in an unpublished manuscript of Davies’. In August of 1943 in the midst of World War II John Paton Davies was getting ready to board a C-46 transport plane in India to fly supplies to our allies in China. Eric Sevareid, on his way to Chungking to do a series of radio reports for CBS… (This is Chungking.) …a Board of Economic Warfare official and I were the three civilian passengers. We took off with a reassuring roar. After about an hour one of the two engines quit. Davies reported to his wife shortly after this incident, he said, quote, I stood in the open door of that miserable Commando and decided, “Well, if nobody else is going to jump I’ll jump. Somebody has to break the ice.” So I wheeled out and dove. The others followed Davies out of the airplane. Of the 21 people aboard, 20 survived the jump. He was unhurt, he gathered his men. And almost immediately he was encountered by a group of the Nagas, a tribe of indigenous people in Burma. I saw in the bushes a parting of the branches and in the opening a face staring at me with intense curiosity. I smiled and nodded and other faces appeared in the bushes. And so of course they didn’t understand English. So what is there to do? In a small notebook I penciled a sketch of a locomotive with care and then made the sound “choo-choo, chuff-chuff.” The elder and company stared at my pictograph and my puffing face. Blank incomprehension. And then he tried to sketch a Union Jack for the British flag. No signs of comprehension among the Nagas, but significantly, no signs of hostility, either. Davies felt some fear, though, when one of the Nagas drew a slicing motion across his own neck. I thought I grasped what he was trying to tell me – a throat was to be cut. But whose? It turns out it was a sacrificial goat that the Nagas prepared for a feast. So, as it turned out, instead of decaptitating us, the savages adopted us. And so for about two weeks until their rescue Davies and his men lived in the midst of the Nagas. To come to China now can be quick and painless, or it can be very long and hard with a full complement of danger. I am afraid I did it the hard way, but don’t judge it by my example. It was in large part for his efforts in showing his leadership of this party that Davies was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1948, which is the highest civilian award. The fun and challenging part is piecing together the story that these documents tell. The human story.

Early life and career

Davies was born in Sichuan, China, the son of Baptist missionaries John Paton and Helen Elizabeth (MacNeil) Davies Sr. His grandfather was Welsh immigrant and Cleveland drygoods merchant Caleb Davies. He spent two years at the Experimental College at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, one year at Yenching University, then graduated from Columbia University in 1931. He joined the Foreign Service upon graduation and was posted to China in 1933.

During World War II, Davies was assigned as political attaché to General Joseph Stilwell. He began the assignment in February 1942, arriving in the China Burma India Theater (CBI) in March, based mainly in Assam, India and Kunming, China. Upon a short return to Washington, DC, he married Patricia Louise Grady on August 24, 1942, before he returned to India. He served under Stilwell until the general's recall from China in the fall of 1944. Davies was instrumental in the creation of the U.S. Army Observation Group to Yan'an, China, in 1944.

Dixie Mission

The group, commonly known as the Dixie Mission, established the first official diplomatic and military contact between the United States and the Chinese Communists. Many of its members later became victims of McCarthyism. Davies saw the mission as means to prevent or at least to decrease Soviet influence over the Chinese Communists. As time progressed, Davies also saw the Communists as a realistic alternative to the Kuomintang.

Report by Davies from January 4, 1945, warning of Russian influence over Chinese Communists. Page Two and Page Three

After Stilwell's recall, Davies served briefly under General Albert Coady Wedemeyer and also General Patrick J. Hurley. The last three months of 1944 were to prove his last in China, as Davies found himself increasingly at odds with Hurley, who was appointed acting ambassador to China in mid-November. The main point of contention between the two men was their views on the future of China. Hurley advocated for a unified government of Communists and Nationalists with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek at its head. Davies, meanwhile, believed not only that was a coalition impossible to form but also that Chiang's regime was ultimately a dead end for American policy in China. Also, Davies believed that the Communists were the future of China.

Davies visited Yan'an, China, twice. The second trip, in mid-December, resulted in an intense argument with Hurley over Davies's motives. Hurley accused Davies of actively working to undermine Hurley's unification talks between the Communists and the Kuomintang. Hurley undertook work to finalize Davies's transfer out of China to Moscow. A second argument in the first week of January and resulted in Hurley threatening to destroy Davies's career and accusing the Foreign Service Officer of being a communist. Davies departed China for good on January 9, 1945.

Medal of Freedom

Davies and several others, including Eric Sevareid and a Chinese general, were flying from Assam in India to Chongqing in 1943 when the plane developed engine trouble and the occupants were forced to bail out over the Burmese jungle, in an area inhabited by the Naga headhunters. Davies led all the passengers to safety and, in 1948, was awarded the Medal of Freedom.^[1]^[2]

Later career

After the war, he served as first secretary in charge of the political section at the US embassy in Moscow; on the State Department's policy staff; with the High Commission for Germany; as director of political affairs at the German Embassy; and finally, as counselor and chargé d'affaires at the Peruvian Embassy, until his dismissal in 1954.

Accusations and dismissal

Davies was one of the China Hands who specialized in China and the Far East in the State Department. He predicted that Mao Zedong's Communists would win the Chinese Civil War, and, after they did so in 1949, he advocated US relations with Communist China to forestall a Soviet takeover. These views ran counter to prevailing government policy and provoked the "China lobby". Supporters of Chiang Kai-shek were looking for those who had helped "lose" China and Senator Joseph McCarthy was looking for any Communists in government. Davies was attacked as both.^{[citation needed]}

Nine investigations of Davies' loyalty between 1948 and 1954 did not produce evidence of disloyalty or Communist sympathies. His opposition to Communism was a matter of record; indeed, in 1950 he had advocated a preventive nuclear showdown with the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in 1954, under political pressure from McCarthy and Senator Patrick McCarran, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles asked Davies to resign. He refused, and on November 5, 1954, Dulles fired him, claiming he had "demonstrated a lack of judgment, discretion and reliability."^[3]^[4]

Later life

After the end of his diplomatic career, Davies returned to Peru and, with his wife, operated a furniture business. Their company, Estilo, won the International Design Award twice. The Davies family returned to the United States in 1964. After a protracted battle, Davies was finally exonerated and regained his government clearance in 1969. The family moved to Málaga, Spain in 1972 and then to France and England and finally back to the US.^{[citation needed]}

Death

Davies died December 23, 1999, in Asheville, North Carolina, at the age of 91.^[1]

Books

"The China Hands: American Foreign Service Officers and What Befell Them," E.J. Kahn, Jr. NY Viking Press, 1975. ISBN 9780140043013
"China Hand: An Autobiography," John Paton Davies, Jr. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-8122-4401-4
Foreign and Other Affairs (1964) W.W. Norton & Co.
Dragon by the Tail: American, British, Japanese, and Russian Encounters With China and One Another (1972). W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-05455-1.

References

^ ^a ^b Kaufman, Michael T. (December 24, 1999). "John Paton Davies, Diplomat Who Ran Afoul of McCarthy Over China, Dies at 91". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-08-15.
^ Bernstein, Adam (December 24, 1999). "China Expert John P. Davies Dies". The Washington Post. p. B06.
^ Davies, John Paton Jr. (2012). China Hand: An Autobiography. U Penn. p. 5. ISBN 9780812244014.
^ "John Paton Davies, Jr". Life. 15 Nov 1954. Retrieved 7 August 2012.