Joseph C. Satterthwaite
American diplomat (1900-1990)
Joseph Charles Satterthwaite (March 14, 1900 – November 19, 1990) was an American career diplomat.
Biography
Early life and positions
Sattherwaite was born in Tecumseh, Michigan on March 14, 1900. His family had first moved to that state in 1831. He attended the University of Michigan, earning a B.A. degree in 1923 and a M.A. degree in 1924. His first job with the US Foreign Service was as a clerk in the Stuttgart consulate in 1926. From there, appointments followed in Guadalajara, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Baghdad, Ankara and Damascus. As part of a State Department special diplomatic mission, Satterthwaite presented a letter from President Harry S. Truman to King Tribhuvan, recognizing Nepal's independence, on April 21 1947. This task proved difficult, as foreigners could only enter with consent of the Prime Minister, and the group had to travel by rail, road, pack train and sedan chair.
Increasing seniority
Satterthwaite served as United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka from 1949 to 1952, Head of the U.S. Legation at Tangier from 1953 to 1955, and as United States Ambassador to Burma from April 1955 to April 1957. For a brief period between May 6, 1957, and September 1, 1958, he was Director General of the Foreign Service.
“Joseph C. Satterthwaite” enters the record as american diplomat (1900-1990). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Joseph, Satterthwaite and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6281920. VIAF identifies the subject as 55771349. The Library of Congress control number is n90648112. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1990, 1831 and 1923.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph C. Satterthwaite” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.