Clinton Nominates Foley as Japan Envoy

EDGARTOWN, Mass. — President Clinton on Friday made his long-anticipated nomination of former House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) to be ambassador to Japan. Former State Department spokesman R. Nicholas Burns was tapped to be ambassador to Greece.

If confirmed by the Senate, Foley would replace former Vice President Walter F. Mondale in Tokyo. Mondale left in December, and the critical diplomatic post is vacant.

White House officials have made it clear since early spring that Foley was Clinton’s choice for Japan. Friday’s announcements, released from Martha’s Vineyard, where the president is on vacation, came after exhaustive background checks were completed and foreign capitals were given courtesy notifications.

Foley, a Democrat first elected to the House in 1964, is a longtime advocate of trade with the Pacific Rim. His home state of Washington is a leading exporter to the region.

He was defeated in the 1994 Republican takeover of the House. Since the upset, he has been associated with Aiken, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, a Washington, D.C., law firm. Foley commutes between homes in Washington and Spokane.

Burns, a career diplomat who served from 1995 to 1997 as chief spokesman for Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, previously held diplomatic posts in Jerusalem and Cairo.

Clinton rounded out his list of ambassadorial choices with five other nominations.

He nominated Robert Parris, a former presidential special assistant for Near East and South Asian affairs, to be ambassador to Turkey.

Also on the list:

* Alexander Vershbow, a National Security Council special assistant to the president for European affairs, as the U.S. permanent representative to the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

* Johnny Young, a career Foreign Service officer, as ambassador to Bahrain. Young currently is ambassador to Togo and has served as ambassador to Sierra Leone.

* Brenda Brown Schoonover, another career Foreign Service officer, to succeed Young as ambassador to Togo.

* Lange Schermerhorn, career Foreign Service officer, to be ambassador to Djibouti. She is currently deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Brussels and has held economic, political, trade promotion and management positions at the State Department.

* Joseph A. Presel as ambassador to Uzbekistan. Presel, a career Foreign Service officer, was coordinator for regional affairs for the New Independent States since 1993 and two years later became special negotiator for Nagorno-Karabakh.