John W. Riddle
{{Short description|American diplomat}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2023}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = John Wallace Riddle Jr.
| image = File:John W. Riddle cph.3b20636.jpg
| caption = John W. Riddle, photo by Pirie MacDonald
| ambassador_from = United States
| country = Argentina
| president = Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
| term_start = March 8, 1922
| term_end = May 28, 1925
| predecessor = Frederic Jesup Stimson
| successor = Peter Augustus Jay
| ambassador_from1 = United States
| country1 = Russia
| president1 = Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
| term_start1 = February 8, 1907
| term_end1 = September 8, 1909
| predecessor1 = George von Lengerke Meyer
| successor1 = William Woodville Rockhill
| minister_from2 = United States
| country2 = Serbia
| term_start2 = May 7, 1906
| term_end2 = January 23, 1907
| president2 = Theodore Roosevelt
| predecessor2 = John Brinkerhoff Jackson
| successor2 = Horace G. Knowles
| minister_from3 = United States
| country3 = Romania
| term_start3 = October 3, 1905
| term_end3 = January 23, 1907
| president3 = Theodore Roosevelt
| predecessor3 = John Brinkerhoff Jackson
| successor3 = Horace G. Knowles
| birth_date = {{birth date|mf=yes|1864|07|12}}
| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
| death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1941|12|08|1864|07|12}}
| death_place = Farmington, Connecticut
| education = Harvard University (BA)
Columbia Law School
Sciences Po
Collège de France
| parents = John Wallace Riddle Sr.
Rebecca Blair McClure
| spouse = {{marriage|Theodate Pope Riddle|May 16, 1916}}
| relations =
| children =
| signature = Signature of John Wallace Riddle Jr. (1864–1941).png
| order = 22nd
}}
John Wallace Riddle Jr. (July 12, 1864 – December 8, 1941) was an American diplomat. His first diplomatic assignment was as agent/consul general in Egypt (1904–1905).{{cite web |title=John Wallace Riddle |url=https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/riddle-john-wallace |publisher=Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State |access-date=2009-08-09}} He was then sent to Romania and Serbia in 1905 to serve as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary (residing in Bucharest), followed by postings as U.S. ambassador to Russia (1907–1909) and ambassador to Argentina (1922–1925).{{cite web |title=U.S. Ministers and Ambassadors to Russia |url=http://moscow.usembassy.gov/ministers-and-ambassadors.html |publisher=Embassy of the United States, Moscow Russia |access-date=2009-08-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090830105029/http://moscow.usembassy.gov/ministers-and-ambassadors.html |archive-date=2009-08-30 }}
Personal life
Born in Philadelphia,{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1941/12/09/archives/john-w-riddle-77-exdiplomat-dies-envoy-to-russia-190609-and.html |title=JOHN W. RIDDLE, 77, EX-DIPLOMAT, DIES; Envoy to Russia, 1906-09, and Argentina, 1921-25, Had Held U.S. Post in Turkey |date=December 9, 1941 |work=The New York Times |access-date=June 16, 2018 |language=en}} Riddle was the son of John Wallace Riddle, Sr. and Rebecca Blair McClure; he was born after his father's untimely death. A few years later, Rebecca McClure became the second wife of Charles Eugene Flandrau and relocated to St. Paul, Minnesota where Riddle grew up alongside two half-brothers and two step-sisters.{{cite book |author=Haeg, Lawrence Peter |title=In Gatsby's Shadow: The Story of Charles Macomb Flandrau |publisher=University of Iowa Press |date=2004}} He graduated from Harvard in 1887, attended law school at Columbia through 1890, and studied international law, diplomacy, and languages at École Libre des Sciences Politiques and the Collège de France in Paris through 1893.{{cite book |author=Derby, George and James Terry White |title=The National Cyclopædia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time |volume=14 |location=New York |publisher=James T. White & Company |date=1910}}
In 1916 Riddle married American architect and heiress Theodate Pope Riddle.{{cite web |title=Theodate Pope Riddle |url=http://www.cwhf.org/browse_hall/hall/people/riddle.php |publisher=Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame |access-date=2009-08-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091010031752/http://www.cwhf.org/browse_hall/hall/people/riddle.php |archive-date=2009-10-10 }}
He died in Farmington, Connecticut, at the age of 77.
References
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{{succession box|title=United States Ambassador to Russia|before=George von Lengerke Meyer|after=William Woodville Rockhill|years=1906–1909}}
{{succession box|title=United States Ambassador to Argentina|before=Frederic Jesup Stimson|after=Peter A. Jay|years=1921–1925}}
{{s-end}}
{{US Ambassadors to Romania}}
{{US Ambassadors to Argentina}}
{{US Ambassadors to Russia}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Riddle, John Wallace}}
Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Argentina
Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Egypt
Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Romania
Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Russia
Category:Harvard University alumni
Category:Columbia Law School alumni
Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Serbia