Speaker Biographies

September 6, 2005

Norm Coleman was sworn in as a United States Senator (R-Minn.) on January 7, 2003. He serves as the chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, through which he has led the Senate investigation into the UN Oil-for-Food program. Senator Coleman also serves as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There he has worked hard to ensure that America remains a powerful force for democracy and compassion in the world. Seeing firsthand the destruction and heartbreak the African AIDS epidemic has caused, Senator Coleman supported a major long-term initiative to combat HIV/AIDS on that continent. He also chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, which has taken him on travels to numerous Central and South American destinations, including Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina.  Senator Coleman is also a member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. A strong believer in the power of the free market and individual initiative, Senator Coleman is a firm and vocal advocate for common sense government regulation, low taxes, and entrepreneurial incentive. This committee assignment allows Senator Coleman to turn that philosophy into real and meaningful policy. Before his election to the Senate in 2002, Coleman spent seventeen years in Minnesota’s Attorney General’s office, prosecuting cases all over Minnesota and getting involved in a wide variety of public policy matters including drug abuse and civil rights. In 1993, as a Democrat, Senator Coleman was elected mayor of St. Paul, defeating the endorsed candidate of the Democratic Farm Labor Party. In 1996, frustrated that the Democratic Party he had been a part of from his youth had assumed the role of defenders of the status quo, he switched to the Republican Party because he felt it held the best opportunity to bring about job growth, quality education, and greater public safety. In 1997 he was reelected mayor as a Republican, with 59 percent of the vote.

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is a senior fellow at AEI and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is the founder of the Center for Health Transformation, a collaboration of leaders dedicated to the creation of a twenty-first century intelligent health system that saves lives and money, and honorary chairman of the NanoBusiness Alliance. Mr. Gingrich is a member of the Terrorism Task Force for the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Commission on National Security, an advisory board member of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and a member of the Defense Policy Board. Speaker Gingrich also serves as co-chair, along with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, of the Task Force on UN Reform created by Congress in December 2004. He is also an editorial board member of the Johns Hopkins University Journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism and a news and political analyst for the Fox News Channel. Mr. Gingrich is the author of nine books and novels, including Saving Lives & Saving Money, Contract with America (Times Books, 1994), New York Times bestseller Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America (Regnery Publishing, 2005), and most recently, Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant: The Final Victory (St. Martin’s Press, 2005). 

Richard Haass is President of the Council on Foreign Relations, a position he has held since July 2003. He is also the author or editor of eleven books on American foreign policy; his most recent book is The Opportunity (Public Affairs, May 2005). Until June 2003, Richard Haass was Director of Policy Planning for the Department of State, where he was a principal advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell on a broad range of foreign policy concerns. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate to hold the rank of ambassador, Haass served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and was the lead U.S. government official in support of the Northern Ireland peace process. For his efforts, he received the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award. Ambassador Haass has extensive additional government experience. From 1989 to 1993, he was special assistant to President George H.W. Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. In 1991, Haass was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for his contributions to the development and articulation of U.S. policy during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Previously, he served in various posts in the Departments of State (1981–85) and Defense (1979–80) and was a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate. Haass also has been vice president and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, the Sol M. Linowitz Visiting Professor of International Studies at Hamilton College, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Dick Thornburgh served as Governor of Pennsylvania, Attorney General of the United States, and Under-Secretary General of the United Nations during a public career that spanned over twenty-five years. He is currently counsel to the international law firm of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP, resident in its Washington, D.C. office. During his tenure at the United Nations, he was in charge of personnel, budget and finance matters. His 1993 report to the secretary-general on reform, restructuring, and streamlining the organization was widely praised. He has more recently served as a consultant to the United Nations and the World Bank on anti-corruption activities. He has traveled widely, visiting with governmental and business leaders in over 40 countries. During his service as Attorney General, he established strong ties with law enforcement agencies around the world to help combat drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and international white-collar crime. He served as the court-appointed examiner in the WorldCom bankruptcy proceedings, the largest ever filed, to report on wrongdoing and malfeasance that led to that company’s downfall. More recently, he was chosen by CBS News to conduct an investigation into a 60 Minutes Wednesday report on President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard. Thornburgh’s autobiography, Where the Evidence Leads, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in September 2003.

Vance Serchuk is a research fellow in foreign policy studies at AEI, where he studies international organizations and the overlap between U.S. strategic interests and development policy. Previously he was a research associate at AEI, coordinating its defense and security policy program. He has also worked as a consultant for the Project for the New American Century and the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Before joining AEI, Mr. Serchuk was a Fulbright scholar in the Russian Federation. His writings have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Weekly Standard, New York Sun, The Forward, and other publications.

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