Eldon Rudd

Eldon Dean Rudd (July 15, 1920 – February 8, 2002) was a U.S. Republican politician.

Biography

Rudd was born in Camp Verde, Arizona. A 1939 graduate of Clarkdale High School in Clarkdale, Arizona, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1942 and served as a fighter pilot during World War II. After his discharge in 1946, he attended Arizona State College, from which he graduated in 1947, and the University of Arizona Law School in Tucson.

Years in the FBI

After a brief period in private practice, Rudd became a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1950. As the only FBI field agent in Washington, D.C. fluent in Spanish in 1954, Rudd participated in the interrogation of the Puerto Rican nationalists involved in the attack on the U.S. House of Representatives that year. His report impressed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who personally offered Rudd his next choice of assignment, which he received as U.S. legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico, where he served from 1960 to 1970.