March 2016 Annual Dinner

Ambassador Paul Wolfowitz

It was a memorable evening of insightful conversation with our honored guest, Ambassador Paul Wolfowitz. Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former Ambassador to Indonesia, he has spent more than three decades in public service and higher education, working in the administrations of seven different presidents. Most recently, he served as President of the World Bank and Deputy Secretary of Defense. During the Reagan administration he was named Head of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department, where he helped to develop President Reagan’s 1982 Middle East peace initiative. He was later appointed to be Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, working directly with the leaders of more than 20 countries in the Pacific region, playing a key role in supporting the peaceful transition to democracy in the Philippines in 1986. He also assisted successful efforts to improve U.S. relations with China, strengthen alliances with Japan and Korea, and lay the groundwork for the 1987 democratic transition in Korea. Ambassador Wolfowitz has been involved with Persian Gulf security issues over a period of almost thirty years during three different tours at the Department of Defense and played a leadership role in the historic nuclear arms reduction initiative of September 1991.