During his long and illustrious career in government, Amb. Thomas Pickering served as the U.S. Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He also served as Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations in New York, as Executive Secretary of the Department of State, and as Special Assistant to Secretaries William P. Rogers and Henry A. Kissinger.
In July 2006, Thomas Pickering retired as Senior Vice President for International Relations and a member of the Executive Council of The Boeing Company. He was responsible for The Boeing Company's relations with foreign governments and the company's globalization. Before joining the State Department, he was president of the Eurasia Foundation, a Washington-based organization that provides small grants and loans to the states of the former Soviet Union.
Pickering entered the U.S. Navy on active duty from 1956 to 1959, and later served in the Naval Reserve to the grade of Lieutenant Commander. Between 1959 and 1961, he served in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, from 1962 to 1964, he was stationed in Geneva as political adviser to the U.S. Delegation to the 18-Nation Disarmament Conference.
Pickering won the Distinguished Presidential Award and the Department of State’s highest award – the Distinguished Service Award. He is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations. Pickering received a bachelor's degree, cum laude, with high honors in history, from Bowdoin College and received his 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 there in 1956.
