Nomination of Thomas R. Pickering To Be United States Ambassador to El Salvador

The President today announced his intention to nominate Thomas R. Pickering, a career Foreign Service officer, to be Ambassador to El Salvador. He would succeed Deane R. Hinton.

He is currently serving as Ambassador to Nigeria. He entered the Foreign Service in 1959 as intelligence research specialist in the Department of State and was political officer (Test Ban Treaty) in Geneva on detail to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1961-1964. He attended Swahili language training at the Foreign Service Institute in 1964-1965. In 1965-1967 he was principal officer in Zanzibar and Deputy Chief of Mission in Dar es Salaam in 1967-1969. In the Department of State he was Deputy Director of the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs (1969-1973) and Special Assistant to the Secretary of State and Executive Secretary of the Department (1973-1974). In 1974-1978 he was Ambassador to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in the Department in 1978-1981.

Ambassador Pickering graduated from Bowdoin College (A.B, 1953), Fletcher School of Law (M.A., 1954), and the University of Melbourne (M.A., 1956). He served in the United States Navy in 1956-1959. He is married and has two children. He was born November 5, 1931, in Orange, N.J.