Richard Llewellyn Williams, (born December 28, 1929) was a career member of the Senior Foreign Service who, over three decades as a career U.S. diplomat, opened the first American consulate in mainland China since the 1940s (in Guangzhou, 1979), served as the first U.S. Ambassador to the Mongolian People's Republic from 1988 to 1990 (Diplomatic relations were established with the Mongolian People's Republic in January 1987) and then was named Consul General in Hong Kong from 1990 to 1993. Williams was also director of Chinese affairs at the U.S. State Department during the Tiananmen crisis.[1]
Richard L. Williams joined the Foreign Service in 1956. From 1965 to 1967 he was detailed to the White House correspondence staff. From 1968 to 1972 he was a political officer at the U.S. consulate general in Hong Kong. Between 1972 and 1975 he served as an international relations officer for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He was a country officer for Fiji and Papua New Guinea at the Department of State from 1975 to 1977; and then a student at the National War College from 1977 to 1978. In addition he was Deputy Director of the Office of Micronesian Status Negotiations (1978–1979), consul general in Guangzhou (Canton) (1979–1981) (recounted in his 2005 memoir At the Dawn of the New China), and deputy consul general in Hong Kong (1981–1985). For seven years following his 1994 retirement from the Foreign Service, he taught graduate level China-related courses at Columbia and New York universities.
At the time of his nomination by President Ronald Reagan as U.S. Ambassador to Mongolia, Mr. Williams was Country Director of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs at the Department of State in Washington, DC. Given the infrastructure challenges in Ulaanbaatar at the time, the State Department decided to accredit an Ambassador stationed in Washington. Usual U.S. Government practice in such circumstances would be to co-accredit an ambassador from a neighboring country, usually a larger country. But Washington did not want to give the Mongolians the impression that it considered them an adjunct of either Moscow or Beijing.[2]
From 1940 - 1945, Williams was one of the kids on the radio program Quiz Kids. He served in the United States Army, 1953 - 1955.[3]
Mr. Williams graduated from the University of Chicago (A.B., 1948), Purdue University (B.S., 1951), and Harvard University (M.B.A., 1953). He was born in Chicago, IL and raised in East Chicago, IN. He is married, has two children, and resides in Menlo Park, CA.