Profile: Peter Tomsen

Distinguished Careers in U.S. Diplomacy

I’m sharing sketches of the U.S. diplomats featured in Profiles in Service (Moonshine Cove Press, Dec 2025) every Tuesday; later in the week I’ll share a related moment linking Peace Corps service to diplomatic efforts, some simple, some strange, some extraordinary.

Bringing the Peace Corps into China

Peace Corps service in Nepal prepared Peter Tomsen to form the kind of close, personal interactions with local partners that would help him communicate across diverse cultures throughout his career.

Long before he became deputy chief of mission in Beijing, Special Envoy to the Afghan Resistance after the Soviet withdrawal from Kabul, and U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, Tomsen joined the Military-State-USAID CORDS program spurring community security and development during the Vietnam War.

Posted to II Corps for back-to-back tours, Tomsen navigated mine-strewn jungle and booby-trapped school-buildings to bring roads, electricity, health, and education services to rural communities.

Among Nepali friends there was no racial component, no barrier or economic stratification. They accepted me as I accepted them. Through full communication—two-way cultural and linguistic transmission—we built sincerity and trust. And later, that helped me in Vietnam. That two-way transmission flowed into my work with the District Chief there. That two-way cross-cultural communication developed in the Peace Corps contributed to my interpersonal relations with Chinese officials during seven years in China, with the Mujahidin and ordinary Afghans while Special Envoy on Afghanistan, and with Armenians in Armenia.

Strong cross-cultural interaction helped Tomsen convince his counterpart, a Vietnamese Army major, to plan and co-lead a successful raid on a Vietcong sanctuary in coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard and South Vietnamese forces.

The incursion paved the way for development programs to take hold and improve living standards in the district, including increased family incomes, metal roofing to replace thatch, brick to replace mud walls, and more motorized vehicles on newly-paved roads. Village and hamlet governments built or repaired schools, and constructed clinics, bridges, and irrigation canals.

Two decades later in Beijing, Tomsen would serve as the principal negotiator for an agreement to bring the Peace Corps into China as the U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers.

The agreement, which called for twenty volunteers to teach English in medical, animal husbandry, and teacher training colleges, was formalized through an Exchange of Letters between Ambassador Winston Lord and the Chinese Secretary General for International Exchanges Ge Shouqin in April 1989.

The Chinese government would postpone the project in the wake of the Tiananmen Square crackdown months later, but the agreement ultimately served as a platform for the placement of 1,400 volunteers in China between 1993 and 2020, when the program was formally graduated.

Read more from Tomsen’s oral histories with the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training:

ADST Oral History 1 – Peace Corps and Vietnam

ADST Oral History 2 – China negotiations and Tiananmen Square