F652Z Fall 2024 A Different Point of View: Former U.S. Ambassadors Share Their Global Perspectives

F652Z  A Different Point of View: Former U.S. Ambassadors Share Their Global Perspectives
Mondays, 11:50—1:15, Sept. 23—Oct. 14
Four sessions
Please note that Oct. 14 only is Zoom only
Instructors: Greg Delawie, Judith B. Cefkin, Larry Dinger, James Jeffrey  
Moderator: Kathleen Burns
Sept. 23: What do diplomats do? How do they do it? How do they know what they are supposed to do? How do diplomats deal with crises or completely novel issues? In this first session of our course, former U.S. ambassador to Kosovo, Greg Delawie will explore the fundamentals of diplomatic life and work, as well as some of the challenges involved in his assignment to Kosovo, then Europe’s youngest democracy. He will also discuss his work leading the U.S. government’s non-military effort to cope with the problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia, depicted in the Tom Hanks’ film, Captain Phillips.
A senior Foreign Service officer with more than thirty years of experience advocating U.S. policy in Washington and abroad, Greg Delawie retired in 2018 from the State Department as ambassador to Kosovo. He earlier served as the deputy ambassador in Berlin, where he led a large team that rebuilt U.S./German relations following the Iraq War period. As deputy in Zagreb, he promoted military, political, and economic reforms necessary for Croatia’s membership in NATO. In prior Foreign Service assignments, Delawie worked on international trade, international aviation, in State’s 24/7 crisis management center, as economic counselor in Rome, and as economic officer in Ankara, Turkey.
Sept. 30: Working to advance U.S. interests around the world is an exciting and fulfilling career, but the lifestyle of a diplomat also presents a number of personal challenges. In this session, retired Ambassador Judith Cefkin will discuss how U.S. diplomats balance work and family life and adjust to sometimes difficult living conditions as they move around the world. She will talk about the work she did as a political officer advancing democracy, human rights, and rule of law and managing multiple crises including terrorist hostage-takings, natural disasters, and political unrest. She will also recount her adventures in her role as ambassador, traveling tens of thousands of miles throughout a region—the Pacific Islands—on the front lines of climate change and will outline the work she and her team did to help address this challenge.
Retired Ambassador Judith Cefkin was a 35-year career diplomat with the Department of State, with postings in Mexico, Thailand, The Philippines, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a number of Washington, D.C.-based assignments. She served as ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu (2015-2018). In retirement, Ambassador Cefkin lives with her husband (also a retired diplomat) in Virginia. She has worked as a consultant on Pacific Island affairs and is active on the boards of a number of foreign policy and national security-related organizations.
Oct. 7: Retired Ambassador Larry Dinger will discuss how the U.S. selects and trains the leaders of U.S. diplomatic missions, whether career Foreign Service officers who have risen through the State Department system or White House-chosen political appointees. He will also sketch challenges that chiefs of mission face, citing examples from his twenty-eight year diplomatic career, including eleven years as ambassador or acting ambassador (charge d'Affaires) in four different embassies. Examples may include encouragement of democracy-building in Fiji and Burma; participation in negotiations to renew the U.S. Compact of Free Association with the Federated States of Micronesia; coping in Nepal with the murder of the king and a Maoist insurgency; and efforts in all locations to build a productive and happy work force.
Ambassador Larry Dinger from Riceville, Iowa, graduated with honors from Macalester College and the Harvard Law School. In between, he was a U.S. Naval Officer in Vietnam and England. After working in politics, he entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1983 as a political officer serving overseas in Mexico, Indonesia, and Australia, and in the East Asia and Pacific Bureau in Washington. Subsequently he was deputy chief of mission (DCM) and charge' d'Affaires, a.i., at Embassy Suva, Fiji and Embassy Kathmandu, Nepal. In 2001, he became ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia, and in 2005, ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu, and Tonga. In 2008, he became U.S. chief of mission in Burma. After retiring in 2011, he filled in briefly as acting ambassador to ASEAN and acting DCM in Thailand; and for a decade each fall he was senior advisor for the Asia Pacific at the U.S. mission to the UN.  
Oct. 14: Ambassador James F. Jeffrey was motivated to public service from an early age, inspired by his father, a Guadalcanal veteran, and others of the World War II generation. This session will encompass the ambassador’s 55 years dealing with global order and disorder. The ambassador was particularly moved by JFK and his first exposure to the Cold War, the Korean Missile crisis. He volunteered for the Army Infantry in 1969 and served as a captain in front line Cold War positions in Germany and Vietnam. Jeffrey left the Army for the Foreign Service in 1977, serving until the end of the Cold War again in front line positions, in Bulgaria, Turkey and Germany, and placed on war alert during the 1973 Yom Kippur conflict. Since the end of the Cold War he served in various conflicts in the Middle East and Europe, continuing his study and advocacy as Chair of the Middle East program at the Wilson Center.
Retired Ambassador James F. Jeffrey serves as the chair of Middle East Program at the Wilson Center. Ambassador Jeffrey recently retired from the U.S. Department of State where he served as Secretary of State Pompeo’s special representative for Syria engagement and the special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. In addition to his most recent U.S. State Department assignment, Ambassador Jeffrey has held many senior government positions in Washington, D.C. and abroad, including deputy national security advisor (2007–2008); ambassador to Iraq (2010–2012); ambassador to Turkey (2008–2010); and ambassador to Albania (2002–2004). In 2010, Jeffrey was appointed to the highest rank in the U.S. Foreign Service, career ambassador.