Biography of Ambassador James R. Sasser

Release Date: January 17, 1995

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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