Strobe Talbott

Talbott was born in Dayton, Ohio, to Helen Josephine (Large) and Nelson Strobridge "Bud" Talbott II.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d3etIUH-FyMC&q=%22Nelson+S.+(a+businessman)+and+Helen+Josephine+(Large)+Talbott%22|title = Contemporary Authors|date = May 2003| publisher=Gale Research International, Limited |isbn = 9780787651961}} He attended the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut and graduated in 1968 from Yale University, where he had been chairman of the Yale Daily News. He was awarded Yale's Alpheus Henry Snow Prize. He was also a member of the Scholar of the House program in 1967–68, belonged to a society of juniors and seniors called Saint Anthony Hall, and was elected to the exclusive Elizabethan Club. He became a friend of future President Bill Clinton when both were Rhodes Scholars at the University of Oxford;{{cite news|title=Strobe lights up the world stage for his friend Bill... |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/strobe-lights-up-the-world-stage-for-his-friend-bill-praise-is-mixed-with-some-doubt-as-mr-clinton-promotes-an-old-chum-at-the-state-department-writes-rupert-cornwell-from-washington-1405466.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220525/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/strobe-lights-up-the-world-stage-for-his-friend-bill-praise-is-mixed-with-some-doubt-as-mr-clinton-promotes-an-old-chum-at-the-state-department-writes-rupert-cornwell-from-washington-1405466.html |archive-date=May 25, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|date=January 8, 1994|work=The Independent|access-date=September 9, 2009 | location=London | first=Rupert | last=Cornwell}} during his studies there he translated Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs into English.

File:Strobe Talbott with George Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece.jpg, Prime Minister of Greece, 2009]]

In 1972, Talbott, along with fellow Rhodes Scholar Robert Reich and friend David E. Kendall, rallied their friends Bill and Hillary Clinton to help the Texas campaign to elect George McGovern as president of the United States. In the 1980s, he was Time's principal correspondent on Soviet-American relations, and his work for the magazine was cited in the three Overseas Press Club Awards won by Time in the 1980s.{{cite web |title=Yale Lecture Series: Putin's Path: Russian Foreign Policy Since 9/11 |url=http://www.yale.edu/dsj/lectures/01-27-02.htm |access-date=September 9, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090131023910/http://www.yale.edu/dsj/lectures/01-27-02.htm |archive-date=January 31, 2009 }} Talbott also wrote several books on disarmament. He translated and edited Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament (2 volumes, 1974) by Nikita S. Khrushchev.

Following Bill Clinton's election as president, Talbott served in the U.S. government. He was appointed Ambassador-at-Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State Warren Christopher on the New Independent States from 1993 to 1994, to mitigate the consequences of the Soviet breakup.{{Cite web |date=26 July 2016 |title=The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR STROBE TALBOTT |url=https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Talbott-Strobe.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240709174940/https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Talbott-Strobe.pdf |archive-date=9 July 2024 |access-date=5 August 2024 |website=Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training}} He was then appointed to the second highest ranking position in the U.S. State Department as deputy secretary of state from 1994 to 2001.{{cite news|title=State Dept. Expert Upbeat About Russian Fund Case |url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0A15FA395B0C778EDDA00894D1494D81|date=September 24, 1999|work=New York Times |access-date=September 9, 2009 | first=Eric | last=Schmitt}} In that rôle, he made efforts to synchronize U.S. policy towards Eastern Europe with Germany, France, the U.K., and with George Soros.{{cite news|access-date=24 May 2025 |archive-date=9 January 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250109132138/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/01/23/the-world-according-to-soros |author1=Connie Bruck |quote=Talbott, referring to Soros’s foreign policy, responded [...] We try to synchronize our approach to the former Communist countries with Germany, France, Great Britain—and with George Soros,” |date=15 January 1995 |language=en |title=The World According to George Soros |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/01/23/the-world-according-to-soros |work=The New Yorker}} After leaving government, he was briefly the Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.{{cite web|title=Talbott to leave for Washington |url=http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2002/01/25/talbott-to-leave-for-washington/ |date=January 25, 2002|publisher=Yale Daily News|access-date=September 9, 2009}}

File:Dmitry Medvedev in the United States 14 April 2010-9.jpeg whilst the latter was on a visit to the United States in April 2010]]

File:Secretary Kerry Delivers Remarks at the Foreign Affairs Policy Board Meeting at the State Department (25493710584).jpg in 2016]]

Talbott was the sixth president of the Brookings Institution in Washington from 2002 to 2017. He helped raise more than $650 million in support of independent policy research and analysis.{{cite web|url=https://www.brookings.edu/news-releases/john-r-allen-named-next-brookings-institution-president/|publisher=Brookings Institution|title=John R. Allen named next Brookings Institution president|date=October 4, 2017}} At Brookings, he was responsible for formulating policies, recommending projects, approving publications and selecting staff, focusing on Eastern Europe, Russia, and nuclear arms control.{{cite web|title=Strobe Talbott: "Not clear what Russia is going to do next" |url=http://www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=12136 |date=August 26, 2008 |publisher=Georgian Times |access-date=September 9, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080904021125/http://www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=12136 |archive-date=September 4, 2008 }} On January 31, 2017, Talbott announced his resignation from the Brookings Institution. The resignation was later retracted, but in October 2017, he was succeeded by General John R. Allen.https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/01/31/strobe-talbott-to-step-down-from-the-brookings-institution/ Strobe Talbott to step down from the Brookings Institution

In December 2011, Talbott returned to government service as chair of the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.{{cite web |title=Strobe Talbott |url=https://www.brookings.edu/experts/strobe-talbott/ |website=Brookings |access-date=10 October 2022 |date=27 April 2016}} He was on the advisory board of the DC non-profit America Abroad Media{{cite web|url=http://americaabroadmedia.org/person/strobe-talbott|title=Strobe Talbott}} and holds leadership positions in other organizations such as the Aspen Institute and the American Academy of Diplomacy.{{cite web |title=Strobe Talbott |url=https://www.aspeninstitute.org/our-people/strobe-talbott/ |website=The Aspen Institute |access-date=10 October 2022}}{{cite web |title=Strobe Talbott |url=https://www.academyofdiplomacy.org/member/strobe-talbott/ |website=The American Academy of Diplomacy |access-date=10 October 2022}}

Talbott married Brooke Shearer in 1971. He had been the college roommate of her brother, Derek.{{cite web |title=Brooke Shearer dies at 58; former journalist, personal aide to Hillary Clinton |url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-brooke-shearer27-2009may27-story.html |website=Los Angeles Times |access-date=10 October 2022 |date=27 May 2009}} Brooke was a personal aide to Hillary Clinton. They were married for 38 years, until her death on May 19, 2009.{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Ben |date=May 19, 2009 |url=http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0509/Brooke_Shearer_RIP.html?showall |title=Brooke Shearer, R.I.P. |newspaper=Politico}} He has two sons, Devin and Adrian Talbott, co-founders of the now-defunct Generation Engage.{{cite news|url=https://thehill.com/capital-living/20629-political-engagement-the-next-generation/|title=Political engagement: the next generation|work=The Hill|date=December 13, 2005|last=Rothstein|first=Betsy}} In 2015, he married Barbara Lazear Ascher.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/style/barbara-ascher-and-strobe-talbott.html|title = Barbara Ascher and Strobe Talbott|newspaper = The New York Times|date = March 2015}}

• "It was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform - not the plight of Kosovar Albanians - that best explains NATO's war."{{Cite book |last=Norris |first=John |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70157464 |title=Collision course : NATO, Russia, and Kosovo |date=2005 |publisher=Praeger Pub |isbn=0-313-05135-6 |location=Westport, Conn. |oclc=70157464}}
• "In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all." (Time){{cite news|last1=Talbott |first1=Strobe |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,976015,00.html#ixzz2dz1q6axw |title=America Abroad: The Birth of the Global Nation |date=July 20, 1992 |newspaper=Time}}
• "The Russians have provided an opening for renewed diplomacy. Since last summer, President Dmitry Medvedev has been calling for a 'new Euro-Atlantic security architecture'. So far, except for rehashing old complaints and the unacceptable claim that other former Soviet republics fall within Russia's 'sphere of privileged interests', Mr Medvedev and Mr Lavrov have been vague about what they have in mind.

:"That creates a vacuum that the United States and its European partners can fill with their own proposals. The theme of those should be accelerating the emergence of an international system (of which NATO is a part) that is prepared to include Russia rather than exclude or contain it, and to encourage positive forces in Russia that want to see their nation integrated in a globalized world organized around the search for common solutions to common problems." (Financial Times){{cite news |url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/24e0aab6-01e0-11de-8199-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1|title=A Russian 'reset button' based on inclusion |date=February 23, 2009|newspaper=Financial Times}}

• "We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trump into the White House and played him for a sucker…. Trump has been colluding with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency."{{cite news |title=Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/anti-trump-frenzy-threatens-to-end-superpower-diplomacy/ |work=The Nation |date=January 16, 2019}}

• File:LVA Order of the Three Stars - Commander BAR.svg Grand Officer of the Order of the Three Stars, Latvia (2012){{cite web|url=https://www.president.lv/lv/apbalvotie-un-statistika |title=Apbalvotie un statistika |publisher=president.lv |access-date=2022-05-30|language=Latvian}}
• File:JPN Kyokujitsu-sho 1Class BAR.svg Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, Japan (2016)
• File:GEO Golden Fleece Order BAR.svg Order of the Golden Fleece (Georgia)

{{Reflist}}

• Finan, Bill. "Nuclear Diplomacy Up Close: Strobe Talbott on the Clinton Administration and India." India Review (Jan 2005) 4#1, pp 84-97.
• Lane, Charles. "The Master of the Game: A journey down the paper trail of Strobe Talbott: Russophile, establishmentarian, … ", The New Republic, March 7, 1994. (pp. 19–29)

• Talbott, Strobe. Endgame: The inside story of SALT II (1980) [https://archive.org/details/endgameinsidesto0000talb online]
• Talbott, Strobe. Deadly Gambits: The Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in Nuclear Arms Control (1984) [https://archive.org/details/deadlygambitsrea00talb online]
• Talbott, Strobe. The Master of the Game: Paul Nitze and the Nuclear Peace (1988) [https://archive.org/details/masterofgamepaul00talbrich online]
• Talbott, Strobe. At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War, with Michael R. Beschloss, (1993) [https://archive.org/details/athighestlevelsi00besc online]
• Talbott, Strobe. The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (Random House, 2007). [https://archive.org/details/russiahandmemoir00talb online]
• Talbott, Strobe. The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation (2009) [https://archive.org/details/greatexperiments0000talb online]
• Talbott, Strobe. Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb (Brookings Institution Press, 2010). [https://archive.org/details/engagingindiadip00talb online]

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20071101231836/http://www3.brookings.edu/experts/talbotts.aspx Strobe Talbott's Brookings Expert Page]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100725084032/http://ditchley.co.uk/page/369/annual-lecture-xlvi.htm Talbott lecture at Ditchley Foundation, July 2010]
• {{C-SPAN|19441}}
• {{Charlie Rose guest|62}}

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Category:1946 births

Category:Living people

Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford

Category:American male journalists

Category:American Rhodes Scholars

Category:Brookings Institution people

Category:Center on International Cooperation

Category:Clinton administration personnel

Category:Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford

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Category:Journalists from Ohio

Category:Ohio Democrats

Category:Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class

Category:Recipients of the Order of the Golden Fleece (Georgia)

Category:Time (magazine) people

Category:United States deputy secretaries of state

Category:Writers from Dayton, Ohio

Category:Yale University alumni

Category:United States ambassadors-at-large