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James Gareth Endicott Wikipedia

Image:Endicott.jpg|frame|1952 photo of James Endicott (centre) flanked by his wife Mary (right) and granddaughter Susan (left).

Dr. James Gareth Endicott (1898–1993) was a Canada|Canadian minister, Christian missionary and socialist.

He was born in China, the third of five children to a missionary family. His family returned to Canada in 1910. Endicott fought in World War I and was then educated at the University of Toronto's Victoria College where he was president of the student council and a founder of the university's World Student Christian Federation|Student Christian Movement. Following graduation he was ordained as a minister in the United Church of Canada and, in 1925, returned to China as a missionary remaining there for most of the following two decades.

Endicott taught English language|English in China and became professor of English and Ethics at West China Union University. He became social advisor to Chiang Kai-shek and political advisor to his New Life Movement and served as an advisor to United States|US military intelligence from 1944 to 1945 as a liaison between the American military and the Chinese Communist forces fighting against the Japan|Japanese in World War II. Disillusioned by the Kuomintang's corruption, Endicott was impressed by the Communists and became friends with Zhou En-lai at as the Chinese Civil War resumed and a supporter of the Chinese Communist Party. After the war he spoke at student demonstrations urging opposition to the Nationalist government provoking criticism from the church in Canada prompting his resignation from the ministry and the mission on May 5 1946. At Zhou En-lai's urging, he moved to Shanghai to publish the underground anti-Kuomintang Shanghai Newsletter. The newsletter was aimed at westerners in the Kuomintang stronghold as well as at trying to convince western governments that Chaing's regime was corrupt and dictatorial.

In 1947 he returned to Canada. At a time when western countries were backing Chaing and were optimistic about his government, Endicott advised the Canadian government that the Kuomintang regime's fall was imminent and then went public with his predictions and his denunciation of the Kuomintang as corrupt. His comments were denounced as traitorous by the media and he was labelled the most reviled Canadian of the year for his support of the Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China and was criticized by the United Church for his support of the revolution.

In 1949 he founded and became chairman of the Canadian Peace Congress and helped publish its Peace Letter bulletin. He also became a senior figure in the World Peace Council serving as president of the International Institute for Peace from 1957 until 1971.

Endicott returned to China during the Korean War and, on his return to Canada, charged the United States with using chemical weapon|chemical and biological weapons during the war . His charges led him to be vilified in the Canadian press as "public enemy number one" and he was censured by the United Church for his support of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists. He was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953 for his efforts. He continued his advocacy for the People's Republic of China by publishing the Canadian Far East Newsletter and though he publicly backed the Soviet Union in the initial years of the Sino-Soviet split he was sympathetic to China's arguments and reported them in the newsletter. Endicott was offered the presidency of the World Peace Council in the early 1960s but declined due to his wife's declining health and what he anticipated as a personally untenable position of leading the council during a period of growing tensions between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China and their respective factions on the council.

In 1971, William Kashtan, general secretary of the Communist Party of Canada asked him to resign from the Canadian Peace Congress and as Canada's delegate to the World Council of Peace accusing the Canadian Far East Newsletter of being anti-Soviet and pro-Mao. Endicott agreed to leave the organization rather than stop publication of the newsletter or withdraw his support for China in its conflict with the Soviet Union. He founded the Canada-China Society shortly after leaving the Canadian Peace Congress and publicly broke with the Soviet Union.

In 1982, the United Church extended a formal apology to Endicott for having denounced him three decades earlier.

Though friendly with Tim Buck, Stanley Ryerson, Leslie Morris and other Canadian Communists, Endicott never joined the Communist Party of Canada though three of his children joined its predecessor, the Labour-Progressive Party. He had joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation while living in Toronto on sabbatical from 1941 to 1944, and campaigned for the party in the 1942 federal by-election in which Joseph Noseworthy won an upset victory, but his membership lapsed when he returned to China. When he applied to rejoin the CCF in 1948 his membership application was rejected, though no reason was given it is almost certain it was rejected due to the perception that Endicott's association with Communism.

His father, Rt. Rev. James Endicott (1865-1954), had also been a missionary and the Moderator of the United Church of Canada from 1926 to 1928.

Last Modified:   2005-11-04