July 1, 1987
The President today announced his intention to nominate Roscoe Seldon Suddarth, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador of the United States to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He would succeed Paul H. Boeker.
Mr. Suddarth joined the Foreign Service in 1961 and first served as third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Bamako, Mali, 1961 - 1963. From 1963 to 1965, he took Arabic language training at the Foreign Service Institute at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. From there he was assigned first as second secretary to the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen Arab Republic (1965 - 1967), and then to the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya (1969 - 1971). Mr. Suddarth then returned to the Department of State as the Libyan desk officer until 1971, when he took university training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. From 1972 to 1973, he served as politico-military officer in the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the Department of State, to be followed as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan, 1975 - 1979. Mr. Suddarth became Executive Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, 1979 - 1981. He then participated in the senior seminar for a year before becoming deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Since 1985 Mr. Suddarth has been Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.
Mr. Suddarth graduated from Yale University (B.A., 1956); New College, Oxford University (B.A., M.A., 1958); and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.S., 1972). He is articulate in Arabic, French, and Spanish. Mr. Suddarth served in the U.S. Air Force National Guard, 1958 - 1961. He is married, has two children, and resides in Bethesda, MD.