Washington names new envoy for Indonesia

JAKARTA (JP): The United States' Ambassador to China, J. Stapleton Roy, has been nominated as a possible replacement for Robert L. Barry as the American ambassador to Indonesia.

The United States Information Service here said in a statement yesterday said that President Bill Clinton had officially made the announcement in Washington on Wednesday.

Roy is a career diplomat with nearly 40 years of experience in the foreign service, his most recent posting being as U.S. ambassador in Beijing, where he has served since August 1991.

Roy was ambassador to Singapore from 1984 to 1986.

As a diplomat, he has represented the U.S. in Bangkok, Taipei Hong Kong and Moscow.

Roy's nomination now awaits approval by the U.S. Senate.

Born to American missionary parents in Nanking, China, in 1935, Roy has held several important positions in the U.S. State Department.

He was Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in 1986, before taking on the job of Special Assistant to the Secretary and then Executive Secretary to the State Department.

The Princeton University graduate is married with three children. He speaks three foreign languages: Thai, Mandarin and Russian.

His predecessor in Jakarta will be returning to the U.S. in the second week of July. Barry handed his credentials to president Soeharto in August 1989.

After a distinguished career spanning four decades, Barry intends to retire from the foreign service and assume a teaching position at a university in the U.S. (mds)