John Van Antwerp MacMurray

John Van Antwerp MacMurray
MacMurray in November 1924
9th United States Ambassador to Turkey
In office March 16, 1936 – November 28, 1941
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Robert Peet Skinner
Succeeded by	Laurence Steinhardt
United States Minister to Lithuania
In office January 4, 1934 – February 12, 1936
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Robert Peet Skinner
Succeeded by	Arthur Bliss Lane
United States Minister to Estonia
In office January 4, 1934 – February 12, 1936
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Robert Peet Skinner
Succeeded by	Arthur Bliss Lane
United States Minister to Latvia
In office December 13, 1933 – February 12, 1936
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Robert Peet Skinner
Succeeded by	Arthur Bliss Lane
United States Minister to China
In office July 15, 1925 – November 22, 1929
President	Calvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover
Preceded by	Jacob Gould Schurman
Succeeded by	Nelson Trusler Johnson
United States Assistant Secretary of State
In office November 19, 1924 – May 19, 1925
Personal details
Born	October 6, 1881 (1881-10-06) Schenectady, New York, United States
Died	September 25, 1960(1960-09-25) (aged 78) Norfolk, Connecticut
Spouse	Lois R. Goodnow
Children	3
Education	Princeton University (B.A., M.A.) Columbia University Law School (LL.B.)
Occupation	Diplomat

John Van Antwerp MacMurray (October 6, 1881 – September 25, 1960) was an American attorney, author and diplomat best known as one of the leading China experts in the U.S. government. He served as Assistant Secretary of State from November 1924 to May 1925, and was subsequently appointed Minister to the Republic of China in 1925. Although MacMurray had coveted the China post, he soon fell into disagreement with the State Department over U.S. policy towards the ruling the Nationalist government. He resigned the position in 1929 and briefly left the foreign service. Following several years in academia, MacMurray returned to the State Department to become Minister to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from 1933 to 1936. He later served as ambassador to Turkey from 1936 to 1941, and then was made a special assistant to the Secretary of State until his retirement in 1944.

In 1935, MacMurray was commissioned to write a memorandum on the conflict between China and Japan. In it, he suggested that the United States, China, and Great Britain were partly to blame for Japan's invasion of China, and argued that unless the United States stopped opposing Japanese domination of China, a war between the two powers was likely. Japan later attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, drawing the US into World War II.