U. Alexis Johnson

Ural Alexis Johnson (October 17, 1908 – March 24, 1997) was a United States diplomat.

Ural Alexis Johnson was born in Falun, Kansas into a family of Swedish descent. His mother named him for the mountain range, of which she learned from a geography book. He had a rural upbringing and schooling until 1923, when the family moved to Glendale, California. He graduated from Occidental College in 1931.

Johnson entered the United States Foreign Service in 1935. After serving in Tokyo, Seoul, South Korea, Mukden (now Shenyang, where he was interned at the start of World War II), and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he was assigned as Consul and later Consul General at Yokohama, Japan from 1945 to 1949. From 1949 to 1953, he served in various positions in the Department of State's Far East Bureau, mainly concerned with Japan and Korea, rising to be Deputy Assistant Secretary of State with responsibilities for the entire bureau."

He played a role in the armistice in the Korean War. He was ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1953 to 1958, Thailand from 1958 to 1961, and to Japan from 1966 to 1969. While Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, he represented the United States in a long series of meetings in Geneva with the Chinese Communists. In the absence of diplomatic relations these were the principal point of contact between the two governments.

He was Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs and in the Excomm from 1961 to 1964. From 1964 to 1965, he was Deputy Ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam. In 1965, he returned to the position of Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs from 1965 to 1966. He also served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from1969 to 1973. He was chief United States delegate to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks from 1973 until retirement in 1977. His memoir The Right Hand of Power was published in 1984.

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