Nomination of Walter Leon Cutler To Be United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia

The President today announced his intention to nominate Walter Leon Cutler, of Maryland, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Minister, to be Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He would succeed Hume Alexander Horan.

Mr. Cutler joined the Foreign Service of the United States in 1956 and was first assigned as a consular officer in Yaounde, Cameroon, 1957-1959. In 1959 he returned to Washington as a Foreign Affairs officer in the Executive Secretariat of the State Department. In 1961 Mr. Cutler was named staff assistant to the Secretary of State; political officer in Algiers, Algeria, 1962-1965; and principal officer at the U.S. consulate in Tabriz, Iran, 1965-1967. Mr. Cutler was then assigned as political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, 1969-1971, and returned to Washington to serve as special assistant in the Bureau of East Asian Affairs, 1971-1973. He became a member of the senior seminar on foreign policy at the Foreign Service Institute for 1 year. From 1975 to 1979, he was Ambassador to the Republic of Zaire; Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Affairs, 1979-1981; Ambassador to the Republic of Tunisia, 1982-1984; Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 1984-1987; and diplomat-in-residence for the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, 1987-1988.

Mr. Cutler graduated from Wesleyan University (B.A., 1953) and Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy (M.A., 1954). He was born November 25, 1931, in Boston, MA. Mr. Cutler is married, has three children, and currently resides in Bethesda, MD.