John H. Holdridge

John Herbert Holdridge (August 21, 1924 – July 12, 2001) was an American foreign service officer and diplomat, who was best known for having taken part in, and later recounted, Henry A. Kissinger's secret 1971 initiative to restore United States diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to Singapore (1975–1978) and Indonesia (1982–1986).

Biography

Early life John Holdridge was born August 21, 1924, in New York City, New York. His parents were Marie Gunther and Herbert C. Holdridge, a West Point graduate who reached the rank of brigadier general in the United States Army. His parents later divorced, and John gained his only sibling, a much younger stepsister, Cheryl Holdridge, after his father remarried.

Holdridge attended Dartmouth College in 1941, but transferred to the US Military Academy at West Point upon the US entry into World War II. After graduation in 1945, he was commissioned an officer in the US Army, and served briefly in Korea. He resigned his commission in 1948, after passing the State Department's foreign service exam. He then began a two-year intensive study of Mandarin at Cornell University and Harvard University.

Career John Holdridge's first State Department posting was as US Vice Consul, Embassy of the United States, Bangkok, Thailand, from 1950 to 1953. He was promoted to consul and assigned to first Consulate General Hong Kong (1953–56), then Singapore (1956–58). He returned to Hong Kong in 1962 as chief of the political section, a post he held for four years. From 1966 to 1968 he became deputy director for the office of research and analysis, East Asian and Pacific affairs, the State Department in Washington, D.C., and then director from 1969 to 1973.