That makes sense yeah.

Also I just got an answer from the Bancroft Library. They don't seem very helpful. They don't have a catalog that describes individual items in the collection and they told me I would have to hire a researcher or visit the library in person, both of which I can't afford at this time. And to request duplicates I would need to know which items I want duplicates of. They hit me with the classic catch-22. sigh...

Oh that's a very useful hint that Peshkov's name was spelled differently. I just did a quick search in the State Departments Office of the Historian and a bunch of documents came up, the earliest dated to 1945. Seems Peshkov was a major player, not just for his free-French mission to visit Chang Kai-Shek.

So this picture might be connected to that mission to Japan? Or was this simply another mission where Peshkov and Atcheson collaborated? Both would have interesting implications.

Oh wow that is a lot to go on to continue my research, thank you so much! I'll contact the Bancroft Library and look into it.

Edit: I just sent an e-Mail to the library staff. I'll post here if and when I get an answer.

Wow that is huge! I just looked into Atcheson a bit and it seems like there are 3 general possibilities about the context of this picture:

Either this was Peshkov's mission to establish relations with Chang Kai-Shek for free France in 1944 and Atcheson supported it unofficially

Or this was a mission connected to Vice-President Wallace's Delegation to China in 1944, with unofficial support from Peshkov and Atcheson

Or it was a hybrid mission.

I'm also starting to think my grandmother never returning to live in the US might have had something to do with the McCarthy era. I already messaged you. To see the message click the bell icon on the top right and then go to messages.

Update: My dad just sent me newspaper clippings that my grandmother kept. One of them was the orbituary of John Carter Vincent. So that seems to pretty much confirm the china hands theory.

That's super interesting thank you! Yeah they definitely might have known each other or known about each other. I also read that some US personel stayed in China during the japanese occupation with the help of swiss diplomats. Some of the names you mentioned sound familiar. I'll be at my parents house soon and will have a look at all the names that come up in her collection and post them here. There's also pictures of a trip to Macau in november '49 where there is a couple who might be the ones you describe who went by a pseudonym.

I'll gladly dm you my grandmothers name and give you some further information about her.

Not yet, no. But I do plan on requesting access to her employee files. From everything I've read so far they should be accessible for next of kin (my dad) or also 25 years after the person in question has passed away.

Wow that already is a lot to go on thank you so much! I found a lot of other pictures of my grandmothers time in China as well.

The earliest picture I found that was in Peking was labeled '1941' on the back. I was unsure if it was a '7' or a '1' at first but was able to confirm it was a '1' by comparing with other stuff she wrote down and asking my dad who is familiar with her handwriting. This was a surprise to both of us, we always assumed she was in China after the war. But I have no idea if she was there continusly until '49.

There are a lot of pictures and my dad told me that she had told him she was working for the department of state and was living in China until the communist took over. She told him she lived in a house in Peking and even had a private chef and took calligraphy lessons from the artist Xi Baishi.

There's pictures labeled 'my house in Peking', her sitting in front of a fancy looking fireplace with a dog at her feet. It seems from the pictures that she was living there for a while. There are a lot of pictures capturing chinese culture. Also there are a bunch of pictures from a State Department compound swimming pool. There's also a picture labeled 'forbidden city'. It's all super intriguing. I'm starting to think she might have been part of the entourage of the so-called 'china hands'.

So dude in the middle is almost certainly Zinovy Peshkov. Thanks everybody. Still wonder who the other people are. Might this picture be connected to when Peshkov was part of a delegation that visited Chang Kai-Shek in 1944?

You‘re right! I didn‘t notice that before. Great so we got one person identified (apart from my grandma of course)

Got it. So it‘s neither de Gaule, nor Peshkov

Could it be him? I got a message from somebody who reverse searched the image who said it might be Zinovy Peshkov

obligatory comment so people see my question

was told to post this here:

Found this picture going through my grandmothers collection. It's very official looking and was most likely was taken at Hamilton Airfield. I know it must have been taken before june 1 1948 because "Air Transport Command" was restructured and turned into "Military Airlift Command" by then. My grandmother worked for the Department of State in the 1940s and had assignments in Beijing (at the time called Peking) and Moscow and maybe other places too. I'm trying to work out what she did and the timeline of those assignments. I even found in her collection a permit to exit China via Tianjing issued by the new communist government on october 7 1949. So she definitely was on some high risk assignments.

https://imgur.com/a/MnvWG8W

Edit: Found out through the help of another subreddit that the guy in the middle is almost certainly Zinovy Peshkov. Might this picture be connected to when Peshkov was part of a free-french delegation sent to Chiang Kai-Shek in 1944?

I guess I'll post it in the short answers thread then even though identifying the people on this picture seems likely to require more than a short answer.

It's not really a short answers question in my mind. I'm not asking for a specific name, number, date of time, or location, not about the origin of a word. Edit: It's a question about if anybody can identify persons on the picture and what context it may stem from.