Robert Pastor - Work History

Work History

Pastor was the U.S. national security advisor on Latin America and the Caribbean during the administration of President Jimmy Carter from 1977-81.

Pastor was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1994 to serve as the Ambassador to Panama. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved his nomination by a vote of 16-3, but Senator Jesse Helms prevented the full Senate from voting. After the Republicans won control of the Senate in November 1994, Helms became Chairman of the Committee and refused to permit a vote on Pastor, who then requested that President Clinton withdraw his nomination. The main reason that Helms opposed the nomination was that he held Pastor accountable for negotiating the Panama Canal Treaties.

He served as a Senior Fellow at the Carter Center, where he established the programs on Latin America and the Caribbean, democracy and election-monitoring, and Chinese village elections. He was also Goodrich C. White Professor of Political Science at Emory University.

Pastor was Vice President of International Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. from September 2002-December 2007. During his time at American, he helped establish the American University of Nigeria, transformed and expanded the study abroad program and introduced the "Abroad at AU" program, bringing students from around the world to study for a semester or year at AU. He also founded and heads the university's Center for Democracy and Election Management, and the Center for North American Studies and was Executive Director of the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform.

Pastor was Vice Chair of the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, which is sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in association with the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales) and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.