Richard N. Haass

Richard N. Haass (born in 1951, Brooklyn) has been president of the Council on Foreign Relations since July of 2003, prior to which he was Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State and a close advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell. The U.S. Senate approved Haass as a candidate for the position of ambassador and he has been US Coordinator for policy on the future of Afghanistan in addition to working as the main U.S. government official on the peace process in Northern Ireland, for which he received the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award.

From 1989 to 1993, Haass was Special Assistant to United States President George H. W. Bush and National Security Council Senior Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs. In 1991, Haass received the Presidential Citizens Medal for helping to develop and explain U.S. policy during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Previously, he served in various posts in the Department of State (1981-85) and the Department of Defense (1979-80) and was a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate.

Haass' other postings include Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institute, the Sol M. Linowitz Visiting Professor of International Studies at Hamilton College, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. A Rhodes Scholar, Haass obtained a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1973 and went on to earn both a Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford University.

Haass is the author of 12 books, of which 11 deal with matters of foreign policy and one with management. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.