John K. Emmerson

[3] In October 1944, Emmerson was sent to Yenan in China to interrogate Japanese prisoners of war captured by Chinese communists.

In Yanan, Emmerson met Sanzo Nosaka (who was using the alias Susumu Okano at the time), leader of the Japanese Communist Party.

On October 5, 1945, Emmerson, along with E. Herbert Norman, drove to Fuchu Prison and met prominent Communists incarcerated there, including Tokuda Kyuichi, Shiga Yoshio, and Kim Chon-hae.

Probably because of these investigations, he was not allowed to be posted to East Asia from 1952 to 1962, when he returned to Japan as deputy chief of mission under Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer, where he served until his retirement in 1966.

He was survived by his wife, Dorothy McLaughlin; a daughter, actress and singer Dorothy Louise Emmerson; a son, Stanford professor and Southeast Asia specialist Donald Kenneth Emmerson; a sister, Theodora E. Sinden, and two grandchildren.