Contact: Sammy McDavid
A leading American authority on Middle Eastern affairs visits the state next week as a guest of Mississippi State University's Janos Radvanyi Chair in International Security Studies.
Retired United States ambassador Robert B. Oakley will address a meeting of the Executive Lecture Forum on Thursday, Sept. 26, at Dennery's Restaurant in Jackson. His topic for the 11:45 a.m. program, "U.S. Policy toward the Middle East," will include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and relevant issues regarding Iraq and its neighbor Iran.
While Oakley's presentation is an invitation-only event for ELF members, all interested members of the news media are welcome to attend.
Oakley currently is a Fellow of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. Before retiring in 1991, he spent more than three decades in the U.S. Foreign Service, with postings to, among others, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Vietnam, France, Lebanon, Zaire, Somalia, and Pakistan.
In 1984, he was appointed director of the State Department's Office of Terrorism. Three years later, he joined the National Security Council as Assistant to the President for Middle East and South Asia.
Oakley, who was raised in Shreveport, La., is a Princeton University graduate and a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer.
He is author of "Policing the New World Disorder," a 1998 publication on police intervention in peacekeeping, and co-author of "Operation Restore Hope," a 1995 account of his experiences in Somalia.
For additional information on the program, telephone Becky Kirkland at (662) 325-8406