Joseph S. Farland

Who was Joseph S. Farland?

Joseph Simpson Farland served as United States Ambassador to four different countries.

Farland was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia and raised that city as well as in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He received his bachelors and a law degree from West Virginia University and did further studies at Princeton University and Stanford University. Farland was a practicing lawyer for several years.

During World War II Farland worked with the FBI and then was in the Navy. After the war besides continuing his law activities Farland also served as president of coal companies. Farland became United States Ambassador to the Dominican Republic in 1957. He was then appointed Ambassador to Panama in 1960 serving in that post until 1963. In 1963 Farland returned to practicing law in Washington, D.C.. Farland later served as United States Ambassador to Pakistan from 1969 to 1972 and then as Ambassador to Iran from 1972 to 1973. He was then appointed Ambassador to New Zealand, but did not accept the position and returned to the practice of law.

"It was in the spring of 1971 that Mr. Farland, as ambassador to Pakistan, helped create the ruse under which Mr. Kissinger, then Nixon’s national security adviser, would arrive in Islamabad on July 8, apparently for talks with President Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, the military dictator at the time. According to the plan, Mr. Kissinger feigned a severe stomachache and was taken to President Khan’s mountain rest house. From there, Mr. Kissinger was flown to southern China for a clandestine meeting, from July 9 to 11, with the Chinese premier, Chou En-lai. There, they arranged for Nixon’s weeklong trip to China in February 1972, which restructured long-strained diplomatic relations." New York Times, 2007.