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Graham Allison |
Graham Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University and Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. In the first term of the Clinton Administration, Dr. Allison served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans where he coordinated DOD strategy and policy towards Russia, Ukraine, and the other states of the former Soviet Union.
As Dean from 1977 to 1989, he built Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Under his leadership, a small, undefined program grew twenty-fold to become a major professional school of public policy and government. At the end of his tenure, the School had a faculty of more than 100, 750 full-time graduate students, 700 participants in executive programs, and eight major problem-solving research centers.
Dr. Allison's teaching and research focuses on American foreign policy; defense policy; U.S. relations with Russia, Ukraine, and other newly independent states of the former Soviet Union; and the political economy of transitions to economic and political democracy. Dr. Allison has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books and 100 articles: Realizing Human Rights: Moving from Inspiration to Impact (00); Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing the Threat of Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material (1996); Cooperative Denuclearization: From Pledges to Deeds (1993); Beyond Cold War to Trilateral Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region (1992); Rethinking America's Security: Beyond Cold War to a New World Order (1992); and Window of Opportunity: The Grand Bargain for Democracy in the Soviet Union (1991). As Executive Director of the Commission on America's National Interests, he served as principal author of its report, America's National Interests (2000). His first book, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971), recently released in an updated and revised second edition (1999), ranks among the best-sellers in political science with more than 300,000 copies in print.
Dr. Allison has been an active advisor and consultant to agencies of government, beginning with the Department of Defense in the 1960's. He was Special Advisor to Secretary of Defense Weinberger from 1985-87 and has been a member of the Secretary of Defense's Defense Policy Board for Secretaries Weinberger, Carlucci, Cheney, Aspin, Perry and Cohen. In 1989-90, he served as Vice Chairman of JCS Chairman Crowe's Planning Committee on Strategy. He has twice been awarded the Defense Department's highest honor for civilians, the Distinguished Public Service Medal.
Dr. Allison was a founding member of the Trilateral Commission, a Director of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has been a member of public committees and commissions, among them Massachusetts Governor Weld's Task Force on Defense and Technology, the Carnegie Endowment's Commission on Government Renewal, and the Baker-Cutler DOE Task Force on Nonproliferation Programs with Russia.
Dr. Allison has served as a Director of the Getty Oil Company, Nvest, Taubman Centers, Inc., and Belco Oil and Gas, as well as a member of the Advisory Boards of Chase Bank, Hydro-Quebec, and the International Energy Corporation.
Born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Dr. Allison was educated at Davidson College; Harvard College (B.A., Magna Cum Laude, in History); Oxford University (B.A. and M.A., First Class Honors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics); and Harvard University (Ph.D. in Political Science). He has received honorary doctorates from Davidson College, Uppsala University (Sweden), and the University of North Carolina.
Dr. Allison and his wife Elisabeth live in Belmont, Massachusetts.
