Dr John Sutter, who passed away in March 2019 at the age of 93, left a large footprint in the history of the World Federalist Movement. Despite a quiet soft-spoken demeanour, he was well known for his dogged determination, hard work and devotion to the World Federalist cause. After serving as a combat engineer in the U.S. Army during World War II, Sutter earned a Bachelors degree in Public Administration and an M.A. in Economics and History, before joining the U.S.
Foreign Service, serving in China during the 1949 revolution and later in Indonesia. After completing a PhD at Cornell University he worked for three decades on behalf of The Asia Foundation, a nonprofit development organization based in San Francisco, serving in Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan. Upon returning to the U.S. in the mid-1980s Sutter devoted himself to the promotion of more democratic international institutions, as an active participant and donor to the U.S. World Federalist Association, then the California-based Democratic World Federalists as well as the international World Federalist Movement.
Among his many noteworthy achievements, he was the driving force behind the “Northern California World Federalist” and later “Toward Democratic World Federation” newsletters, and a key organizer of the 1995 WFM World Congress in San Francisco held on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter.