NY Times: “James Sasser, a three-term Democratic senator from Tennessee who, with no background in diplomacy or Chinese affairs, thrived as President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to China in the late 1990s until a bombing in Europe left angry mobs besieging his embassy, died on Tuesday at his home in Chapel Hill, N.C. He was 87.
Gray Sasser, his son, said the cause was apparently a heart attack.
Never a charismatic senator, from 1977 to 1995, Mr. Sasser found his niche as Mr. Clinton’s envoy to the People’s Republic of China from 1996 to 1999, when he helped turn around a long period of eroding relations between the two superpowers by facilitating summit meetings and trade agreements. “