The Deputy Chief of Mission at the US embassy in Ireland has been appointed to a senior post in the National Security Council dealing with Anglo-Irish affairs. Mr Larry Butler, the No 2 to the US ambassador, Ms Jean Kennedy Smith, will begin work as a director for European Affairs in the National Security Council next Wednesday. He is believed to be the first person with recent direct experience of Ireland to be given the job.
Mr Butler will be one of four directors for European affairs on the council. His main area of responsibility will be in relation to the Northern Ireland peace process. He will also deal with the European Union and a number of other individual European states. The council advises the US President on foreign policy.
Mr Butler took up his Dublin post in August last year, having spent two years as Deputy Chief of Mission in Belgrade. He worked with the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, at that time and was also a member of the US team working with Mr Richard Holbrooke on the Dayton peace negotiations in 1995.
Mr Butler has also served in the US embassies in Finland, Bulgaria and Brazil. He graduated in 1975 from Bowdoin College in Maine, from which the chairman of the Northern Ireland talks, Senator George Mitchell, graduated some years earlier.