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THE WHITE HOUSE

                      Office of the Press Secretary
                             (Houston, Texas)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                 September 26, 1997

           PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES WILLIAM H. TWADDELL AS U.S. 
              AMBASSADOR TO THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

President Clinton today announced his intent to nominate William H. Twaddell, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, to be United States Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Ambassador Twaddell, of Rhode Island, joined the Foreign Service in 1969. He was assigned as Vice Consul to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, with consular accreditation as well in the countries of the lower Arabian Gulf. He then served at the Embassy in Caracas, Venezuala, as a Commercial Officer. Afterwards, he worked in the Department of State as a Petroleum Analyst before his assignment to the Department's Executive Secretariat. In 1976, he joined the Transition Team for the Carter Administration and then worked as a Special Assistant to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

Assigned as Deputy Chief of Mission in Maputo, Mozambique, Ambassador Twaddell served for three years as Interim Charge d'Affaires until 1983. He was then detailed to the Coast Guard Academy faculty. That tour was interrupted by temporary assignments to be the first Director of the U.S. Liaison Office in Windhoek, Namibia in 1984, and the Interim Charge d'Affaires in Guinea Bissau in 1985. He was Deputy Chief of Missions in Bamako, Mali from 1985 to 1987. Ambassador Twaddell served as Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania from 1988 to 1991. The following year he was Diplomat-in-residence at the University of the District of Columbia and Georgetown University. He was Chief of Mission in Monrovia, Liberia from 1992 to 1995. Since 1995 he has been Deputy Assistant Secretary in the African Bureau of the State Department.

Ambassador Twaddell was a Peace Corps volunteer for two years in Brazil upon graduation from Brown University in 1963. He also served in the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1967 and was a general assignment reporter for the Washington Bureau of the New York Daily News from 1968 to 1969. He speaks Arabic, Portuguese, French and Spanish.

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