Biography

Ambassador Eric S. Edelman retired as a career minister in the U.S. Foreign Service on May 1, 2009. He serves as chair of FDD’s Turkey Program and as an advisor to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power. He also serves as a counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, as a distinguished practitioner in residence at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and as a non-resident senior fellow at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Eric has served in senior positions at the departments of State and Defense as well as at the White House, where he led organizations responsible for analysis, strategy, policy development, security services, trade advocacy, public outreach, citizen services, and congressional relations. As the under secretary of defense for policy (August 2005–January 2009), he oversaw strategy development as the Defense Department’s senior policy official with global responsibility for bilateral defense relations, war plans, special operations forces, homeland defense, missile defense, nuclear weapons and arms control policies, counter-proliferation, counter-narcotics, counterterrorism, arms sales, and defense trade controls.

He served as U.S. ambassador to the Republics of Finland and Turkey in the Clinton and Bush administrations and was principal deputy assistant to the vice president for national security affairs. In other assignments he has been chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, special assistant to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Robert Kimmitt, and special assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz. His other assignments include the State Department Operations Center, Prague, Moscow, and Tel Aviv, where he was a member of the U.S. Middle East delegation to the West Bank/Gaza autonomy talks.

He has been awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, and several Department of State Superior Honor Awards. In January 2011, he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur by the French government. He received a B.A. in history and government from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in U.S. diplomatic history from Yale University.

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