John Alexander Baker, Jr.

John Alexander Baker Jr. (October 3, 1927 – August 16, 1994) was a United States diplomat, most notable for serving as Director of the Bureau of Refugee Programs from 1979 to 1980.

Baker was born and raised in Connecticut. He served in the United States Army during World War II. After the war, he was educated at Yale University, graduating in 1949, and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

He joined the United States Foreign Service in 1950. He was stationed as a political officer in Belgrade 1951-52. From 1953 to 1956, he worked for Voice of America as Chief of Yugoslav Broadcasts. He received Russian language training in Oberammergau in 1957 and was then posted in Moscow as a political officer from 1957 to 1958. While vacationing with his wife in Amsterdam, he was informed that he could not return to the Soviet Union because the Soviet government had declared him persona non grata.

Returning to the U.S., Baker worked in the Bureau of Public Affairs from 1958 to 1960.

He returned to the field in 1960, working in Rome as a political officer and making a study of the Italian Communist Party.

Baker spent 1964 through 1967 working with the United States delegation to the United Nations. Issues confronting the U.S. delegation during this time included the Cyprus dispute (particularly the role of Makarios III as president of Cyprus), the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, and the Six-Day War.