"Preparing For The 21st Century? World Politics Today" Topic Of Institute Talk By Jack F. Matlock, jr.
Jack F. Matlock, Jr., the George F. Kennan Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, will present a talk entitled "Preparing for the 21st Century? World Politics Today" on Wednesday, December 1, 1999. The lecture, which is intended for a general audience and is open to the public, will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the campus of the Institute, Olden Lane, Princeton. A reception will follow in the Fuld Hall Common Room.
Since the end of the Cold War, international relations have been transformed in ways still imperfectly understood. This lecture will offer an analysis of world politics at the turn of the millennium and an assessment of U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War environment.
Immediately prior to coming to the Institute for Advanced Study in July 1996, Jack Matlock was the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor in the Practice of International Diplomacy at Columbia University. From 1991 to 1993 he was Senior Research Scholar at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University.
Mr. Matlock served 35 year in the American Foreign Service, from 1956 to 1991, and was the last U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, serving from March 1987 to August 1991. During his four tours of duty in the Soviet Union, he spent a total of eleven years at the American Embassy in Moscow.
Before his appointment as Ambassador to the USSR, Mr. Matlock served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of European and Soviet Affairs on the National Security Council from 1983 to 1986. His responsibilities included advising the President on European, Canadian and Soviet affairs and coordinating preparations for meetings by the President with European and Canadian leaders. In his various capacities, Mr. Matlock participated in all the U.S.-Soviet Summit meetings from 1972-1991 except for the Carter-Brezhnev meeting in Vienna in 1979.
Mr. Matlock, a native of North Carolina, was educated at Duke University (A.B. summa cum laude) and Columbia University (M.A.). He has written numerous articles on U.S.-Soviet relations, Soviet and Russian foreign policy, the Soviet government, and Russian literature, and is the author of Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador’s Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union.