Events & Programs

What's the fallout from the disclosure of 250,000 confidential diplomatic cables? Steven Erlanger of the New York Times and retired US diplomat James G. Lowenstein lead a discussion of this dramatic exposure of diplomatic reporting.

Steven J. Erlanger has been Paris bureau chief of the New York Times since 2008. He has served the Times in Jerusalem, Berlin, the Balkans, Moscow, and Bangkok, and also as its chief diplomatic correspondent in Washington and its cultural news editor in New York. A graduate of Taft School and Harvard College, Erlanger previously worked as an editor and European correspondent of the Boston Globe.

James G. Lowenstein B.A.Yale 1949. Began government service with the Marshall Plan in Paris 1950. In 1951 assigned to the U. S, Special Mission to Yugoslavia, resident in Sarajevo. Subsequently returned to Paris on the US Delegation to the Temporary Council of NATO. From 1952 to 1955 naval officer assigned to the USS Coral Sea and then the staff of the Naval War College. Commissioned a Foreign Service Officer in 1956 and served, successively, on the NATO desk, the American Embassies in Colombo and Belgrade ,the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and as ambasssador to Luxembourg (1977-81).

Retired from the Foreign Service in 1982. Senior Consultant APCO Associates. Chairman or director of various investment funds. OSCE volunteer in Bosnia 1996-97. Election observer in Sri Lanka. Co-founder (with Nicholas Wahl) and board member the French American Foundations in New York and Paris (Vice Chairman of the Foundation in Paris), Chairman of the Advisory Council of the American Library in Paris, past board member Refugees International. Member Council on Foreign Relations, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Institut Francais des Relations Internationales. Officer Legion of Honor.