In 1990, seasoned diplomat James K. Bishop was appointed US Ambassador to Somalia. In 1967, Bishop was at the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon when the Six-Day War erupted, which prompted the evacuation of about 3,600 Americans in 33 hours; Bishop was one of 26 diplomats and Marines that remained in the city during the conflict. Ambassador Bishop also gained valuable experience organizing evacuations of several embassies in the 1980s while serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa. In his previous post, as US ambassador to Liberia, Bishop was overseeing the voluntary evacuation of embassy staff and civilians as a civil war in Liberia spread, when he left in March 1990. Ambassador Bishop returned to Washington to prepare for his new appointment to Somalia, but he was soon appointed to a taskforce to deal with the crisis in Liberia, which included a gradual evacuation of American civilians and a rapid closure of the embassy in August.