Interviewing Hillary at Harvard

Secretary Clinton Discusses Challenges in Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe During Harvard Visit

On March 3, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Harvard University at the invitation of Professors Nicholas Burns (HKS), Robert Mnookin (HLS), and James Sebenius (HBS) in one of her first public engagements since last autumn.

While on campus, she met with Harvard undergraduates during a morning event organized by Harvard’s Institute of Politics. The remainder of her visit was dedicated to interviews and a luncheon as part of Harvard’s American Secretaries of State Project. Project faculty chairs Burns, Mnookin, and Sebenius interviewed Secretary Clinton at Loeb House where they discussed the challenges the United States faces in Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.

The American Secretaries of State Project is a joint initiative of the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and Harvard Business School. Professors Burns, Mnookin and Sebenius previously interviewed former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice about the most consequential negotiations they conducted while serving in the nation’s highest foreign policy office. They plan to interview Secretary John Kerry in the autumn of 2017 at Harvard.

Currently, the professors are completing a book, with Sebenius as lead author, entitled Kissinger the Negotiator: Lessons from Dealmaking at the Highest Level (forthcoming, HarperCollins). In addition, they plan to publish a comprehensive book about the lessons learned from their interviews with the former Secretaries. They also will create teaching case studies for Harvard and will produce a series of documentary films focused on their interviews and research.

For more information about the American Secretaries of State Project, please visit belfercenter.org/american-secretaries-state