The Back Channel; A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal
Brigitte LaCombe (author photograph) New York: Random House, 2019. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. [8], 501, [3] pages. Illustrations. Appendix. Bibliography. Notes. Index. William Joseph Burns (born April 11, 1956) is an American diplomat and served as the 8th director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Biden administration from March 19, 2021 to January 20, 2025. He previously served as U.S. deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2014; in 2009 he served as acting secretary of state for a day, prior to the confirmation of Hillary Clinton. Burns retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after a 32-year career. From 2014 to 2021, he served as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Burns served as ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs from 2001 to 2005, ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008 and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2008 to 2011. In January 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Burns to become CIA director. He was unanimously confirmed by voice vote in the Senate on March 18, 2021, sworn in officially as director on March 19, as well as ceremonially sworn in by Vice President Harris on March 23. In July 2023, Biden elevated Burns to a position in his cabinet, a symbolic action. In 2013, Burns and Jake Sullivan led the secret bilateral channel with Iran that led to the interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 and ultimately the Iran nuclear deal. Burns was reported to be "in the driver's seat" of the American negotiating team for the interim agreement. Burns had met secretly with Iranian officials as early as 2008, when President George W. Bush dispatched him to do so. Over the course of more than three decades as an American diplomat, William J. Burns played a central role in the most consequential diplomatic episodes of his time—from the bloodless end of the Cold War to the collapse of post–Cold War relations with Putin’s Russia, from post–9/11 tumult in the Middle East to the secret nuclear talks with Iran. In The Back Channel, Burns recounts, with novelistic detail and incisive analysis, some of the seminal moments of his career. Drawing on a trove of newly declassified cables and memos, he gives readers a rare inside look at American diplomacy in action. His dispatches from war-torn Chechnya and Qaddafi’s bizarre camp in the Libyan desert and his warnings of the “Perfect Storm” that would be unleashed by the Iraq War will reshape our understanding of history—and inform the policy debates of the future. Burns sketches the contours of effective American leadership in a world that resembles neither the zero-sum Cold War contest of his early years as a diplomat nor the “unipolar moment” of American primacy that followed. Ultimately, The Back Channel is an eloquent, deeply informed, and timely story of a life spent in service of American interests abroad. It is also a powerful reminder, in a time of great turmoil, of the enduring importance of diplomacy. Derived from a Kirkus review: A former U.S. ambassador to Russia and career Foreign Service officer delivers a resounding defense of American diplomacy and the need for negotiation in a non–zero-sum world. Diplomacy involves considerable skills requiring of its practitioners “smart policy judgment, language skills, and a sure feel for the foreign landscapes in which they serve and the domestic priorities they represent.” There is also the matter of what Burns, now the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, calls “strategic adaptation,” the ability to read the winds and adjust course to accommodate the tack one’s interlocutor is taking. Consider Vladimir Putin, a man who leaves Burns unimpressed. By the author’s account, Putin was none too happy when the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, and part of his program seems to be to get both up and running again. At the same time, for all his wiles, Putin is capable of misreading situations, as he certainly did after 9/11, when the Bush administration proved “indifferent to Putin’s calculus, and generally disinclined to concede or pay much attention to a power in strategic decline.” Some of the most newsworthy elements of this book, in fact, involve how the State Department crafted a response to 9/11, if one that largely went ignored. One might understand how Putin might feel inclined to angle for an American leader who would serve his interests. Burns is evenhanded and careful, glad to praise Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton alike for their successes in service. SBurns believes that “diplomacy is one of our nation’s biggest assets and best-kept secrets.... it has never been a more necessary tool of first resort for a new century.” Excellent reading for students of contemporary geopolitics and recent American history. Condition: Very good / Good.
Keywords: Terrorism, Arab Spring, James Baker, Yeltsin, Diplomacy, Putin, Obama, Iran, Nonproliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Iran Nuclear Deal, John Kerry, Palestinians, Colin Powell, Dennis Ross, Ukraine, Condoleezza Rice
ISBN: 9780525508861
[Book #90402]
Price: $55.00