 Instead of co-accrediting an ambassador from a usually larger neighboring country, as was standard practice when the State Department did not have the resources to establish a proper embassy in a particular country, the State Department decided to base Williams in Washington in order to avoid giving the Mongolians the impression that it considered them an adjunct of either Moscow or Beijing.During this period Williams also served as Country Director of the Department of State's Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, first through three years of warm Sino-American relations during which he spearheaded successful negotiations on such matters as the launching of US commercial satellites from Chinese sites.Then during the particularly tense period following the events of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, he provided daily briefings and policy recommendations to Secretary of State James Baker, and through the Secretary to President George H.W.