David Floyd Lambertson

Who is David Floyd Lambertson?

David F. Lambertson of Kansas served as United States Ambassador to Thailand from September 1991 until August 1995.

Lambertson entered the U.S. Foreign Service in February 1963. He was assigned to Saigon from 1965 to 1968 as a member of the embassy’s political section, to Medan, Indonesia from 1969 to 1971, and to Paris as a liaison officer and press spokesman for the U.S. Delegation to the Vietnam peace talks, 1971-1973.

Lambertson returned to the State Department in Washington in 1973, first to the Office of East Asian Regional Affairs and then, in 1975, to the Office of Japanese Affairs as its Deputy Director. He was posted to Tokyo in 1977 as Deputy Chief of the political section, responsible for working with the Japanese Foreign Ministry on U.S.-Japan bilateral issues and cooperative US-Japanese approaches to multilateral questions. In 1980-1981 Lambertson attended the Royal College of Defence Studies in London, after which he returned to Washington as Director of the Office of Korean Affairs, 1982-84. He was Deputy Chief of Mission in the U.S. Embassies in Canberra, 1984-86, and Seoul, 1986-87.

In 1987 Lambertson was named Deputy Assistant Secretary of State with responsibility for the ten countries of Southeast Asia. His work during his three years in that position focused on negotiations to end the war in Cambodia, support for the newly established democracy in the Philippines, and efforts to achieve the fullest possible accounting for Americans missing in action in Indochina.