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Consulting Editor
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E-mail: bgwertzman@cfr.org
Bernard Gwertzman has spent his entire career in journalism, starting as a reporter for the Washington Star in Washington, DC, in 1960. There he covered the Cold War as a specialist on Communist affairs. In late 1968, he was hired by the New York Times and sent to Moscow as its bureau chief from 1969-71, where he covered the tensions along the Soviet-Chinese border and the first steps toward detente.
In 1971, Gwertzman returned to Washington, where he worked for the next sixteen years covering U.S. foreign policy for the Times. He traveled throughout the Middle East with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, where he charted the first Arab-Israeli accords, leading up to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel brokered by President Carter in 1979. In that period, he also wrote extensively on the first arms control accords between the United States and Russia.
With the advent of President Reagan to the White House in 1981, he covered the chill in Soviet-American relations, followed by the warming of the Gorbachev-Reagan ties. In 1987, Gwertzman was invited to New York to become the deputy foreign editor of the Times, and in 1989, he became foreign editor. During his tenure as foreign editor, he directed the Times' coverage of the collapse of the Soviet empire, the Persian Gulf war, the U.S. invasion of Panama, the first Israeli agreement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and the outbreak of the Bosnian war. In the six years Mr. Gwertzman was at the helm, the New York Times won four Pulitzer Prizes for international coverage.
When the Times began its electronic division in the summer of 1995, Mr. Gwertzman shifted to new media. He was editor-in-chief of the New York Times on the web from 1996 until he retired from the Times in 2002. He has been consulting editor for cfr.org since October 2002. Gwertzman, who has an AB and MA from Harvard, is the co-author with Haynes Johnson of Fulbright: the Dissenter, and with Michael Kaufman on three anthologies on the fall of Communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union. He lives in Riverdale, NY, with his wife Marie-Jeanne. He has two married sons, James and Michael.
November 5, 2009
Podcast
CFR's Bernard Gwertzman and Serge Schmemann of the International Herald Tribune discuss their role in reporting the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago and the enduring significance of that day.
See more in Germany, Democracy and Human Rights
November 3, 2009
Interview
Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad says the Obama administration must determine how to use its leverage to help shape a competent government in Kabul.
See more in Afghanistan, Democracy and Human Rights, Elections, U.S. Strategy and Politics
October 30, 2009
Interview
Christopher Sabatini, a Latin America expert, says the apparent resolution of the Honduran political crisis--triggered in part by concerns over Hugo Chavez's influence--marks a triumph for Obama administration diplomacy.
See more in Central America, Elections, Diplomacy
October 29, 2009
Interview
Expert Rashid Khalidi says it is crucial for Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah to reconcile to effectively negotiate a two-state solution with Israel or face a troubling status quo.
See more in Israel, Palestinian Authority
October 26, 2009
Interview
Asia policy expert Michael Green says the Obama administration is taking a cautious approach to any bilateral talks on North Korea's denuclearization, noting Pyongyang's backsliding after the Bush administration adopted a softer tone.
See more in North Korea, Diplomacy, Proliferation
October 22, 2009
Interview
Expert David Albright, says the preliminary agreement by which Iran will ship its low-enriched uranium to Russia for further processing "allows time for negotiations" to get Iran to freeze its nuclear program but warns Iran might still block the implementation of the plan.
See more in Iran, Arms Control and Disarmament, Weapons of Mass Destruction
October 19, 2009
Interview
Middle East expert Joost Hiltermann says Iraq appears headed for an uncertain, and potentially violent, political season with no clear dominant faction emerging ahead of January parliamentary elections.
October 16, 2009
Interview
CFR's Stephen R. Sestanovich says the Obama administration believes it has put relations with Russia on "a more practical" basis but convergence remains elusive on how to address Iran's nuclear program.
See more in Russian Fed., Diplomacy, U.S. Strategy and Politics
October 8, 2009
Interview
The coordinator of President Barack Obama's original Afghan policy, Bruce Riedel, says political and security changes in Afghanistan and "sticker shock" in Washington have contributed to delays in carrying out a new U.S. military strategy.
See more in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Defense Strategy
October 5, 2009
Interview
Moves toward the approval of the Lisbon Treaty could create a stronger European partner for Washington in global affairs, says CFR's Charles Kupchan. But he cites a competing trend toward stronger nation-states in Europe.
See more in EU, International Organizations
October 2, 2009
Interview
Following the high-level U.S.-Iran talks, Iran expert John Limbert says it is possible that the way is being cleared for an eventual long-term dialogue between the two nations but nonetheless urges caution in elevating expectations.
See more in Iran, Diplomacy, Proliferation
September 28, 2009
Interview
The right-of-center Free Democrats are big winners in Germany's elections and, in coalition with Christian Democrats, will likely support pro-U.S. policies on Afghanistan and Iran, says expert William M. Drozdiak.
See more in Germany, U.S. Strategy and Politics
September 25, 2009
Interview
CFR's Michael Levi says the disclosure of a clandestine uranium enrichment plant in Iran heightens suspicions the country is seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and raises new pressure for tougher sanctions.
See more in Iran, Proliferation
September 24, 2009
Interview
President Barack Obama's week of summitry indicates that, increasingly, the most vexing global problems are unlikely to be solved by treaties, says CFR President Richard N. Haass. An informal approach in which nations coordinate strategies could be more productive, he says.
See more in United States, International Organizations, U.S. Strategy and Politics
September 23, 2009
Interview
CFR's Steven A. Cook says it was significant that President Barack Obama was pressing for "permanent status negotiations" between Israel and Palestine and not another interim accord, but adds that "the conditions on the ground don't lend themselves to progress."
See more in Israel, Public Diplomacy
September 22, 2009
Audio
Listen to Ray Takeyh, CFR's senior fellow for middle eastern studies, and James Lindsay, CFR's director of studies, discuss nuclear proliferation and Iran's nuclear program in advance of high-level talks at the United Nations.
See more in Iran, International Organizations, Proliferation
September 22, 2009
Transcript
Ray Takeyh and James M. Lindsay discuss Iran and nonproliferation.
See more in Iran, Proliferation
September 14, 2009
Interview
Thomas J. Miller, a veteran U.S. diplomat, says President Barack Obama should highlight the value of multilateral diplomacy and the tension between north and south Sudan in his UN General Assembly speech on September 23.
See more in United States, International Organizations, Diplomacy
September 8, 2009
Interview
Amid Tehran's fresh assertions of its right to pursue uranium enrichment, CFR's Ray Takeyh says the widening split in Iran's political system casts greater doubt on prospects for nuclear talks with the West.
See more in Iran, Weapons of Mass Destruction, U.S. Strategy and Politics
September 3, 2009
Interview
Korea expert Victor D. Cha says effective implementation of the UN sanctions imposed on Pyongyang in June prompted recent conciliatory gestures from the regime. He says the United States might resume bilateral talks with North Korea in addition to pursuing multilateral discussions on Pyongyang's nuclear program.
See more in North Korea, Diplomacy, Proliferation, U.S. Strategy and Politics
Explore the international finance regime with a new interactive from CFR's program on International Institutions and Global Governance.
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
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