Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

Dennis Wilder

The fascinating story of Raymond P. Ludden (SFS’30) and the Dixie Mission demonstrates both the value of deep China expertise to the United States and the real-world consequences of the politicization of intelligence. Today, as we engage in a vigorous debate over the strategic capabilities and intentions of China and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, the United States desperately needs a new generation of people like him.

Who Was Raymond Ludden?

Raymond P. Ludden graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in 1930 and joined the U.S. Department of State the next year. Ray was a tall Irish American from Falls River, Massachusetts. From 1932 until the beginning of the World War II, he served in various diplomatic posts in China and became fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Ludden was interned by the Japanese in Shanghai the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked but was released in 1943 to what was Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique) as part of a diplomatic exchange arranged by the Swiss Red Cross.

Ludden volunteered to return to the China front of the war effort and was seconded to General Joseph W. Stilwell’s command, where he was given the rank of a field grade officer. Initially, he served in Burma and was the first American to buy elephants to help in the construction of the supply route from India to China. In 1943, General Stilwell decided that there was a need for an observer mission to be sent to the communist-controlled areas of China in order to gain firsthand intelligence on the ability of the Chinese Communists to fight the Japanese, as well as acquire other military intelligence on the disposition of Japanese forces in northern China [1]. President Franklin Roosevelt endorsed the plan and sent Vice President Henry Wallace to China in June 1944 to convince reluctant Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek to acquiesce to the mission. Chiang was resistant, but Wallace stressed “the American need for intelligence from North China, particularly in connection with B-29 operations.” Chang reluctantly acceded to the U.S. president’s request. 

Behind Enemy Lines

On July 22, 1944, the Dixie Mission (as it became known because it was going into rebel territory) departed for the remote Yan’an stronghold of Communist leader Mao Tse-tung and his guerilla army. Out of the contingent of 18 Americans, Ludden and one other were from the Department of State. Five were from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and the rest were from the U.S. military. Showing the importance the Communists ascribed to the mission, one of Mao’s most trusted lieutenants, Chou En-lai (who later became China’s premier), met the delegation on the airstrip in the company of an honor guard and immediately introduced the Americans to the Communist leadership.

However warm the welcome in Yan’an, Ludden and the other Americans were eager to join the Red Army in the field. Ray—who one of his colleagues remembered as a “big, blunt, and red-faced”—was skeptical of the Communists. But after traveling mostly on foot over 1,000 dangerous miles of Japanese-occupied territory with a small guerrilla bodyguard in the dead of Chinese winter, he concluded that they were “the most realistic, well-knit, and tough-minded group in China.” He would later tell the New York Times that his conclusion after an eight-month stay with the Communists was that they “are fighting the Japanese, that they have popular support in their area, and that the people of the region all hope to obtain national unity in China.” Ludden was awarded the Bronze Star for his bravery.

A Cold Reception

Although he was awarded a medal for his bravery and the New York Times published his conclusions in March 1945, Ludden and the rest of the Dixie Mission had insurmountable problems getting a hearing on the American side because of political intrigue in the U.S. high command. Major General Patrick Hurley, who had been sent to China by President Roosevelt in 1944 as his personal emissary in order to pressure Chiang into cooperating with General Stillwell, instead sided with Chiang against Stillwell [2]. Hurley used his personal relationship with President Roosevelt to have Stilwell recalled to Washington, and Hurley became ambassador to China in November 1944. Hurley then set out to purge the State Department China experts within his command. Chiang later congratulated Hurley on having “purged the United States headquarters of the conspirators.”

When Ludden returned to Chongqing in January 1945, Hurley was not at all interested in his evaluation of the Communists. In fact, Hurley berated Ludden for the months he had wasted in Japanese-occupied territory, and Ludden was not even given the chance to write up his thoughts in a State Department cable before being shipped back to the United States. In Washington, Ludden (like other members of the Dixie Mission) found no appetite for their perspectives. As fellow mission member Captain John Collins put it, “The Dixie Mission was meant to be a military mission in pursuit of strategically important information. What became clear soon after was that the politics that brought us to Yan’an eventually silenced our reports of what we had learned.” Although Ludden escaped the fate of other State Department members of the Dixie Mission, who were harshly persecuted during the McCarthy era and accused of being Communists, for the rest of his life he felt a tremendous opportunity to build bridges to the Communists had been missed.

Wider Implications

It is impossible to know how the course of history would have been altered if the conclusions of the Dixie Mission had been factored into U.S. foreign policy decision-making, but some different outcomes are worth considering.

Support for the Nationalist Government: Had Roosevelt and Truman heard and absorbed the conclusions of the Dixie Mission, would they have rethought unconditional support for Chiang Kai-shek? Washington spent over $750 million dollars propping up the Nationalists, who proved to be incapable of going toe-to-toe with the Communists on the battlefield. By 1949, the Nationalists were defeated and retreated to Taiwan. If Roosevelt and Truman had heard the Dixie Mission’s conclusion of Mao’s ability to build an effective fighting force, they might have forced Chiang Kai-shek into a coalition with the Communists or backed a more competent and capable leader of the anti-Communist forces.

More Circumspect in Korea: Had General Douglas MacArthur read the Dixie Mission’s reports, he might have had a higher regard for the Red Army and been less hubristic when planning his battle campaigns in the Korean War. Before the Chinese entry into the war, MacArthur met with President Harry Truman on Wake Island and assured him that was “very little” chance of Chinese intervention. His estimate was that there were only 300,000 Chinese troops in the provinces abutting the Korean border and that China would, at best, be able to get 50,000 to 60,000 troops across the border into Korea because of logistics problems. Moreover, he had a very low opinion of the Chinese Communist soldiers, whom he regarded as ill-trained, ill-disciplined, and ill-equipped amateurs. We now know that Communist China actually had 900,000 soldiers in Manchuria and was able to quickly pour 260,000 soldiers across the border when it entered the war three days after the Wake Island meeting. MacArthur was not the only U.S. official who would have benefitted from a better appreciation of Communist capabilities. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s National Intelligence Estimates of the time also woefully underestimated the speed of movement into Korea of Mao’s Red Army.

Implications for Today

It is no exaggeration to say that today a debate is raging within the American foreign policy establishment over the nature and scope of the threat posed by the rapidly rising capabilities of the Chinese military. Some argue that, once China has completed its military modernization, it will seek to achieve not only regional military preeminence but also challenge America’s global status as the only superpower. Others see China as less of a threat to U.S. preeminence and take a more jaundiced view of Chinese military power and Beijing’s strategic ambitions. 

Regardless of where one stands in this debate, what is clear is that we need to ensure that we are positioned to avoid strategic surprise on China by having the best China experts possible within the U.S. government. However, as reported by the Financial Times, largely because of the strains in U.S.-China relations and China’s zero-COVID-19 restrictions, the number of U.S. students studying in China is dwindling. The Institute of International Education in New York estimates that the numbers of U.S. students going to China has plummeted by 78.7% over the past decade to just 2,481 in 2019-2020—the last academic year that started before the onset of the pandemic and the most recent data available. This contrasts sharply with the number of Chinese students studying in the United States. While their number have declined since the onset of the global pandemic, over 300,000 Chinese students still choose to study at American universities and colleges. 

To look at one example, the Boren scholars and fellows program, designed by the U.S. government to encourage college and graduate students to study critical languages and immerse themselves in foreign cultures with a commitment to join federal service in agencies critical to national security after graduation, has seen a precipitous drop in those studying on the Chinese mainland. This year, 73 American undergraduate and graduate students received Boren awards to study Mandarin Chinese. All are either studying in Taiwan or Singapore. We can only hope that this will change once China’s draconian zero-COVID policies are lifted. 

Finally, China is designated as the number one counterintelligence threat for the FBI and other government agencies to combat. Although there is no question that the United States must protect against China’s extremely aggressive intelligence operations targeted on U.S. citizens, including U.S. students studying in China, there is always the danger of overcompensating and denying ourselves needed, critical China expertise. At the end of the day, we must find the right balance between protecting the nation from the real threat posed by Chinese moles and losing the much-needed next generation of Raymond P. Luddens with real on-the-ground experience in China. Without them, we run the danger of grave miscalculations on China policy at a point in history when we can least afford it.

[1] The Chinese Communists were a puzzle to the Americans as they were closed off to outsiders by their own secrecy and politics and by the remoteness of their stronghold in Yan’an.
[2] Hurley’s knowledge of China was so thin that he called Chiang Kai-shek “Mr. Shek” and Mao Tse-tung Mr. “Moose Dung.”