The Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture
The Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture, inaugurated in 1969, was named for a charter member of the Council who served as its President from 1944 to 1946 and as its Chairman from 1946 to 1953. This lecture is given by a distinguished foreign official who is invited to address Council members on a topic of major international significance. The lectures are made possible through the generosity of the Leffingwell family and the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. The endowment for the lectureship was later strengthened through the generosity of Thomas Leffingwell Pulling and his son Edward Leffingwell Pulling.
Recent Leffingwell Lectures:
General Meeting
Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture: The Diplomacy of Climate Change
Speaker: William Hague, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Member of Parliament for Richmond, United Kingdom
Presider: Christine Todd Whitman, President, Whitman Strategy Group LLC; Former Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
September 27, 2010
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General Meeting
Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture: A Conversation with Bertie Ahern
Speaker: Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister, Republic of Ireland
Presider: Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
March 14, 2007
General Meeting
Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture: Turkish Foreign Policy in the 21st Century: Stability Creating Power for Global Contribution
Speaker: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister, Republic of Turkey
Presider: Joan E. Spero, President, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
September 13, 2005
General Meeting
A Meeting with Manmohan Singh
Presider: Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
Speaker: Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister, Republic of India
September 24, 2004
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Meeting with President Saakashvili
Presider: David Remnick, Editor, The New Yorker
Speaker: Mikhail Saakashvili, President, Republic of Georgia
February 26, 2004
General Meeting
The Three Key Challenges Facing the EU: The Reality of the Euro, Enlargement from the East, and Institutional Reforms
Presider: William J. McDonough, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Speaker: Romano Prodi, President, European Commission
January 11, 2002
General Meeting
A Breakfast with Ahmed Rashid
Presider: Michael J. Elliott, Editor-at-Large, Time Magazine
Speaker: Ahmed Rashid, Author, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
December 19, 2001
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A Conversation with Ehud Barak
Presider: Leslie H. Gelb, President, Council on Foreign Relations
Speaker: Ehud Barak, Prime Minister, Israel
January 8, 2001
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European Defense: The Only Thing to Fear is Fear Itself
Presider: Robert E. Hunter, Senior Adviser, RAND Corporation
Speaker: Lord George Robertson, Secretary-General, NATO
April 3, 2000
General Meeting
The Asian Financial Crisis
Presider: Maurice R. Greenberg, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, American International Group; Vice Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations
Speaker: Lee Kuan Yew, Senior Minister, Republic of Singapore
October 13, 1998
General Meeting
Security Challenges in the Balkans and the Aegean
Presider: Matthew Nimetz, Partner,, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
Speaker: Theodoros G. Pangalos, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Greece
March 27, 1998
General Meeting
Expansion of NATO and the European Union: A British Perspective
Presider: Richard C. Holbrooke
Speaker: Malcolm Rifkind, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, United Kingdom
September 27, 1996
