THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES RICHARD HOLBROOKE AS ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EUROPEAN AND CANADIAN AFFAIRS
The President announced today his intention to nominate Richard Holbrooke, of New York, as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs. He is currently serving as United States Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany.
Mr. Holbrooke is a native of New York and was born in 1941. He attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, obtaining a degree in 1962. That year he entered the Foreign Service and was assigned to Vietnam with subsequent postings in France, the Department of State, and Morocco.
Mr. Holbrooke was a member of the staff of the Special Assistant to the President for Vietnam in 1966 and 1967 and in 1968-1969 he was on the Delegation to the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam. During the period from 1970 to 1972, he was Director of the Peace Corps in Morocco.
From 1970-1972, Mr. Holbrooke was Managing Editor of Foreign Policy magazine and, from 1973-1976, Director of Publications for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He returned to government service in 1977 and served as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. From 1981 to 1985 Mr. Holbrooke was Vice-President of Public Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm, following which he was the Managing Director of Lehman Brothers in New York until his appointment as Ambassador to Germany in 1993.
Mr. Holbrooke has two sons, David and Anthony.