Alexander Wershbow - A New U.S. Ambassador To Russia

U.S. President George Bush has announced the nomination of the candidature of Alexander Wershbow, a prominent U.S. diplomat and expert on Russia, to the post of the U.S. ambassador to Russia, the White House press service reported on Tuesday. According to its information, the candidature of the new ambassador is to be approved by the Senate of the U.S. Congress. At present, Wershbow, who is a career diplomat, is the US ambassador to NATO. He has been holding this post since 1997. Before that - from 1994 to 1997 - he was the U.S. president's special adviser and executive director for European affairs in the national security council at the U.S. president. Holding various posts in the structure of U.S. diplomatic agencies and representations abroad, from 1988 to 1991, he was the director of the department for the USSR at the US department of state. A graduate of prestigious Yale University, which George Bush graduated, Alexander Wershbow got a higher education diploma specializing in the problems of the USSR and has a certificate on graduation from the institute of Russian studies at the University of Columbia.