Speaker biography
Radosław “Radek” Sikorski, a native of Bydgoszcz, Poland, was a chairman of the Student Strike Committee during the Solidarity strikes in Bydgoszcz in March 1981. From 1981 to 1989, Mr. Sikorski was a political refugee in Great Britain. From 1986 to 1989, he covered the wars in Afghanistan and Angola as a freelance reporter.
In 1992, as deputy minister of national defense, Mr. Sikorski was involved in efforts to bring Poland into NATO. From 1998 to 2001, he was an undersecretary of state at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and chairman of the Council of the Foundation for Assistance to Poles in the East.
From 2002 to 2005, Mr. Sikorski was a resident fellow and executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative at AEI. While at the Institute, he organized a series of international conferences on topics such as United Nations reform, the future of NATO, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Solidarity movement. As an expert on transatlantic relations, he has testified before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee.
In 2005, Mr. Sikorski was elected to the Polish senate, running on the Law and Justice party list in Bydgoszcz. From October 2005 to February 2007, he served as minister of national defense. In December 2005, he was appointed by the president of Poland to serve on the National Security Council. In October 2007, he was elected to the Sejm as a Civic Platform party candidate.
Mr. Sikorski’s books, which have been published in several languages, include Dust of the Saints: A Journey to Herat in Time of War (Paragon House, 1990), and The Polish House: An Intimate History of Poland (Phoenix, 1998). He has written for Rzeczpospolita, National Review, The Spectator, the Wall Street Journal, and the Sunday Telegraph. He has commented on Polish and transatlantic affairs on Poland’s TVN 24, CNN, Fox News, BBC World, and Voice of America. He also created the TVP program Wywiad Miesiąca (Interview of the Month), for which he interviewed Margaret Thatcher, Lech Wałesa, Vaclav Klaus, Otto von Habsburg, Henry Kissinger, Qian Qichen, and others.
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