Nomination of James Keough Bishop To Be United States Ambassador to Somalia

The President today announced his intention to nominate James Keough Bishop to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Somali Democratic Republic. He would succeed Trusten Frank Crigler.

Since 1987 Ambassador Bishop has been Ambassador to the Republic of Liberia. Prior to this, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs at the Department of State, 1981 - 1987; Ambassador to the Republic of Niger, 1979 - 1981; Director of North African Affairs at the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs at the Department of State, 1977 - 1979; senior seminar student at the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, DC, 1976 - 1977; and Deputy Director for West Africa at the Department of State, 1974 - 1976. He was a desk officer for Ghana and Togo, 1972 - 1974; desk officer for Chad, Gabon, Mauritius and Madagascar, 1970 - 1972; economic officer in Yaounde, Cameroon, 1968 - 1970, and Beirut, Lebanon, 1966 - 1968; consul in Beirut, Lebanon, 1966; vice consul in Auckland, New Zealand, 1963 - 1966; and a press officer at the Department of State, 1961 - 1963. He entered the Foreign Service in 1960.

Ambassador Bishop graduated from the College of the Holy Cross (B.S., 1960) and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (M.I.I.P., 1981). He was born July 21, 1938, in New Rochelle, NY. He is married, has six children, and resides in Washington, DC.