John Moore Allison

John Moore Allison (April 7, 1905 – October 28, 1978) was an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Japan from 1953 to 1957. From 1957 to 1958, he was Ambassador to Indonesia and from 1958 to 1960 to Czechoslovakia. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was Professor at the University of Hawaii. In 1973, he published his memoir, Ambassador from the Prairie.^[1]

Early life and education[]

Allison was born in Holton, Kansas and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska. He graduated from Lincoln High School and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.^[2]

Career[]

Allison first visited Japan in 1927, following his graduation from the University of Nebraska. He worked for two years as an English teacher in Odawara and Atsugi before joining the State Department in 1930. He studied Japanese in Tokyo and then worked in the foreign service in Japan and China, serving as consul in Dalian (1935–36), Jinan (1936–37), Nanjing (1937–38), Shanghai (1938), and Osaka (1939–41).

On January 26, 1938, during the period of the Nanking Massacre, Allison, at the time consul at the American embassy in Nanjing, was struck in the face by a Japanese soldier.^[3][4] This incident is commonly known as the Allison incident. Japanese Consul-General Katsuo Okazaki "apologized formally on January 30^[5] (after the Americans demanded they do so). This incident, together with the looting of American property in Nanking that took place at the same time, further strained relations between Japan and the United States, which had already been damaged by the USS Panay incident less than two months earlier."^[6]

Allison served as a consul in London during World War II. After Japan's surrender, he served in various State Department leadership positions covering Japan and the Far East from 1946 to 1952. Allison participated in the drafting of the Treaty of San Francisco that formally ended the war, serving as John Foster Dulles's aide during the latter's negotiation of the treaty.^[7]

Allison was named United States Ambassador to Japan in 1953. In 1954, 16 years after the "Allison Incident," Allison and the man who had apologized to him in Nanjing, Japanese Foreign Minister Okazaki, signed the U.S. and Japan Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement on behalf of their respective countries.^[8]

In 1957, during his ambassadorship to Indonesia, he recommended the U.S. government to mediate on the Western New Guinea issue.^[9][10]

Death[]

Allison died on October 28, 1978 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

References[]

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