 In the 1944 Dixie Mission, US Colonel John Service visited the Communists and praised them, claimed that they were democratic reformers, likening them to European socialists rather than Soviet Communists and claimed that they were less corrupt and chaotic than the Nationalists, and that they would preserve levels of capitalism for an extended time until a peaceful transition to a fully realized communist society.US Ambassador to China Clarence Gauss recommended the United States "pull up the plug and let the whole Chinese Government go down the drain".General Patrick Hurley claimed that the Chinese Communists were not real communists, and insisted that the differences between the Communists and Nationalists were no greater than those between the Republican and Democratic parties in the United States.