January 21, 1987
The President today announced his intention to nominate Richard Noyes Viets, of Florida, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador of the United States of America to the Republic of Portugal. He would succeed Frank Shakespeare.
Mr. Viets became a junior officer in 1955 with the United States Information Agency and served in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Tunis, Tunisia, until 1957. From 1957 to 1960, he was assistant trade fair manager in the Office of International Trade Fairs, Department of Commerce. From January to March 1962, he was an investigator in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and from March to May 1962, a researcher for the science conference staff at the Agency for International Development. Mr. Viets was appointed a Foreign Service officer in May 1962 and was first assigned as a commercial officer in Tokyo, Japan. From 1965 to 1967, he was commercial officer in Madras, India, to be followed as political-economic officer in New Delhi, India, 1967 - 1969. He then became special assistant to the U.S. Ambassador in New Delhi, 1969 - 1972. He returned to Washington in 1972 to serve as a senior watch officer and then Director of the Executive Secretariat until 1974. In 1974 Mr. Viets was assigned as deputy chief of mission in Bucharest, Romania, where he served until 1977, when he was assigned as deputy chief of mission in Tel Aviv, Israel. In 1979 he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Republic of Tanzania, to be followed in 1981 as U.S. Ambassador to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In 1985 he became a member of the board of examiners for the Foreign Service and in 1986 a member of the Graham-Rudman-Hollings working group in the Department of State.
Mr. Viets graduated from the University of Vermont (A.B., 1955). He speaks fluent Romanian and French. Mr. Viets is married, has three children, and resides in Washington, DC. He was born November 10, 1930, in Burlington, VT.