Joseph Farland, 92; set up Kissinger’s secret trip to China in 1971
Joseph Farland, 92, a former ambassador who helped arrange Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to China in 1971 that paved the way for President Nixon’s historic visit the following year, died Saturday while under hospice care in Virginia.
He was appointed ambassador to the Dominican Republic in 1957, during the Eisenhower administration, and to Panama in 1960. He left the Foreign Service in 1963 but returned during the Nixon administration to take positions as ambassador to Pakistan from 1969 to 1972 and to Iran from 1972 to 1973.
Farland’s role in paving the way for the U.S. opening to China was detailed when 100,000 pages of previously classified Nixon-era materials were released by the National Archives in April 2001.
They revealed that in the spring of 1971, Farland traveled to California to meet with Kissinger, then Nixon’s national security advisor, and help him arrange the trip to China. Farland was involved because Pakistan was serving as a middleman in the secret U.S.-China communications.
Farland, a native of Clarksburg, W.Va., received bachelor’s and law degrees from West Virginia University.
He served in the Navy during World War II.
When not in government service, he practiced law; he also was president of companies with coal operations in West Virginia and Maryland.
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