William H. Twaddell of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations presented his credentials as Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Nigeria in December 1997. He is a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service.
Ambassador Twaddell joined the Foreign Service in 1969 and was assigned to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia as Vice Consul. Later, he served as a Commercial Officer at the embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. He returned to Washington as a petroleum analyst, and was later assigned to the Department’s Executive Secretariat. He joined the “Transition Team” in 1976, and subsequently worked as a Special Assistant to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance until 1979.
After his Washington assignments, Ambassador Twaddell became Deputy Chief of Mission in Maputo, Mozambique where he served for 3 years as Interim Charge d’Affaires until 1983. After Maputo, he served at the Coast Guard Academy faculty. That assignment was interrupted by temporary postings as the first Director of the U.S. Liaison Office in Windhoek, Namibia in 1984, and interim Charge in Guinea-Bissau in 1985. From 1985 to 1991, he served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Bamako, Mali. The following year, he was Diplomat-In-Residence at the University of the District of Columbia and Georgetown University. From 1992 to 1995, Ambassador Twaddell served as Chief of Mission in Monrovia, Liberia. He returned to Washington in 1995 as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of African Affairs.
Ambassador Twaddell was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1941 and graduated from Brown University in 1963. After graduation, he joined the Peace Corps and served in Brazil for 2 years. Following his tour, he served in the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1967. In 1968, he worked as a general assignment reporter for the Washington Bureau of The New York Daily News.
Ambassador Twaddell speaks Arabic, Portuguese, French, and Spanish.