THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
                            (Pittsburgh, PA)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                 September 24, 1997

              PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES EDWARD S. WALKER, JR. 
                      AS U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL

President Clinton today announced his intent to nominate Edward S. Walker, Jr., a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, to be Ambassador to Israel.

Ambassador Walker, of Maryland, has been serving since 1994 as United States Ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt. He previously held the position of Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations with Ambassadorial rank from 1993 to 1994, and as United States Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 1989 to 1992, through the period of the Gulf War. Ambassador Walker has served extensively in the Middle East since his entry into the Foreign Service in 1967. In the course of his career, he has had tours overseas in Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt and as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia. His Washington assignments included two years as Special Assistant to the President's Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Negotiations from 1979 to 1981, and two years as Executive Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State from 1982 to 1984. In 1988, he was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Near East Bureau of the Department of State.

Ambassador Walker was born in Abington, Pennsylvania. He received an A.B. degree from Hamilton College and an A.M. degree from Boston University. In 1962, he enlisted in the United States Army and served for three years in Heidelberg, Germany. In 1985, he attended the Royal College of Defense Studies in London. Ambassador Walker is fluent in French, Hebrew, and Arabic.

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