American Institute in Taiwan
Press Release (PR-96-05)

January 30, 1996

The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) is pleased to announce the selection of Darryl N. Johnson to serve as the new Director of its Taipei office, replacing Mr. B. Lynn Pascoe. Mr. Johnson will assume his new duties in the summer of 1996.

Mr. Johnson, a Minister-Counselor in the United States Foreign Service, served as the first American Ambassador to the Republic of Lithuania from 1991 to 1994. He is currently working on the Bosnia Task Force, and before that served as the Department of State's Deputy Coordinator for Assistance to the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union.

Mr. Johnson's previous positions include Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland (1988-91), and service in the U.S. Embassies in Beijing and Moscow, as well as in the U.S. Consulates General in Hong Kong and Bombay. In addition, he has served in the Department of State on the China desk, as head of the Yugoslav desk, and as a special assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs. He also worked as a Pearson Fellow in the office of Senator Claiborne Pell(D-RI)

Mr. Johnson was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1938, and grew up in the State of Washington. He received a BA from the University of Washington and did graduate work at the University of Minnesota and Princeton University. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand before joining the Foreign Service in 1965.

Mr. Johnson is the father of one daughter and two sons, all of whom live and work in the Washington, D.C., area. He is married to the former Kathleen Desa Forance. He speaks Mandarin Chinese, which he studied in Taichung, Taiwan, as well as Polish, Russian, Thai and Lithuanian.

The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 designated the American Institute in Taiwan as the instrumentality to conduct the commercial, cultural and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan.