The chairman of Dartmouth's Board of Trustees is in Washington this morning to ask Congress to confirm him as the United States ambassador to South Korea, three weeks after President Clinton nominated him for the position.
Stephen Bosworth '61 will testify before the Senate committee chaired by Jesse Helms, the cantankerous North Carolina Republican who made headlines this summer by refusing to hear testimony from former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, who was nominated as envoy to Mexico.
Weld eventually gave up without ever winning a nomination hearing.
It is unlikely that Bosworth, who is backed by the State Department, will face serious opposition. His nomination must be confirmed by a majority vote on the Senate floor.
If confirmed, it is probable that Bosworth will remain chairman of Dartmouth's Board.
If he is named ambassador, Bosworth will be a key player in negotiations between North Korea, South Korea, China and the U.S, which is overseeing talks aimed at stabilizing the Korean peninsula.
North Korea and South Korea have signed a cease-fire, but the two countries have not yet made a formal peace. The U.S., a key ally of Seoul, has not established diplomatic relations with North Korea.
Bosworth would fill a position left vacant since January, when the previous ambassador to Korea, James Laney, resigned.
Bosworth was selected for the ambassadorship after a long career in public service and foreign relations, but his current position as executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization was the overriding factor in his nomination, according to a State Department official.
Bosworth entered the State Department as a foreign service officer in 1961 and has held assignments in Paris, Madrid and Panama. From 1979 to 1981, he was the ambassador to Tunisia, and from 1984 to 1987 he served as ambassador to the Philippines. He then served as president of the United States-Japan Foundation, a private grant-making institution.
Bosworth's current job is at the head of an international consortium to oversee implementation of a nuclear agreement between the U.S. and North Korea. The organization is responsible for delivering $5 billion of energy to North Korea in return for the dismantling of their currently unsafe national nuclear program.
North Korea does not yet meet International Atomic Energy Agency standards. The greatest concern for U.S. interests is radioactive plutonium, a chemical waste product that can be used to build nuclear bombs.
