September 21st, 2001

NEW U.S. AMBASSADOR
ARRIVES IN ROMANIA

Michael Guest, the recently appointed American Ambassador to Romania, arrived today in Bucharest.

Prior to his being named Ambassador, Michael Guest was Acting Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs at the Department of State in Washington. In that capacity, he was responsible for managing the Department of State's dialogue with Congress on foreign policy issues. A career Foreign Service Officer, he has served in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs as Principal Assistant Secretary since May 1999.

Mr. Guest joined the Foreign Service in 1981 and was posted to the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong shortly thereafter. Since then, however, much of his career has focused on European Affairs. From 1983 to 1985, he worked on political-military issues in the Office of European Security and Political Affairs, serving for part of that period as a member of the U.S. Delegation to arms control negotiations with the then-Soviet Union. He was posted to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as a Political Officer in 1987, returning to Washington 1989 to take up new duties as Deputy Director for Political Affairs in the Office of European Security and Political Affairs. In that capacity, he exercised responsibility for political discussions at NATO and for organizing U.S. participation in the then-Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). In 1991, he was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Paris, France, as Deputy Political Counselor.

Before assuming his responsibilities as Acting Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs at the Department of State, he served (1996-99) as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic. Mr. Guest also has served as Assistant Press Secretary at the White House (1985-1986) and, from 1994-96, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Department.

Mr. Guest hails from Spartanburg, South Carolina, where his parents still reside. He holds a Master's Degree in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, Virginia) and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Political Science from Furman University (Greenville, South Carolina). Before joining the Foreign Service, he pursued postgraduate studies in international economics at the University of Toulouse, France. He is 43 years old.