Ep. 115 | John Service (Part 1)
This week we explore the life and times of John S. Service. I’m using writer Lynne Joiner’s book Honorable Survivor, Mao’s China, McCarthy’s America, and the Persecution of John S. Service as the informational foundation for this episode. I strongly recommend that you check that book out if you want some more in-depth information on the life of John Service.
This original “China Hand” was born in China and grew up in Chengdu and Shanghai. He went on to a brilliant career in the State Department serving in China as a Foreign Service officer during the Second Sino-Japanese War and throughout WWII. Because of his past association with the Communists in Yan’an and the sympathetic view he had about their policies, Service became a prime target of the anti-Communist witch hunts of the early 1950s.
His career was ruined and he went on to live a life of anonymity and fought for years to clear his name. In this episode, we will look at the early part of his career and examine the lead-up to the Dixie Mission.
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Terms in Episode
| Pinyin/Term | Chinese | English/Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Caroline Shultz Service | - | Wife of John Service |
| Chengdu | 成都 | Capital of Sichuan province, birthplace of John Service |
| Chiang Kai-shek | 蒋介石 | KMT leader, military strongman and wartime president of China |
| Chongqing | 重庆 | Municipality in China that once was part of Sichuan. Served as the wartime capital of China after the Nationalists were chased out of Nanjing and Hankou. |
| Clarence Gauss | - | Long-serving US diplomat in China. Appointed ambassador to China (in Chungking) during the the early war years. |
| Edgar Snow | - | Journalist and first Westerner to visit Mao in Yan’an to get a glimpse of what he was building there. His finding were published in Red Star Over China. |
| FDR | - | Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
| Hankou | 汉口 | City in Hubei. The “Han” of Wuhan. |
| Henry Luce | China-born publisher of two of the most influential American magazines of their day, Time and Life. Chiang Kai-shek’s most valuable supporter in the US. | |
| Henry Wallace | - | FDR’s Vice President |
| John Carter Vincent | - | Another China Hand and Foreign Service officer |
| John Paton Davies | - | Childhood friend of John Service and fellow China Hand and Foreign Service officer |
| John Stewart Service | - | China Hand, Foreign Service officer |
| Joseph Stilwell | - | US Army Four-star general. A legend in his own time. The bete noir of Chiang Kai-shek. |
| Lauchlin Currie | - | A White House economic advisor and aide-de-camp to Franklin Roosevelt |
| Madame Chiang (Song Meiling) | 宋美龄 | Soong Mei-ling |
| Owen Lattimore | - | China, Mongolian and Central Asia specialist sent by Roosevelt to serve as an aid to Chiang Kai-shek in Chongqing |
| Patrick Hurley | - | He will be introduced in Part II. He succeeded Clarence Gauss as Ambassador to China during the latter half of the War. |
| Tai Li | 戴笠 | Called China’s Himmler…. He was Chiang Kai-shek’s chief of secret police. More of him in Part II. |
| Theodore White | 白修德 | Immortal American writer, historian and journalist. Got the word out to American about the Henan Famine |
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