Contact: Sammy McDavid
Chris Bort, a veteran U.S. intelligence specialist on Russia politics and governmental policies, will be special guest Thursday [Dec. 4] for Jackson's Executive Lecture Forum.
"How Sustainable is Russia's Resurgence?" is the topic of his presentation during a luncheon program to get under way at 11:45 a.m. in the meeting room of the Fairview Inn near Millsaps College.
As with all ELF speakers, Bort's visit is arranged by the Janos Radvanyi Chair in International Security Studies at Mississippi State University.
A fluent Russian speaker who has spent considerable time in both Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, Bort has worked for both the National Security and Central Intelligence agencies. He holds degrees from the University of Maryland and George Washington University.
Over a nearly 30-year career, he has followed the evolution of the world's largest country from its status as the leading communist superpower to an impoverished former empire to its current--though uncertain--resurgence onto the world stage.
(Bort will be filling in for Fiona Hill, another Russian specialist who had been the ELF's scheduled December speaker.)
ELF programs are not public events, but interested members of the news media always are invited to attend. To ensure adequate seating, reporters planning to cover Mr. Bort's program are asked to contact, in advance, Tan Tsai of the Radvanyi Center at 662-325-4062.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.