The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2006

Service to become president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, soon after the attempted coup d’etat against Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev. Even before that crisis, reflecting his self-description as an “aggressive interventionist,” Abramowitz was looking for ways to inte- grate Russia into the international system. Toward that end, he launched the first Carnegie-Moscow Center, a bilateral think-tank that has brought together American and Russian scholars and continues to sponsor free-wheeling confer- ences, discussions, research and publications. As president of the Carnegie Endowment, he also played the key role in launching the International Crisis Group, which he headed as acting president for six months after step- ping down from Carnegie in 1997. Amb. Abramowitz has remained highly active in the ICG and has also been a senior fellow at The Century Foundation since 1998. Another professional concentration, both at Carnegie and elsewhere, has been the Balkans. He was among the first U.S. diplomats to urge a robust response to the Bosnian war and the difficult situation in Kosovo. As Christopher Hill, currently assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, has remarked, “Mort never saw a city in the Balkans he did- n’t want to become independent.” Amb. Abramowitz has long been a prolific author and editor. His book credits include: Remaking China Policy: U.S.-China Relations and Government Decisionmaking (Rand Corporation, 1971); The Pacific Community: American Myth? Asian Reality? (Carnegie Endowment, 1996), co- authored with Ambassador Stephen Bosworth; China: Can We Have a Policy? (Carnegie Endowment, 1997); China- Japan-U.S. Relations: Managing the Trilateral Relationship (Japan Center for International Exchange, 1998), with Funabashi Yoichi and Wang Jisi; Managing Change on the Korean Peninsula: Report of an Independent Task Force (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1998), Meeting the North Korean Nuclear Challenge (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2000) and Testing North Korea: The Next Stage in U.S. and ROK Policy (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2001), all co-authored with James Laney; Turkey’s Transformation and American Policy (The Century Foundation, 2000); China-Japan-U.S. Relations: Meeting New Challenges (Japan Center for International Exchange, 2002), with Funabashi Yoichi and Wang Jisi; and The United States and Turkey: Allies in Need (The Century Foundation, 2003). His latest book, also co-authored with Amb. Bosworth, is Chasing the Sun: Rethinking East Asian Policy (The Century Foundation, 2006). His op-eds and articles have appeared in the New York Times , Washington Post , Newsweek , International Herald Tribune , Christian Science Monitor , Wall Street Journal , Los Angeles Times , Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs , among many other periodicals. Amb. Abramowitz has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Director General’s Cup of the Foreign Service in 1995; the National Intelligence Medal in 1989; the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Service in 1981, 1985 and 1988; and the Joseph C. Wilson Award for International Service from the University of Rochester in 1980. He has served on the boards of many nonprofit orga- nizations, including the International Rescue Committee, National Endowment for Democracy, Open Society Institute and International Crisis Group. Through all these activities and associations, Amb. Abramowitz continues to be vitally engaged in the critical issues facing U.S. diplomacy today. Amb. Abramowitz and his wife, Sheppie, have two grown children. Foreign Service Journal Editor Steven Alan Honley interviewed Amb. Abramowitz at The Century Foundation on May 22. FSJ: First of all, Ambassador Abramowitz, congratulations on your award for lifetime contributions to American diplomacy. It places you in the same company as Thomas Pickering, Larry Eagleburger, George Shultz and Richard Lugar, among others. Who were some of the people you especially admired or were inspired by during your Foreign Service career? MIA: I had some extraordinary political bosses during my career and learned a lot from them: Elliot Richardson, Jim Schlesinger, Don Rumsfeld, Harold Brown, George Shultz and Jim Baker. I also had some excellent career diplomat bosses like Art Hartman, Ed Fried and Bill Gleysteen. As for career officials I enjoyed working with, there are too many to list, but I’d start with the incomparable Phil Habib and then mention Mike Armacost, Bob and Phyllis Oakley, Nick Platt, John Negroponte, Marc Grossman, Stapleton Roy, Dick Clarke, Frank McNeil, Paul Cleveland ... the list could go on and on. FSJ: What drew you to the Foreign Service? MIA: I was always interested in international affairs, and began thinking about becoming an FSO during my senior year in high school. The Cold War had begun and was end- J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31 Steven Alan Honley, an FSO from 1985 to 1997, is the edi- tor of the Journal. “Sen. Sam Nunn once told me, ‘Anywhere you are, Mort, I know there’s a war going on!’” — Amb. Morton Abramowitz