Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Keynote Speaker at Woodrow Wilson Center Dinner

Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, will be the keynote speaker at the dinner meeting of the Board of Trustees and Wilson Council on Monday February 7th. The event will be held at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, D.C., from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Ambassador Holbrooke will address U.S.-UN relations. Ambassador Holbrooke was confirmed as the permanent representative of the U.S. to the United Nations on August 5, 1999. Prior to this appointment, he has served as a professional diplomat, a magazine editor, Peace Corps director, chairman of two non-governmental organizations, and as an investment banker.

"The Wilson Center is the premiere institution where interaction and sharing of ideas among policy makers, scholars and domestic and international leaders is encouraged, and deemed critical to achieving better policy and better mutual understanding," said Joseph A. Cari Jr., Esq., chairman of the Woodrow Wilson Center Board of trustees and attorney for the firm Ungaretti & Harris, in Chicago. "What better person could we have whose career and experiences embody that philosophy? It is an honor for our Center to have Ambassador Holbrooke as our speaker."

Dinner invitees include members of the Wilson Center Board of Directors, the Wilson Council (the Center's private sector advisory group), Members of Congress, Center staff and scholars. Lee H. Hamilton is director of the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Joint meetings between the Board of Trustees and the Wilson Council occur three times a year. Created by the United States Congress in 1968 as the nation's living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, the Center serves as Washington's nonpartisan meeting ground between the world of ideas and the world of public affairs.