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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release April 17, 1996

            PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES JOHN KORNBLUM TO BE
                 ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR 
                  EUROPEAN AND CANADIAN AFFAIRS

     President Clinton today announced the nomination of John C.

Kornblum of Michigan to be Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs.

John Kornblum is a career Foreign Service officer who has served as Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs since June 1994. He was appointed by President Bush as Ambassador and U.S. Representative to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in 1991. In that role, he served as chief of the American delegation to the 1992 Helsinki Review Conference and played a major role in drafting the Declaration approved at the July 1992 Helsinki Summit. He established the new American delegation to the CSCE in Vienna in August, 1992, where he served until April, 1994.

Mr. Kornblum entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1964. He was assigned to Bonn as political officer in 1969, where he served as action officer for Berlin and eastern affairs and was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Four Powers negotiations on Berlin. Mr. Kornblum was later assigned to a series of policy-related positions at the State Department, including the Policy Planning Staff and the European Regional Political Affairs Office in conjunction with the CSCE. He was appointed director of the Office of Central European Affairs and later returned to Berlin to serve as U.S. Minister and Deputy Commandant. In 1987 he became U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO in Brussels.

John Kornblum was born February 6, 1943 in Detroit, Michigan. He is a 1964 graduate of Michigan State University.

The Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs is responsible for coordinating and overseeing policy and U.S. foreign relations with the countries of Western and Central Europe (excluding the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, except the Baltic States) and Canada.

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