A Conversation with Ambassador John Bolton

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Hatton W. Sumners Distinguished Lecture Series

“A Conversation with Ambassador John Bolton”

Former United States Representative to the United Nations

Interviewed by:

Eric Shawn

Fox News Channel Anchor and Senior Correspondent

 

 

WHEN: Thursday, April 17, 2008, 12:00 Noon to 1:15 PM

WHERE: Stemmons Ballroom, Hilton Anatole Hotel, 2201 Stemmons Freeway, Dallas, TX 75207

Click here to register

John R. Bolton was appointed as United States Representative to the United Nations on August 1, 2005 and served until his resignation in December 2006. Prior to his appointment, Ambassador Bolton served as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security from May 2001 to May 2005.

During his tenure at the United Nations, Bolton was a tenacious and outspoken advocate of U.S. efforts to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, push Syria out of Lebanon and bring African peacekeepers into shaky Somalia. Bolton was very effective in North Korea, moving forward with a very strong sanction resolution through the U.N. Security Council within days of Pyongyang's Oct. 9, 2006 nuclear test. Bolton and France's ambassador led the Security Council to approve a unanimous resolution to end the summer 2006 Hezbollah war on Israel. Bolton successfully executed his orders to stop the combat and authorize U.N. peacekeepers. Bolton also assembled an international coalition that blocked the bid of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's Marxist strongman, to join the Security Council. This anti-authoritarian alliance survived 47 ballots. An eventual compromise helped moderate Panama fill that spot.

During his tenure at the United Nations, Bolton was an advocate for human rights. He arranged the Security Council's first deliberations on Burma's human rights abuses. Bolton invited actor George Clooney and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel to brief the Security Council in September 2006 on Arab mass-murder of non-Arabs in Darfur, Sudan. "Every day we delay only adds to the suffering of the Sudanese people and extends the genocide," Bolton said. He engineered the Security Council's approval of 22,500 U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur. Bolton pressured Sudan's government to accept these personnel atop the 7,000 African Union soldiers already on site.

Previously, Ambassador Bolton was Senior Vice President of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). AEI is a nonprofit public policy center dedicated to preserving and strengthening the foundations of freedom through research education, and open debate.

Ambassador Bolton has spent many years of his career in public service. Previous positions he has held include Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs at the Department of State, 1989-1993; Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice, 1985-1989; Assistant Administrator for Program and Policy Coordination, U.S. Agency for International Development, 1982-1983; and General Counsel, U.S. Agency for International Development, 1981-1982.

Ambassador Bolton is also an attorney. From 1974-1981, he was an associate at the Washington office of Covington & Burling, where he returned as a member of the firm from1983-1985, after public service at the U.S. Agency for International Development. From 1993 through 1999, he was a partner in the law firm of Lerner, Reed, Bolton & McManus.

Ambassador Bolton is the author of Surrender is Not an Option:  Defending America at the U.N. and Abroad , published by Simon and Shuster. (November 2007).

Ambassador Bolton was born in Baltimore, MD, on November 20, 1948. He graduated with a B.A., summa cum laude , from Yale University and received his J.D. in 1974. He currently resides in Maryland with his wife, Gretchen.

Eric Shawn , Anchor and Senior Correspondent for Fox News Channel, has covered a wide variety of news stories around the globe in his almost twenty year career at Fox News. He currently reports from New York and anchors Fox News Live from 10 a.m. to 12 noon, E.S.T. on Sunday mornings as well as other time periods.

He has reported from the Persian Gulf to the White House lawn, focusing on politics, terrorism and crime. Since 2003 he has regularly reported from the United Nations and has reported numerous Fox News investigations of the U.N., among other investigative reporting assignments. In 2004 he broke new details in the investigation into the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.  At FNC he has been deployed on numerous assignments, among them: The Freemen standoff in Montana, The Republic of Texas standoff in Texas, the crash of TWA flight 800, the 1996 and 2004 Democratic and Republican Conventions, The Monica Lewinsky investigation, the 2000 New York Senate race.

Prior to the creation of FNC in 1996, Eric reported for WNYW-TV (Fox) in New York, covering politics, local news, as well as providing national and international reports for the Fox stations nationwide through the Fox News Edge and Fox News Service. Among his assignments: the 1992 Clinton Presidential Campaign, the Mike Tyson Rape Trial, the William Kennedy Smith Rape trial, Hurricane Andrew, the Somalia military operation and numerous military actions against Iraq, including reporting from Kuwait, Syria, Egypt, Israel and Bahrain, the arrest of the Unibomber in Montana, and the O.J. Simpson criminal and civil trial in Los Angeles, where he logged nearly 2,000 live shots during the 10 month proceedings.  He reported and anchored breaking news on the Fox Television Network, including 1992 election night coverage from Little Rock, Arkansas and the Simpson trial verdict in 1995.

He is also the author of the current book The U.N. Exposed , published by Penguin/Sentinel. Shawn was also a correspondent for the Fox Network News magazine, Fox Files and reported and anchored several one-hour specials, including: TWA Flight 800: Why?  He has interviewed world leaders from President Bill Clinton, to U.N. Secretary Generals Kofi Annan and Ban Ki Moon, as well as Israeli Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, among others. He first started covering terrorist attacks against America with the shooting in 1990 of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and New York City bombing plot, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, and the attacks and aftermath of 9/11.

Prior to joining the local New York Fox station in 1989, Shawn was a reporter at WPIX-TV channel 11 and anchor at WNYC-TV, channel 31 in New York. He is a graduate of Georgetown University with a degree in Urban Studies.

The National Center for Policy Analysis is a public policy research institute founded in 1983 and internationally known for its studies on public policy issues. The NCPA is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an office in Washington, D.C.