Francis Bagnall Bessac (pronounced bih-ZAK; Mongolian name Mergen Sang; Chinese name 白智仁 Bái Zhìrén; January 13, 1922 – December 6, 2010) was an American anthropologist who spent much of his life teaching the subject at the University of Montana, where he was appointed to the faculty in 1965.
[1][2] Bessac was born on January 13, 1922, in Lodi, California and earned his undergraduate degree at the College of the Pacific, where he majored in history.
At COP, he was friends with Dave Brubeck, a pioneer of jazz music and he played tackle for football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg.
After completing service with the OSS, he studied language at Fujen University in present-day Beijing and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship.
[3] In the Gobi Desert studying anthropology in Inner Mongolia, Bessac was forced to flee in the wake of advancing Chinese Communist forces and embarked on a journey of 2,000 miles (3,200 km) to Tihwa (now known as Ürümqi) in Second East Turkestan Republic or Xinjiang Province, Republic of China and from there through Tibet and across the Himalayas to India.