Nomination of Patricia Gates Lynch To Be United States Ambassador to Madagascar and the Comoros

The President today announced his intention to nominate Patricia Gates Lynch, of the District of Columbia, as Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Madagascar and the Federal and Islamic Republic of the Comoros. She succeeds Robert Brendon Keating.

Mrs. Lynch was assistant manager of the Edward Cushing Bookshop in New Canaan, CT, 1943-1944. She was also a fundraiser (war bond drive), American Theatre Wing in New York City during this period. From 1943 to 1946, she worked in hospitals as a volunteer Red Cross nurse's aide in Stamford, CT, and Oak Ridge, TN. Mrs. Lynch continued extensive volunteer work while traveling as an Army wife during the period 1944-1957. From 1957 to 1968, she was coproducer, writer, and broadcaster for WFAX Radio in Falls Church, VA. From 1960 to 1961, she lived in Munich, Germany, doing freelance work for NBC, sending back to New York interviews from Western Europe, the Soviet Union, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and Iran. She also continued association with WFAX and carried out assignments in Western and Eastern Europe and Iran for the Armed Forces Network in Europe. From 1968 to the present, she has been coproducer and host of the "Breakfast Show," Voice of America. In 1969 Mrs. Lynch was on detail from VOA to be on the White House staff of Mrs. Richard Nixon. She often traveled with President and Mrs. Nixon and was Press Assistant for Mrs. Nixon. Since 1984 she has been producer-host of Saturday and Sunday "VOA Morning" programs.

Mrs. Lynch attended Dartmouth Institute in Hanover, NH. Her foreign languages are French and German. She is married, has two children, and was born April 20, 1926, in New Jersey.