President Obama nominates Antony Blinken for Deputy Secretary of State
President Obama nominated Antony Blinken for the post of Deputy Secretary of State on Friday. According to the NSC, Antony J. Blinken has held senior foreign policy positions in two administrations over two decades.
He currently serves as Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. In that capacity, he chairs the inter-agency Deputies Committee, the administration’s principal forum for formulating foreign policy. During the first term of the Obama Administration, he was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President.
Mr. Blinken served for six years on Capitol Hill (2002 – 2008) as Democratic Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Mr. Blinken was a member of President Clinton’s National Security Council staff at the White House from 1994 to 2001. From 1999 to 2001, he was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs – President Clinton’s principal advisor for relations with the countries of Europe, the European Union and NATO. From 1994 through 1998, Mr. Blinken was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Speechwriting and then Strategic Planning, overseeing foreign policy planning, communications and speechwriting and serving as President Clinton’s chief foreign policy speechwriter.
Mr. Blinken began his government service at the State Department where, from 1993 to 1994, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs.
After leaving the Clinton Administration, he held the position of Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies between 2001 and 2002.
Prior to joining the Clinton Administration, Mr. Blinken practiced law in New York and Paris. He has been a reporter for The New Republic magazine and has written about foreign policy for numerous publications including the New York Times, The New York Times Magazine and Foreign Affairs. He is the author of Ally Versus Ally: America, Europe and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis (Praeger, 1987). He appears frequently on cable and network television on behalf of the Obama administration. Mr. Blinken attended grade school and high school in Paris, France where he received a French Baccalaureat degree with high honors. He is a graduate of Harvard College Magna cum Laude and Columbia Law School.
Source: NSC
