Governmental Career
In 1957, Eagleburger joined the United States Foreign Service, and served in various posts in embassies, consulates, and the Department of State. From 1961 to 1965 he served as a staffer at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
Starting in 1969, he served in the Nixon administration as an assistant to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. He stayed in this appointment until 1971; thereafter he took on several positions, including advisor to the U.S. Mission to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, and, following Kissinger's appointment as Secretary of State, a number of additional posts in the State Department.
Following Nixon's resignation, he briefly left government service, but was soon appointed as ambassador to Yugoslavia by President Jimmy Carter, a post he held from 1977 to 1980.
In 1982, Reagan appointed him as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs (the State Department's third-ranking position), a position he held for several years. He then became president of Kissinger Associates, a consultancy firm which provided firms with advice on international politics. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush appointed him Deputy Secretary of State (the Department's second-ranking position); he also served as the President's primary advisor for affairs relating to the quickly disintegrating Yugoslavia. On August 23, 1992, James Baker resigned as Secretary of State (to head up Bush's unsuccessful re-election campaign), and Eagleburger served as Acting Secretary of State until Bush gave him a recess appointment for the remainder of the Bush administration.
His period as advisor for Yugoslavian affairs from 1989 to 1992 was highly controversial. He gained a reputation for being a strong Serbian partisan, most controversially denying that Serbian paramilitaries and the Yugoslav National Army had committed atrocities in the breakaway republic of Croatia. This perceived partisanship led the European press to dub him Lawrence of Serbia (a reference to Lawrence of Arabia).
In 1991, President Bush awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal. He was a member of the board of directors of the International Republican Institute.
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