Edward Djerejian - Life and Work

Life and Work

Djerejian is of Armenian descent. Born in New York in 1939, Djerejian graduated from Georgetown University in 1960. He served in the US Army in Korea for the next two years, and then joined the Foreign Service. He served as:

• Special assistant to Under Secretary of State George W. Ball (1962-1964)
• Political officer in Beirut (1965–1969)
• Political officer in Casablanca (1969–1972)
• Executive Assistant to Under Secretary of State Joseph Sisco (1972-1975)
• Consul General in Bordeaux (1975–1977)
• Officer in the Bureau of European Affairs (1978-1979)
• Chief of the US Embassy's political section in Moscow (1979–1981)
• Deputy Chief of the US Mission to Jordan (1981–1984)
• Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary of Foreign Affairs (1985)
• Deputy Assistant Secretary of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (1986–1988)
• Ambassador to Syria (1989–1991)
• Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1991–1993)
• United States Ambassador to Israel (1993–1994)
• Founding Director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University (August 1994–present)

Besides English, he speaks Arabic, Armenian, French, and Russian.

Djerejian, as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs in an official speech, coined the description of the purported democratic goals of Islamic radicals as "One man, one vote, one time."

Ambassador Djerejian was asked by Secretary of State Colin Powell to chair the congressionally mandated bipartisan Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World which published its report in October 2003. He was Senior Policy Advisor to the congressionally mandated bipartisan Iraq Study Group which published its report in December, 2006. He also serves on the International Advisory Council of the Brookings Doha Center. In 2010 he chaired the Baker Institute's workshop that produced the report "Getting to the Territorial Endgame of an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Settlement".

Djerejian is the author of the book Danger and Opportunity: An American Ambassador's Journey Through the Middle East (Simon & Schuster, Threshold Editions, September 2008. Paperback edition, 2009)

Ambassador Djerejian has been awarded the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State's Distinguished Honor Award, the President's Meritorious Service Award, the Anti-Defamation League’s Moral Statesman Award, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the Association of Rice Alumni 2009 Gold Medal—the highest honor bestowed by the ARA in recognition of extraordinary service to the university. In 2011, Djerejian was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers.

He is managing partner of Djerejian Global Consultancies, LLP, and is on the Board of Directors of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, as well as on several nonprofit boards. In 2011 he was named to the board of trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

He served in the United States Army as a first lieutenant in the Republic of Korea following his graduation from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Georgetown University, as well as an honorary doctorate in humanities from Georgetown and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Middlebury College.

He is married to Françoise Andree Liliane Marie (Haelters) Djerejian. They have two children, Gregory Peter Djerejian and Francesca Natalia Djerejian, and two grandchildren, Isabel Alessandra Djerejian and Sebastian Edward Djerejian.