NICHOLAS BURNS
 Former United States Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Currently, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (the Department of State’s third ranking official).

Biographical sketch
At the time of our interview, Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns was the United States Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, heading the combined State-Defense Department U.S. Mission to NATO.

He was also U.S. Ambassador to Greece from 1997 to 2001, and he has served as spokesman of the Department of State and Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright. Mr. Burns, a career Senior Foreign Service Officer, has served under both Bush administrations as well as President Clinton’s. He has been on the National Security Council staff at the White House and was Special Assistant to President Clinton and Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Affairs.

Mr. Burns has thrice been awarded the State Department’s Superior Honor Award for outstanding performance, as well as the State Department’s James Clement Dunn Award for Excellence and the Charles E. Cobb Award for Trade Development by an Ambassador. He also received Estonia’s Order of the Terra Mariana for his work in securing withdrawal of Russian military forces from that country.

Mr. Burns earned the Certificat Pratique de Langue Francaise from the University of Paris (Sorbonne). He subsequently earned a B.A. in European History from Boston College, graduating Summa Cum Laude and being elected Phi Beta Kappa. He is a 1980 SAIS graduate. He has received honorary doctorates from eight American universities, and he has received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Distinguished Government Service by the Johns Hopkins University.

Mr. Burns is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Order of St. John. He speaks French, Arabic, and Greek.