Thomas Pickering

Thomas "Tom" Pickering is a retired Foreign Service Officer, who held the highest personal rank of Career Ambassador, and the highest career post of Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. He is now is Vice Chairman of Hills & Company, starting in 2006 after working as Senior Vice President International Relations for the Boeing Company on July 1, 2006, joining after his Foreign Service retirement in 2001.

In March 2009, he signed a letter of support for Chas Freeman's failed nomination as head of the National Intelligence Council.

He rose to Undersecretary in 1997. In his career, he was U.S. Ambassador to Russia, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, and Jrdan. From 1989 to 1992, he was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations/ He also served as Executive Secretary of the Department of State and Special Assistant to Secretaries William ]Rogers and Henry ] Kissinger.

From 1959 to 1961, he served in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and from 1962 to 1964 in Geneva as political adviser to the U.S. Delegation to the 18-Nation Disarmament Conference.

In 1953, he received a bachelor's degree, cum laude, with high honors in history, from Bowdoin College In 1954, he received a master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Melbourne in Australia, and received a second master's degree in 1956. In 1984, he was awarded an honorary doctor-in-laws degree from Bowdoin College, and has received similar honors from 12 other universities.

He is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations. He speaks French, Spanish, Swahili, Arabic and Hebrew.