John Roderick (correspondent) - Other AP Assignments

Other AP Assignments

Roderick was sent to the Middle East from China in 1948. He arrived in the city of Amman, Jordan, just two weeks after the creation of the state of Israel. He covered the assassination of United Nations official Count Folke Bernadotte in Jerusalem by the Israeli extremist group, Lehi.

He next went to London and spent five years in Paris in the 1950s. He covered the fall of the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 in Vietnam. He was later posted again in Paris and Hong Kong.

Roderick was posted to Tokyo, Japan, during the late 1950s. In 1959, Roderick became acquainted with Yoshihiro Takishita. During the late 1960s, Takishita learned that a 250-year-old farmhouse in his hometown of Gifu would be lost, following the construction of a reservoir. In order to save the farmhouse, Takishita arranged to have the it relocated to Kamakura, Japan for Roderick to make his home. Takishita, whom Roderick adopted as his son, went on to become an architect who specializes in preserving and restoring Minka. Roderick later wrote about his experiences with the then 273 year old Kamakura farmhouse and its restoration in his book, Minka: My Farmhouse in Japan, which was published by the Princeton Architectural Press in 2007.

Roderick was named a "Associated Press special correspondent" in 1977, becoming on of the AP's few reporters to hold the title.

He returned to Tokyo in 1980 as a special correspondent, one year after reopening the AP's office in Beijing. He was given a great deal of creative and journalistic freedom to travel throughout Asia and report on stories of interest to him.

Roderick reluctantly retired from active work at the Associated Press in 1984 at the age of 70. He later described himself as retiring "prematurely." However, he continued to report for the AP. The Japanese government awarded him with the Order of the Sacred Treasure for his work in reporting on Japanese and Asian issues in 1985.

Following his retirement, Roderick continued to write background stories on the Middle East and China. He spent much of his retirement at his restored farmhouse in Kamakura. He even wrote about his own 92nd birthday, in which the Associated Press honored him with a champagne lunch in 2006 in New York City. Also in 2006, Roderick began writing a series of monthly articles concerning China as part of his coverage of the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.