Arthur William Hummel Jr. | |
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United States Ambassador to China | |
In office July 30, 1981 – September 24, 1985 |
|
Preceded by | Leonard Woodcock |
Succeeded by | Winston Lord |
United States Ambassador to Ethiopia | |
In office February 20, 1975 – July 6, 1976 |
|
Preceded by | Thomas W. McElhiney |
Succeeded by | Frederic L. Chapin |
United States Ambassador to Burma | |
In office September 10, 1968 – July 22, 1971 |
|
President |
Lyndon B. Johnson Richard M. Nixon |
Preceded by | Henry A. Byroade |
Succeeded by | Edwin W. Martin |
United States Ambassador to Pakistan | |
In office June 4, 1977 – July 19, 1981 |
|
President |
Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan |
Preceded by | Henry A. Byroade |
Succeeded by | Ronald I. Spiers |
Personal details | |
Born |
Shanxi Province, China |
June 1, 1920
Died | February 6, 2001 Chevy Chase (town), Maryland |
(aged 80)
Mother | Ruth Bookwalter Hummel |
Father | Arthur W. Hummel Sr. |
Occupation | Diplomat |
Arthur William Hummel Jr. (Chinese: 恒安石; pinyin: Héng Ānshí; birth name Arthur Millbourne Hummel) (June 1, 1920 – February 6, 2001) was a United States diplomat.
He was born in Fenzhou, Shanxi, China, to Christian missionaries Arthur W. Hummel Sr. (1884–1975) and Ruth Bookwalter Hummel. His family moved to Beijing when he was 4. In 1927, when he was 7, the disruption and anti-foreign violence of the Northern Expedition forced his family to relocate to Massachusetts. When he was 8, his parents moved to Washington, D.C., where his father worked as Chief of the Orientalia Division at the Library of Congress. His parents sent him to Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school outside Philadelphia, for high school, where he graduated in 1938. He then attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, earning a B.A in 1940. In the same year, he then returned to Beijing to study at the California College of Chinese Studies and to study Chinese, since he had forgotten what he had learned as a child. He also taught English at the Catholic University of Peking.
Peaceful study in the ancient capital did not last long, however. After the attack on Pearl Harbor Hummel was taken by the Japanese and interned at Weixian Compound in Shandong Province. Though food was not adequate, life at the camp was relatively relaxed, since it was far from the battle-front. Hummel was put in charge of the hospital laboratory, taking advantage of his college training. One of his fellow internees was Langdon Gilkey, who later became a well-known theologian. In 1944 he and Laurance Tipton, a British prisoner, escaped and joined a unit of the Nationalist guerrillas who fought against the Japanese. After World War II ended, he worked with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, an organization which helped rebuild China along with other countries needing aid after the war. Hummel then attended the University of Chicago, graduating with a master's degree in International Studies in 1949.