John H. Holdridge, ’41

ambassador; national security council member

John H. Holdridge, 76, an Asia specialist in the Foreign Service who had been an ambassador to two countries and a staffer with the National Security Council in addition to serving as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, died of pulmonary fibrosis July 12 at Sibley Memorial Hospital. He lived in Bethesda.

He served almost four decades in the Foreign Service before retiring in 1986 after three years as ambassador to Indonesia. He had been ambassador to Singapore from 1975 to 1978 and assistant secretary of state from 1981 to 1983.

Mr. Holdridge, a National Security Council member from 1969 to 1973, accompanied then-National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger to Beijing on a 1971 secret trip that laid the groundwork for President Richard M. Nixon to make his visit the next year. He also helped draft the Shanghai Communique of 1972, in which the United States recognized Taiwan as a part of “one China” instead of a separate nation. Mr. Holdridge was deputy director at the then-new U.S. mission in Beijing from 1973 to 1975. He went on temporary assignment to the Central Intelligence Agency, as national intelligence officer for East Asia, from 1979 to 1981. His decorations included the Presidential Meritorious Service Award and two State Department Superior Honor awards.

John Herbert Holdridge, a New York native and son of an Army general, was a 1945 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He spent some of his teenage years in Asia, and the experience left him eager to learn more when he left the Army in 1948 to join the Foreign Service. He became a political officer in Hong Kong, chief of the political section in Singapore and, in the mid-1960s, director of State’s research and analysis office for East Asia.

After retiring from the Foreign Service, he did consulting work. He was a past board chairman of Harvest International and, at his death, was a board member of the Maryland-China Business Council. He was a founding member of the U.S.-China Policy Foundation in Washington.

In 1995, he co-wrote “War and Peace With China” with two other Foreign Service officials. He also was the author of “Crossing the Divide: An Insider’s Account of the Normalization of U.S.-China Relations,” published in 1997.

In the mid-1980s, he purchased farmland in Grassy Meadows, W.Va., which he thought an ideal place for stargazing with a telescope. Over the years, he turned the property into a small cattle farm. He also made occasional appearances as a commentator on Asian political affairs for American television. Holdridge died of pulmonary fibrosis on July 12, 2001.

Citation: Washington Post, July 12, 2001 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2001/07/13/john-holdridge-dies/f171607b-a498-46f8-87b8-f78b12286ecb/

Citation: Wikipedia contributors. (2023, November 23). John H. Holdridge. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:16, June 11, 2024, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Holdridge