Anthony Lake

Anthony Lake
William Anthony Kirsopp Lake (born April 2, 1939) is an American diplomat and political advisor who served as the 17th United States National Security Advisor from 1993 to 1997 and as the 6th Executive Director of UNICEF from 2010 to 2017.
He has been a foreign policy advisor to many Democratic U.S. presidents and presidential candidates, and served as National Security Advisor under U.S. President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. Lake is credited as being one of the individuals who developed the policy that led to the resolution of the Bosnian War. He also held the chair of Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C.
Early life
Lake is the grandson of Kirsopp Lake, a member of the Church of England clergy who moved to the United States from Oxford, England, in 1914, to teach New Testament studies at Harvard. Lake's father, Gerard Kirsopp Lake, was a New Deal Democrat, and his mother, Eleanor (née van Someren Hard), a Republican.
Lake himself was born in New York City. He attended Middlesex School and Harvard College, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1961. Lake studied international economics at Trinity College, Cambridge for two years and later received a PhD from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1974 after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "Caution and concern: the making of American policy toward South Africa, 1946-1971." He later (in 2001) co-edited a festschrift for his Princeton mentor, Richard H. Ullman.
Lake was good friends with Richard Holbrooke whom he met in Vietnam while both of them were in the foreign service. They frequently visited each other and Lake aided Holbrooke throughout the early years of his career. They grew apart when Holbrooke had an affair with Lake's wife. Although this did not initially end their companionship, they rarely spoke, and by the time Lake became National Security Advisor, their friendship was over.
Career
Lake joined the State Department in 1962, serving until 1970 as a Foreign Service Officer. Lake was an assistant to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. during the Vietnam War. His State Department career included assignments as consul at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam (1963), vice consul in Huế (1964–1965) and special assistant to the assistant to the president for national security affairs (1969–1970) in the Nixon administration. In 1969, he accompanied National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger on his first secret meeting with North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris. In 1970, he had a falling-out with Kissinger over the Nixon administration's Cambodian Campaign and left the State Department as a result. He later wrote a book critical of Kissinger's approach to Africa.
Lake worked for Democratic U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine in his 1972 presidential campaign. After Muskie lost the nomination to George McGovern, Lake served briefly at the Carnegie Endowment and International Voluntary Services before returning to serve as Director of Policy Planning under Jimmy Carter (1977–1981).
After Carter lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan, Lake became the Five College Professor of International Relations chair in Massachusetts (1981–1992), teaching first at Amherst College. In 1984, he moved to Mount Holyoke College, where he taught courses on the Vietnam War, Third World revolutions, and American foreign policy. (He left Mount Holyoke College in 1993 to become National Security Advisor from 1993 to 1997.) Among his protegees at Mount Holyoke was his student research assistant Mona Sutphen who would later serve in the Barack Obama White House as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. In 1997, he became Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, until accepting his position with UNICEF.
During the 1992 presidential campaign, he was one of Clinton's chief foreign policy advisers. Lake later served as National Security Advisor (1993–1997). In the aftermath of the Cold War, Lake advocated a policy of "enlargement" of the number free market democracies. Told by the White House to sell his stocks in energy companies when he took the office in 1993, Lake did not do so. When Clinton decided in 1994 to allow Iran to arm the Bosnian army, Lake admitted he made a mistake when he didn't push to inform Congress of the decision.
Director of Central Intelligence nomination
Following Clinton's 1996 re-election, he nominated Lake to become the Director of Central Intelligence, but his nomination was withdrawn due to Republican opposition. It has also been reported that the failure of his nomination was related to his decision to withdraw support at the last minute for an Iraqi coup that might have removed Saddam Hussein without U.S. intervention. However, others have speculated that Lake's nomination "failed, in part, because Lake stated in a television interview that he was not sure if Alger Hiss was guilty."
After the withdrawal of his CIA nomination, Lake became White House Special Envoy (1998–2000). As special envoy Lake mediated the drafting of the Algiers Agreement, ending the Eritrean-Ethiopian War.
Lake co-founded Intellibridge Corporation in 2000 with David Rothkopf. In 2005 the assets of Intellibridge were acquired by the Eurasia Group.
Lake was a foreign policy adviser for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, having endorsed him over Senator Hillary Clinton, whom he had worked alongside during the Clinton administration. Lake was considered a potential Secretary of State until Senator Clinton was named to the position.
UNICEF
On March 16, 2010, Lake was named by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as the next Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), following his nomination by U.S. President Barack Obama.
On April 30, 2010, he officially entered the post, succeeding Ann Veneman, a former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. On May 2, 2014, he was reappointed Executive Director of UNICEF by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and served through the end of 2017.
At UNICEF, he was active at effort to refocus investment towards the most disadvantaged children, and reducing child mortality.
Other activities
Lake was an advisory board member for the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. He has also served as chair on the boards of the United States Fund for UNICEF and the Marshall Legacy Institute. He also is serving a term from 2005-2010 on the Mount Holyoke College Board of Trustees.
For many years Lake served on the Board of Trustees for St. Mary's College of Maryland. He played key roles in the establishment of the Center for the Study of Democracy at the college, where he also served on the advisory board.
Religion
Lake was raised in the Congregational Church, but recounts that he "embarked on his spiritual journey as a young man," first converting to the Episcopal Church. However, since then he had "long been drawn to Judaism," and "began to feel strongly that I wanted to be part of that community." He ultimately converted to Judaism in 2005, before marrying Julie T. Katzman, currently the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Inter-American Development Bank. He credits Katzman's religious faith as the impetus responsible for his decision to investigate his attraction to Judaism more fully, and began studying with former Navy Chaplain Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff (who was serving with him on the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs) for a full year before his conversion. Later, Resnicoff officiated at his marriage to Katzman.
However, Lake jokes that he was Jewish in the eyes of others well before his formal conversion. First, in 1997, when news broke that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had discovered that she had Jewish ancestors, and a story about other Jews in the Administration mistakenly reported that Clinton's "entire national security team was Jewish." Based on that news story, Lake recounts, his name was added to the list used by the White House Liaison to the Jewish community, and Lake began to receive invitations to special events, such as the White House Hanukkah Party—and he says he was delighted to accept those invitations. The second time was two years later, when a 1999 Washington Post story described a new release of Watergate tapes of conversations between President Richard Nixon and H.R. Haldeman, his Chief of Staff. Those tapes included a conversation where Nixon asks if Lake is Jewish, and Haldeman responds, "Well, I'm not so sure, but he looks Jewish." Based on these tapes, Lake has said that, "Now I can trace my [Jewish] heritage all the way back to Nixon!"
Personal life
Lake was married to Antonia Plehn from 1962 to 1995; they had three children.
In 2000, Lake began a relationship with investment banker Julie Katzman. They married in 2005, and Lake converted to Judaism the same year.
Books authored
More Than Humanitarianism : A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa (2006, co-author with Christine Todd Whitman)
6 Nightmares: The Real Threats to American Security (2001)
The Real and the Ideal: Essays on International Relations in Honor of Richard Ullman (2001, co-edited)
After the Wars: Reconstruction in Afghanistan, Central America, Indochina, the Horn of Africa, and Southern Africa (1990, editor)
Somoza Falling: A Case Study of Washington at Work (1989)
Third World Radical Regimes: U.S. Policy Under Carter and Reagan (1985)
Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unmaking of American Foreign Policy (1984, co-author)
The "Tar Baby" Option: American Policy Toward Southern Rhodesia (1976).
Legacy of Vietnam: The War, American Society, and the Future of U.S. Foreign Policy (1976, contributing editor)
Honours
Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (2018)
See also
Unsuccessful nominations to the Cabinet of the United States
References
Further reading
Jones, Frank L. "Engaging The World: Anthony Lake And American Grand Strategy, 1993-1997." Historical Journal 59.3 (2016): 869-901.
External links
An article about Lake's conversion to Judaism, and how he went from being Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor to a supporter of Barack Obama.
Mount Holyoke biography
Lake's Georgetown Homepage
Source Watch entry for Anthony Lake
National Security Archive on Nixon's consideration of use of nuclear weapons in Viet Nam and Anthony Lake's role
A blog post on the "Rubin Lake Incident" in Guam
UN Biography Anthony Lake
1939 births
20th-century American Jews
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American Jews
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American foreign policy writers
American nonprofit executives
American officials of the United Nations
American people of English descent
American political scientists
Amherst College faculty
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
Clinton administration personnel
Converts to Judaism
Directors of Policy Planning
Grand Cordons of the Order of the Rising Sun
Harvard College alumni
Living people
Middlesex School alumni
Mount Holyoke College faculty
Princeton School of Public and International Affairs alumni
Rejected or withdrawn nominees to the United States Executive Cabinet
St. Mary's College of Maryland
UNICEF people
Under-Secretaries-General of the United Nations
United States National Security Advisors
Walsh School of Foreign Service faculty
Writers from New York City