Jan 10, 2025 07:00 PM - Zoom

A Diplomat's Reflections on President Kennedy's Vision of Peace

Jack F. Matlock Jr. is a former US Ambassador, a university professor, an historian, and an author. He had a 35-year career in the US Foreign service that encompassed much of the Cold War period between the Soviet Union and the United States. He was stationed at the US Embassy in Moscow during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and helped translate messages between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev. At the beginning of the detente between the US and USSR, Matlock was director of Soviet affairs in the State Department, and participated in the summit meetings between the leaders between 1972–91. Matlock was ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1987 and saw the last years of the Soviet Union before he retired from the Foreign Service in 1991.

He has held teaching positions at Duke University, Princeton University, Columbia University and Hamilton College. He has been active outside the government advocating for nuclear disarmament, and the peaceful resolution of a variety of international disputes.

He has authored several books including Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union (1995), Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (2004), Superpower Illusions: How Myths and False Ideologies Led America Astray--And How to Return to Reality (2010), Looking Back to Look Ahead: Thoughts of a Nonagenarian Halfway through His Tenth Decade (2024).

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