L. Desaix Anderson

L. Desaix Anderson (born 1936) is a career United States Foreign Service officer specializing in East Asian affairs, and served as American Chargé d'Affaires ad interim to Vietnam

Mr. Anderson, a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, spent most of his career working on Asian issues. He was the first envoy to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, following establishment of diplomatic relations, serving as chargé d'affaires from August 1995 when the embassy opened until 1997.

Mr. Anderson was born in 1936, and was raised on a farm in rural Mississippi. He received his B.A. in History from Princeton University, and did graduate work in European Literature at the University of California at Berkeley. He also served on active duty as an officer in the U.S. Navy from 1958 to 1960, after which he managed his family farm in Mississippi.

He entered the Foreign Service in 1962. His first assignment was in Kathmandu, Nepal, as General Services Officer (1963-64). Mr. Anderson was assigned to Vietnam as an A.I.D. provincial representative and later as an advisor to the revolutionary development programs in Vietnam. Following his assignment to the Vietnam Working Group in the State Department (1965-67), he was assigned as a political officer to the U.S. Embassy in Taipei (1970-73), and afterward to the U.S. Embassy Tokyo (1973-76). After a stint in the Political-Military Bureau, he was assigned as deputy political counselor and chief Indochina watcher in the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand (1977-80). He then was named Country Director for Vietnam, Laos, and Kampuchea in the Department of State (1980-83) and subsequently Country Director for Japan (1983-85). He then served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Tokyo under Ambassador Mike Mansfield (1985-89). He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific, covering Japan, Korea, China, and Mongolia (1989-92). He was also assigned as a diplomat-in-residence at Princeton and Rutgers Universities, where he lectured and wrote on East Asian political economies (1992-93). He served as the State Department Coordinator for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ministerial and leaders meetings hosted by President Clinton in Seattle, Washington (1993-94). He subsequently was a Senior Member for Asia of the Policy Planning Council (1994-95).

...
Wikipedia