Service, John S. (John Stewart) (1909-1999)
Dates
- Existence: 1909 - 1999
Biography
John Stewart Service (August 3, 1909-February 3, 1999) was an American diplomat who served in the Foreign Service in China prior to and during World War II. He was an important member of the Dixie Mission to Yan'an.
Service returned to Washington, D.C. in 1945 and was arrested as a suspect in the Amerasia Case. However, a grand jury declined to indict Service, finding that the materials he sent to the editors of Amerasia magazine were not sensitive. Five years later, he was dismissed from the State Department after U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy accused him of being a Communist. After challenging the dismissal in court, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor and he was reinstated at the State Department in 1957. He retired in 1962.
Service pursued a master of arts degree in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. After earning his degree, he worked as a library curator for the university's Center for Chinese Studies into the 1970s, then served as an editor for the center's publications.
In 1971, Service and his wife Caroline were part of a group of Americans invited back to visit China, several months before President Richard Nixon's visit to the country.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
John S. Service Papers
This material was donated by John Service to E. Grey Dimond in April 1987.
This material contains correspondence between John Service, of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California - Berkeley, and Edgar Snow and concerns Service's trip to China, the leadership struggles in China in the early 1970s, Snow's book Journey to the Beginning, and Snow's attempts to finish his last book.
