Peter Tomsen


Peter Tomsen, is a retired American diplomat and educator, serving as United States Special Envoy to Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992, and United States Ambassador to Armenia between 1995 and 1998. Ambassador Tomsen’s thirty-two year diplomatic career emphasized South and Central Asia, Northeast Asia and the former Soviet Union.

Early life

Although born in Cleveland, Ohio, Peter Tomsen graduated from Sycamore High School in Cincinnati, Ohio and attended college at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, receiving a degree in political science in 1962. Tomsen was awarded a Heinz fellowship for post-graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Receiving his master's degree in public and international affairs, Tomsen spent two years working in the Peace Corps in Nepal. Tomsen studied Nepali and taught civics and English in a newly founded 80-student college in a Himalayan town in western Nepal. Tomsen chose to extend his Peace Corps service for six months to be headmaster of a Tibetan refugee school.

Diplomatic and political career

Ambassador Tomsen entered the Foreign Service in 1967. He served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 1993 - 1995, and was United States ambassador to Armenia from 1995 to 1998. He was deputy chief of mission of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, spanning from 1985 to 1989. He served in the political-military office of the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, 1967 - 1968. After a year of Vietnamese language training in Washington in early 1969, he was assigned to the U.S. Civilian-Military Advisory Organization in Vietnam, 1969 - 1970. He was a political officer of the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, 1971 - 1975; a political officer of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, 1977 - 1978; and a political officer of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, 1981 - 1983. From 1984 to 1987, he served in the Department of State as office director of India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives.
1989-1992: US Special Envoy to Afghanistan.

Selected works