Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox Jr. '58 to Speak on Middle Eastern Affairs

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 12, 2011 – On Sunday, April 17, Williams College will host a talk by Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox Jr. ’58. The lecture, titled “The Middle East Today: New Hopes, Old Dangers and Choices for the U.S., Israel, and Palestine,” will take place in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Wilcox is currently the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, an organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to fostering a peace between Israelis and Palestinians that meets the needs of both groups. The foundation publishes the Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories, which contains analysis, commentary, maps, and data on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 1997, Wilcox retired from a 31-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service. Wilcox held numerous positions in the Department of State, including deputy director for UN Political Affairs in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, director for regional affairs in the Bureau for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs, and deputy assistant secretary of state for Middle Eastern Affairs. He also served as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research and as ambassador at large and coordinator for counter terrorism.

During his tenure, Wilcox also spent time abroad at U.S. Embassies, as press attaché in Vientiane, Laos; political and economic/commercial officer in Jakarta, Indonesia; and chief of the economic/commercial section in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His final overseas assignment was as chief of mission and U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem.

Over the course of his career, Wilcox has been awarded the Department of State’s Meritorious, Superior, and Presidential Honor Awards. He is a board member of the Middle East Institute and Americans for Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) and a member of the Washington Institute for Foreign Affairs. Wilcox received his B.A. from Williams in 1958 and his LL.B. from Stanford Law School in 1961.

Sunday’s lecture is sponsored by the Stanley Kaplan Program in American Foreign Policy and the Leadership Studies Program.

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Published April 12, 2011