THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
                           (Dakar, Senegal)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                      April 2, 1998

                PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES ERIC S. EDELMAN AS
            UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE REPUBLIC OF FINLAND

     The President today announced his intent to nominate Eric S. 

Edelman to be U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Finland.

Mr. Eric S. Edelman, of Stafford, Virginia, is a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Counselor. He began his Foreign Service career as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the West Bank/Gaza Autonomy Talks in 1980. He subsequently served in the State Department Operations Center, on the Secretariat Staff, and as Special Assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz. From 1984 to 1986, Mr. Edelman served as a Desk Officer in the Office of Soviet Affairs and subsequently served as a Political Officer in Moscow. He served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in 1989. In April 1990, Mr. Edelman served as Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense until 1993, when he became Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for the New Independent States (NIS). From 1994 to 1996, he served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Prague. He returned to Washington in 1996 to become Executive Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State.

Mr. Edelman received a B.A. in History and Government from Cornell University in 1972 and a Ph.D. in History from Yale University in 1981. Mr. Edelman speaks French, Russian and Czech.

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