Background
Williams, Richard Llewellyn was born on December 28, 1929 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of David Walter and Clara Elma (Petersen) Williams.
Williams, Richard Llewellyn was born on December 28, 1929 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of David Walter and Clara Elma (Petersen) Williams.
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts, University Chicago, 1948. Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, 1951. Master of Business Administration, Harvard University, 1953.
Williams was also director of Chinese affairs at the United States. State Department during the Tiananmen crisis. As a child on the radio program Quiz Kids, he was "regarded by many as the best all around kid the Quiz Kids ever turned up," with particular emphasis on math and geography questions. From 1940 to 1945 in 38 cities across the United States, he and three others performed at bond rallies raising $120 million in support of the war effort.
The group was featured on prominent radio shows of the day such as Jack Benny and Fred Allen, and was received by luminaries from Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House to Walt Disney in his studio.
Williams served in the United States Army, 1953 - 1955. He 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 Consulate General of the United States, 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).
Williams was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to be the first United States. Ambassador to the Mongolian People"s Republic (Minnesota Public Radio) on May 8, 1988.
Bilateral relations with Minnesota Public Radio had only been established a year earlier, in January 1987. Given the infrastructure challenges in Ulaanbaatar at the time, the State Department decided to accr an Ambassador stationed in Washington.
Instead of co-accrediting an ambassador from a usually larger neighboring country, as was standard practice when the State Department did not have the resources to establish a proper embassy in a particular country, the State Department decided to base Williams in Washington in order to avoid giving the Mongolians the impression that it considered them an adjunct of either Moscow or Beijing. During this period Williams also served as Country Director of the Department of State" General’ s Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs during a particularly tense period in Sino-American relations following the events of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
In this capacity he provided daily briefings and policy recommendations to Secretary of State James Baker, and through the Secretary to President George Heriot-Watt University Bush, while meanwhile heading a 300-person task force charged with locating and assisting Americans caught in China when the protests turned violent.
Foreign seven years following his 1994 retirement from the Foreign Service, Williams taught graduate level China-related courses at Columbia and New York Universities. Williams is married to Jane K. Williams and resides in Menlo Park, California.
With United States Army, 1953-1955. Member American Club (Hong Kong), Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Married Jane Xuezhen Khuo, March 25, 1961. Children: Marc, Maria Cypher.