James B. Foley was sworn-in as the United States Ambassador to the Republic of Croatia on September 8, and presented his credentials to President Stjepan Mesic on September 15, 2009.
Ambassador Foley is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service and served from 2009 as the State Department’s Senior Coordinator for Iraqi Refugee Issues, working to alleviate the plight of several million Iraqis displaced by the war. Previously, Ambassador Foley served as faculty member and Deputy Commandant of the National War College from 2006-2007, as Diplomat-in-Residence at the State University of New York at Fredonia from 2005-2006, as U.S. Ambassador to Haiti from 2003-2005, and as Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva from 2000-2003. He joined the Foreign Service in 1983 and served overseas as vice consul and political officer in Manila, Philippines from 1984-1986 and as political officer in Algiers, Algeria from 1986-1988. Ambassador Foley was subsequently a speechwriter and adviser to former Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger from 1989-1993 and Deputy Director of the Private Office of the NATO Secretary General in Brussels, Belgium from 1993-1996. He was special assistant to the late Senator Paul Coverdell from 1996-1997 under the State Department’s Pearson Fellowship program, and served as State Department Deputy Spokesman and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs from 1997-2000. Ambassador Foley was born in Buffalo, N.Y. and received his B.A. in 1979 from the State University of New York at Fredonia and M.A.L.D. in 1984 from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
