Statement Announcing Intention To Nominate Elliot L. Richardson To Be Ambassador to Great Britain

IT IS WITH special pleasure that I announce today my intention to nominate Elliot Lee Richardson of Massachusetts as Ambassador to Great Britain.

I have known and worked with Elliot Richardson since he first joined the Eisenhower Administration as Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Since that time, his record of public service both in Massachusetts and successively as Under Secretary of State, Secretary of HEW, Secretary of Defense, and as Attorney General has been one of extraordinary achievement. I have the highest regard for him, for his intelligence, and for his total commitment to public service.

Elliot Richardson's record of public service is truly remarkable. In World War II, he enlisted in the United States Army and served in the European theater. He landed with the 4th Infantry Division on D-day in Normandy and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for heroic service and the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster. Upon graduation from Harvard Law School in 1947, where he was president of the Law Review, he served as law clerk first to Judge Learned Hand and then to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. In 1953 and 1954, he served as legislative assistant to the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Leverett Saltonstall. By appointment of President Eisenhower, he served as Assistant Secretary and Acting Secretary of HEW in the period 1957 to 1959. From 1959 to 1961, he served as United States Attorney for Massachusetts and Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. In 1964, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, and in 1966, he was elected Massachusetts Attorney General, from which position he came to Washington in 1969 to serve in four Cabinet departments.

The United Kingdom is an old ally to whom the United States is bound by profoundly intimate ties of history and strategic interest. It has therefore been our practice to consult with the United Kingdom on a broad range of negotiations and other matters affecting our relations with each other as well as with the Western alliance. As our Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Elliot Richardson will continue this practice. Both Secretary Kissinger and I shall seek his wise counsel on these and other subjects.

I warmly welcome Elliot Richardson back into the service of our country and am confident that he will represent America with the highest distinction.