John R. Dinger (born May 27, 1952 in

Charles City, Iowa Charles City is a city in and the county seat of Floyd County, Iowa. Charles City is a significant commercial and transportation center for the area. U.S. Routes 18 and 218, Iowa Highway 14, and the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railr ...

), is a career diplomat in the

United States Foreign Service The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carryi ...

. He has held leadership positions in the

Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research, Chair of State's Cyber Policy Group, Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ambassador to Mongolia, and Director of the State Department Office of Press Relations. Dinger has been a Senior Inspector in the State Department's Office of the Inspector General since 2013. He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research 2006–2012. He led some 300 staff and managed a $60 million budget to supply Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and

Condoleezza Rice Condoleezza Rice ( ; born November 14, 1954) is an American diplomat and political scientist who is the current director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served as the 66th Uni ...

with expert analysis of every country and every issue in the world. While in that position, he established State's first Office of Cyber Affairs, chaired its Cyber Policy Group, and pioneered the foreign policy of cyberspace. Dinger was Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department 2003–2005. He developed significant portions of U.S. counterterrorism policy. He advocated in interagency debates State Department positions on counterterrorism strategies, plans, and operations. He led the U.S. Government's interagency, rapid-reaction terrorism response team, ensuring that it was trained and poised to respond to a terrorist incident anywhere in the world. As Ambassador to Mongolia 2000–2003, Dinger developed and promoted policies to achieve U.S. goals in Mongolia. He successfully persuaded Mongolian Airlines to lease its first new airplane from Boeing, smoothed Coca-Cola's opening of its first plant in Mongolia, and convinced Mongolia to send troops to Iraq, marking the first time Mongolia's military operated outside its borders since Genghis Khan. When he directed the State Department's Office of Press Relations 1997–1998, Dinger was in charge of all major State Department press events, including daily press briefings. He helped develop all public diplomacy strategies of that era and advocated U.S. foreign policy positions to U.S. and foreign media in hundreds of print, radio, and TV interviews. He prepared Secretaries Christopher and Albright for appearances before the press. Dinger is a native of the small town of

Riceville, Iowa Riceville is a city in Howard and Mitchell counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 806 at the time of the 2020 census. History Riceville was platted in 1855 by three of the Rice brothers, Leonard, Dennis, and Gilbert. Riceville wa ...

. He and his brother,

Larry Dinger Larry Miles Dinger (born 1946) was the U.S. chargé d'affaires to Burma from 2008 to August 2011. Since the United States did not accredit a formal United States Ambassador to Burma from 1990 to 2012, the chargé d'affaires was the chief of missio ...

, have the distinction of being the first siblings in history to rise through the career ranks of the United States Foreign Service to become Ambassadors: Larry to Micronesia and Fiji and John to Mongolia.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dinger, John R. Ambassadors of the United States to Mongolia People from Charles City, Iowa 1952 births Living people People from Riceville, Iowa United States Foreign Service personnel