Introduction

          I am an associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) at the Kennedy School, Harvard University, where I concentrate on European issues and in particular on French-American relations. In 2001, I was asked by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), which is a publicly-financed think tank in Washington, to do a book on France in the Institute’s Cross Cultural Negotiations Project, which examines the manner in which other countries negotiate. My book became the sixth in series, after China, Russia, Germany, etc. The book is not so much on the nuts and bolts of negotiations, as it is on the cultural and historical strands which together form the tissue of French diplomacy and negotiations. Though I am aware of the dangers of generalization, I contend that there is a French model that is unique and identifiable.

          The title of my book is French Negotiating Behavior: Dealing with ‘la Grande Nation’ (USIP Press, 2003). Note: to order this book, go to the "Links" button on this site and click on the URL for the US Institute of Peace Press.

The French-language version of the book, with an update, is entitled Diplomatie à la Française (Editions Jacob-Duvernet, 2005), with a preface by former Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine.  Due to Diplomatie à la française, I have been awarded the medal of the Prix Ernest Lémonon of the Académie des Sciences Morales at Politiques (ASMP).  Note: to order this book, go to the "Links" button on this site and click on the link to the book in the URL for Amazon.fr

     My overall purpose in setting up this website is to make better known my book on French negotiating behavior (in both its English and French versions), as well as now my new book (“La République de Dieu”), and to make available in text version some of the articles I have written since coming to Harvard in 1989. A complete list of my articles from this period is available in this website.

     I initially came to Harvard as a Research Fellow in the Intelligence and Policy Project, a joint (and unclassified) activity of the CIA and the Kennedy School. In 1991, I left the CIA and in 1992 was awarded the degree of Doctor of Public Administration at Harvard. My doctoral thesis became my first book (Oldest Allies, Guarded Friends: the United States and France Since 1940). It was followed by six others, as well as by many articles and reviews.

     In my 37-year career in the CIA, I spent 23 of them overseas, in generally long tours, respectively in India, Congo, Sudan, Morocco, Jordan and France. From 1979-1984, I was chief of the Near East and South Asia Division in the Directorate of Operations, and from 1984-1989, I was CIA chief in Paris.

     On 2 May 2007, I was awarded the grade of Officer in the French Order of the Légion d’honneur and it was presented in Cambridge, MA, on 10 September 2007 by the French Consul General.