U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Office of the Spokesman

For immediate Release
January 17, 1995

JAMES R. SASSER
U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

On January 10, 1996 Senator James R. Sasser was sworn in by Vice
President Albert Gore as U.S. Ambassador to the People's Republic of
China.

Ambassador Sasser served from 1977-1995 as the junior and later the
senior Senator from Tennessee.  His assignments included: Chairman of
the Senate Budget Committee; Chairman of the Appropriations Committee's
Subcommittee on Military Construction; Chairman of  the Banking
Committee's Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy;
Chairman of  the Governmental Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on
General Services, Federalism, and the District of Columbia; and Chairman
of the Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on the Legislative
Branch.

Since leaving the Senate and prior to assuming his current duties,
Senator Sasser was a Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of
Government and worked as an attorney in Washington, D.C. and Tennessee.
From 1961-1977, he was an attorney with the Nashville law firm of
Goodpasture, Carpenter, Woods, and Sasser.  He also served as Chairman
of the Democratic Party of Tennessee from 1973-1976.

Ambassador Sasser has been a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, from
1987-1995, and a Trustee of the Sgt.  Alvin C. York Historical
Association, from 1993-95.

A graduate of Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1958) and Vanderbilt
University School of Law (J.D., 1961), Ambassador Sasser has also
received honorary degrees from Tusculum College of Greeneville,
Tennessee and Lane College of Jackson, Tennessee.  He is married to Mary
G. Sasser and has two children, James Gray Sasser and Elizabeth Sasser.


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