Dixie Mission: The United States Army Observer Group in Yenan, 1944. -- Signed Copy
Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies/University of California, 1970. B&W photo reproductions. First Edition. Printed card-stock wraps. 8vo. 96 pp. Printed card-stock wraps with a Chinese chop in red. With 16 plates reprinting many b&w photographs. Map on inside front cover. Slight wear and toning to edges, else Near Fine. Inscribed by Barrett on the half-title page: “To ____ with every good wish, Dave Barrett, San Francisco, 30 January, 1972.”. Near Fine. Item #4 Barrett was a likely leader of the contingent: an accomplished scholar of Chinese culture and history, his command of Chinese language was nuanced enough that fellow US scholars claimed that only he could tell a joke in Mandarin that would elicit laughter from his Chinese hosts. During the McCarthy era, the question of “who lost China” was leveled directly at Barrett. As a side-note, in a little-remembered episode, the CCP leadership accused Barrett as the mastermind of a 1950 plot to assassinate Mao and other officials atop Tiananmen Gate -- with a mortar -- during National Day celebrations.
Number six in the China Research Monograph Series. The closest US official to CCP leadership, with acquaintanceships, if not friendships, with Mao, Chu Teh, Chou En-lai, and Yeh Chien-ying, Barrett led a special envoy, The United States Observer Group, known colloquially as “the Dixie Mission," included, among others, John Service, Raymond Ludden and others, to Yanan (then, Yenan). Their objective? To meet with CCP leaders in the off-chance the communists and the Kuomintang would form a coalition government or, that the CCP would win outright control of China in their rebellion against the National Republic of China.
Price: $275.00