Speaker biographies

John R. Bolton is a senior fellow at AEI, where he studies foreign policy and international organizations. Ambassador Bolton served as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006. From May 2001 to May 2005, he was the under secretary of state for arms control and international security. Prior to this, Ambassador Bolton was the senior vice president of AEI and also held a number of positions in public service, including assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, 1989–93; assistant attorney general, 1985–89; assistant administrator for program and policy coordination, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 1982–83; and USAID general counsel, 1981–82. From 1983 to 1985, Ambassador Bolton was an associate and then member of Covington & Burling, LLP. He is the author of Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad (Simon and Schuster, 2007).

Eliot Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies and the founding director of the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. From April 2007 to January 2009, he held an appointment as counselor of the U.S. Department of State, where he was a special adviser on issues of war and peace to the secretary of state and the bureaus. Previously, he was a professor at Harvard University and the U.S. Naval War College. Mr. Cohen joined the Policy Planning Staff of the Office of the Secretary of Defense  in 1990. Prior to his work at the Department of State, he was a longstanding member of the Defense Policy Advisory Board and of the National Security Advisory Panel for the National Intelligence Council. His most recent book is Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (Free Press, 2002), and he received the U.S. Air Force’s decoration for exceptional civilian service for his efforts in directing and editing The Gulf War Air Power Survey, an official study of air power in the 1991 war with Iraq.

Christopher DeMuth is the D.C. Searle Senior Fellow at AEI and was president from December 1986 through December 2009. He was previously the managing director of Lexecon Inc., a law-and-economics consulting firm; the editor and publisher of Regulation magazine; the administrator for regulatory affairs at the Office of Management and Budget and executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief in the Reagan administration; a lecturer and director of regulatory studies at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; an attorney with the Consolidated Rail Corporation and with the law firm of Sidley & Austin; and a staff assistant to President Richard M. Nixon. Currently, he is a director of the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company and two family firms. Mr. DeMuth’s essays have appeared in The American Enterprise, Harvard Law Review, Yale Journal of Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and other publications.

Steven F. Hayward is the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Environmental Studies at AEI and a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. He is also an adjunct fellow of the John Ashbrook Center and a former Bradley Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Mr. Hayward studies the presidency, law, political economy, and the environment. He is author of the annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, published jointly by the AEI Press and the Pacific Research Institute. Mr. Hayward contributes to AEI’s Environmental Policy Outlook series and has authored numerous books, including Greatness (Crown, 2005), The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964–1980 (Crown, 2001), and Churchill on Leadership: Executive Success in the Face of Adversity (Crown, 1998). He is the coauthor of Air Quality in America: A Dose of Reality on Air Pollution Levels, Trends, and Health Risks (AEI Press, 2008). Mr. Hayward has also had articles published in National Review, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Reason, The Weekly Standard, Policy Review, and the Chicago Tribune.

Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies at AEI, where he codirects the Institute’s program on financial market deregulation. From June 1981 to January 1985, Mr. Wallison was general counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan administration’s proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. He also served as general counsel to the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee and participated in the Treasury Department’s efforts to deal with the debt held by less-developed countries. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan.  During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan. Between 1972 and 1976, he served first as special assistant to Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller when he was vice president of the United States. He is the author of numerous books on the financial services industry as well as Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency (Westview Press, 2002) and the forthcoming Better Parties, Better Government: A Realistic Proposal for Campaign Finance Reform (AEI Press, April 2009).

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