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Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr. (December 17, 1896 – November 13, 1961), also known as A. J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., was an American diplomat and a United States Army general.

Biography

Biddle was the son of millionaire Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Sr. and Cordelia Rundell Bradley. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Biddle served in the United States Army during World War I and World War II, reaching the rank of Major General. He was married to Mary Duke, a tobacco heiress, in 1915, and they divorced in 1931, after having three children, Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, Margaret Biddle and Nicholas Duke Biddle (who was initially named Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle III, only to have his mother change his name following the divorce).^[1] His second wife, whom he married in 1931 (later divorced), was Margaret Thompson Schulze, the only child of mining magnate William Boyce Thompson; by this marriage he had two stepchildren, (Margaret) Boyce Schulze and Theodore Schulze Jr, as well as a son, given the name Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle III,^[2] who died at birth. He married as his third wife, in 1946, Margaret Atkinson Loughborough, the former wife of William Ellery Loughborough; after Biddle's death, she married, as her fourth husband, Colonel Edwinston Robbins.

He was also recognized in 1960 by George Frazier as the best dressed man in America. He died in 1961 in Washington, D.C. and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery. His cenotaph is at The Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia.

Diplomatic posts

• U.S. Minister to:
  • Norway, 1935-37, 1941-42
  • Netherlands, 1941-42
  • Yugoslavia, 1941
  • Czechoslovakia, 1941-43
  • Greece, 1941-42

• U.S. Ambassador to:
  • Poland, 1937-43
  • Belgium, 1941-43
  • Netherlands, 1942-43
  • Norway, 1942-43
  • Yugoslavia, 1942
  • Greece, 1942-43
  • Czechoslovakia, 1943
  • Spain, 1961

See also

World War I portal

Notes

References

• A Suitable Wardrobe
• The Political Graveyard
• United States Department of State: Chiefs of Mission by Country, 1778-2005
• "Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr., Major General, United States Army, Foreign Service Officer". ArlingtonCemetery.net. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/ajdbiddl.htm. Retrieved May 29, 2009.  

External links

• Svinth, Joseph R. (December 2001). "Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, USMC CQB Pioneer". Journal of Non-lethal Combatives (EJMAS). http://ejmas.com/jnc/jncart_Svinth_1201.htm. Retrieved May 28, 2009.