View Header

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary


For Immediate Release July 1, 1999
              PRESIDENT NAMES JAMES B. CUNNINGHAM TO BE THE 
               UNITED STATES DEPUTY REPRESENTATIVE TO THE 
                UNITED NATIONS, WITH RANK AND STATUS OF 
              AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY AND PLENIPOTENTIARY

     The President announced today his intent to nominate James B.

Cunningham to be the United States Deputy Representative to the United Nations, with rank and status of Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary.

James B. Cunningham of Allentown, Pennsylvania, is a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, and is currently serving as the Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Rome. He has spent most of his career working on European political and security issues, with broad experience in multilateral diplomacy. After initial tours in Stockholm, Washington, Rome and the U.S. Mission to NATO, in the summer of 1988 Cunningham was selected by incoming NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner as his Deputy Chief of Staff. In January 1989 Mr. Woerner promoted him to Chief of Staff, where his responsibilities included advising the Secretary General on the entire range of NATO issues in the context of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. He became Deputy Advisor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the UN in August 1990, just after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In the summer of 1992 he returned to Washington as Deputy Director of the State Department's Office of European Security and Political Affairs, and became Director in 1993. In that capacity he was involved in many aspects of U.S. policy toward Europe, including NATO, arms control, Bosnia and policy consultations with NATO Allies, countries of Central Europe, and the former Soviet Union. After a year of senior officer development training, he took up his duties in Rome in August 1996.

Mr. Cunningham graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse University in 1974, with degrees in Political Science and Psychology. He is the recipient of the State Department's Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards, and the National Performance Review's Hammer Award. He is married to Leslie Genier of Mineville, New York. They have two daughters, Emma and Abigail.

30-30-30