Ambassador William J. Burns

CHQ&A

Our guest on this episode is Ambassador William J. Burns, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the oldest international affairs think tank in the United States. Ambassador Burns retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after a 33-year diplomatic career. Hailed as an “American diplomatic legend” by Secretary of State John Kerry, he holds the highest rank in the Foreign Service, Career Ambassador, and is only the second serving career diplomat in history to become deputy secretary of state.

Ambassador Burns is the author of an acclaimed new book, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal, which Henry Kissinger called “an incisive and sorely needed case for the revitalization of diplomacy — what Burns wisely describes as our ‘tool of first resort.’”

He joined Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill for an onstage conversation on June 28 in the Chautauqua Amphitheater, during the first week of the 2019 summer assembly season, themed “Moments That Changed the World.”