[1][2][3][4][5] Ludden was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, graduated from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and in 1932 went to China, where he served for seventeen years.
Ludden was interned by the Japanese in Shanghai the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor but was released the following year in what was then Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique) as part of a diplomatic exchange arranged by the Swiss Red Cross.
Stilwell had for some time locked horns with Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) over the conduct of the war and had become increasingly interested in the possibility of working with the Chinese Communist forces in order to carry out a landing on the North China coast.
Jiang had strenuously opposed the idea but finally relented under pressure from President Roosevelt and allowed Stilwell to send a U.S. Army observer section to the Chinese Communist base area in Yan'an.
Ludden's role with the Dixie Mission was to travel through enemy-occupied territory with a small field group of seven Americans and a guerrilla bodyguard to the Communist Jin Cha Ji headquarters near Fouping.
When the American Ambassador resigned following Stilwell's recall, Hurley was appointed in his place and right away pressed for a policy of unconditional support for Jiang.
This, and the award of a Bronze Star, allowed him to remain largely in under the radar and avoid the persecution to which Davies and Service would later be put by Hurley and other supporters of Jiang.
Ludden later went through the loyalty-security hearings of the McCarthy period and was cleared, but because of the controversy surrounding his work in China he was left to finish out his career in Europe.