Reworked: Former intel officer Garcetti named US envoy to India

Worked with Pacific Fleet

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• Eric Garcetti also served a stint with the Defence Intelligence Agency and the Pacific Fleet

• The Mayor of Los Angeles since 2013, he also served as a City Council member

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 10

US President Joe Biden announced the nomination of Eric Garcetti as Ambassador to India. Garcetti served for 12 years as an intelligence officer in the US Navy Reserve Component, including a stint with the Defence Intelligence Agency and the Pacific Fleet, which is the US Navy’s sword-arm in the Quad.

Garcetti was named Ambassador barely eight days after US Chargé d’ Affaires Atul Keshap took charge at the US embassy here. Garcetti was tipped to be the envoy to India on May 26 when Biden sent a clutch of ambassadorships to the Senate for confirmation.

The Mayor of Los Angeles since 2013, Garcetti also served as a City Council member. The White House underlined that he oversaw the busiest container port in the western hemisphere, the largest municipal utility in the country, and one of the busiest airports in the world. He also led LA’s successful bid to return the summer Olympic Games to American soil for the first time in three decades.

He currently chairs LA Metro, the country’s second-busiest transit agency, which is building or extending 15 new transit lines, and shifting to an all-electric fleet, according to a White House brief.

A Rhodes scholar, he studied at Queen’s College, Oxford, and the London School of Economics. He taught at Occidental College’s Department of Diplomacy and World Affairs, as well as at the University of Southern California’s School of International Relations.

He has lived and conducted field work on nationalism, ethnicity and human rights in Southeast Asia and Northeast Africa.

Garcetti’s nomination was announced with that of Denise Campbell Bauer (France), Peter D Haas (Bangladesh) and Bernadette Meehan (Chile).