THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

PRESIDENT NAMES HARRIMAN AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE

(Washington, DC) President Clinton announced today his intention to nominate Pamela Harriman to be Ambassador to France.

"Anyone who has been involved with the Democratic Party for any length of time is certainly familiar with Mrs. Harriman's talent for diplomacy," said the President. "Her many years of dedicated service to the United States and her unceasing devotion to the cause of world peace are only two of the many qualifications that she will bring with her to Paris."

From 1980 to 1990, Harriman was Chairman of Democrats for the '80s, a multi-candidate political action committee. Following that, she served as Chairman of the Quarterly Policy Issues Forum of the Democratic Governors Association, and as a National Co-Chair of the Clinton/Gore campaign. She is an Honorary Trustee and Honorary Member of the Executive Committee of the Brookings Institution, and serves as Vice Chairman of the Atlantic Council, a Trustee of Rockefeller University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is on the Board of the Friends of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, the Advisory Council of the W. Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Soviet Studies, and the Board of Directors of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute.

In addition, Harriman sits on the Trustees' Council of the National Gallery of Art, is a Vice President of the EnglishSpeaking Union of the United States, and a Trustee of the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States. She is a member of the Commission on Presidential Debates and an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee.

Harriman, who was born in Great Britain, is a naturalized American citizen. She attended Downham School, England, and did postgraduate work at the Sorbonne in France. She holds an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Columbia University.

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