The Refrocked Diplomat

John Paton Davies Jr. was born in China, the son of U.S. missionary parents. He joined the Foreign Service in 1931, served largely in the Orient and advised General Joseph ("Vinegar Joe") Stilwell in Chungking during World War II. There, he criticized Chiang Kai-shek for battling Mao Tse-tung's Communists more ardently than their common enemy, the invading Japanese armies. That stand cost Davies his job. In 1953, Senator Joseph McCarthy named him as part of a group that "did so much toward delivering our Chinese friends into Communist hands."

Deputy Under Secretary of State Robert Murphy offered Davies a chance to resign, though nine security hearings produced no evidence that he was disloyal. Davies replied: "I guess you'll have to fire me." In November 1954, John Foster Dulles did just that, charging Davies with "lack of judgment, discretion and reliability." Last week, more than 14 years later, the State Department in effect cleared Davies--now 60--of those charges. It issued him a security clearance for work on an M.I.T. arms-control study.

No Bitterness. Since 1956, Davies has partly supported himself, his wife and seven children on $4,000 a year in retirement pay. In 1964, he published Foreign and Other Affairs, a collection of short essays. In it, he described himself somewhat ruefully as "an unfrocked diplomat."

In retrospect, Davies shows no bitterness. He recalls with astonishment that after firing him Dulles telephoned to offer the use of his name as a reference. "What could I say?" asks Davies. "It was so bizarre." As Davies sees it, both he and Dulles were victims of the times. "Getting rid of me was his modus operandi with Congress," he says. "It made it easier for him to work with them. The Congress is not so naive now. It has learned to live with dissension on foreign affairs." He adds: "The State Department is catching up with the times in personnel matters as well as policy." For Davies, clearance 14 years late is better than never.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.