Biographic Sketch -- Ambassador Donald C. Johnson

(Versao em Portugues)

Donald C. Johnson was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to Cape Verde on October 30, 2002, and presented his credentials on November 21, 2002.

Ambassador Johnson is a member of the Senior Foreign Service of the United States. Between early 2000 and October 2002 he served as Senior Advisor to the Director of the Foreign Service Institute and as Senior Advisor to the Director General of the Foreign Service. His most recent overseas assignment was in the Irish peace process, on loan to the British and Irish Governments. He was one of three members of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. In December 1998, he led the Commission team that carried out the very first decommissioning event, which saw the destruction of several submachine guns, handguns, ammunition, and improvised explosives.

Immediately prior to his work in Ireland, Amb. Johnson had been serving as Head of Mission for the international peacekeeping mission in Moldova sent by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). From 1993 to 1996, he served as United States Ambassador to Mongolia.

He is a career diplomat, having entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1974. His first post was as Third Secretary in Guatemala; other overseas assignments have been in Moscow, Taipei, Beijing, Madrid, and Tegucigalpa.

Career highlights include earthquake relief in Guatemala; liaison with human rights groups in the former Soviet Union; travel to Mongolia before the United States had diplomatic relations; negotiation of drug control and status of forces agreements in Honduras; and numerous trade and scientific agreements while serving as Ambassador to Mongolia. These include a Bilateral Investment Treaty, a Customs Cooperation Agreement, and Mongolia’s successful accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Domestic assignments include service as a Desk Officer at the State Department and on the National Security Council at the White House. In 1991-1992, he was a Una Chapman Cox Fellow and spent the year writing on Texas politics.

After growing up in Mexico, he received a B.A. from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon in 1970 and a Juris Doctor degree from the same institution in 1974. He earned a Master’s in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma in 1975. After doing graduate work in law at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., he received the Master of Laws in Corporation Law from that institution in 1978. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, the State Bar of Texas, and the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. He served in the U.S. Army as a draftee from 1971 to 1973.

He has been a member of the Senior Foreign Service since 1989. He has received the Superior Honor Award (for his part in the defense of the Embassy in Tegucigalpa when it was attacked by a mob) and several performance pay awards. In 1996, the Mongolian President awarded him that country’s "Medal of Friendship" in recognition of his work as Ambassador. He speaks Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Mongolian and Portuguese. He is married to Nelda S. Johnson.