Thomas Reeve "Tom" Pickering (born November 5 1931), is a retired United States ambassador. He served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1989 to 1992.

Biography

Born in Orange, New Jersey, he is the son of Hamilton Reeve Pickering, and Sarah Chasteney Pickering. Pickering graduated from Rutherford High School in Rutherford, New Jersey.^[1] He graduated cum laude from Bowdoin College and is a member of Theta Delta Chi and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned a Master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Upon graduation from Tufts, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and attended the University of Melbourne in Australia. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations Board of Directors and the Advisory Board of Eurasia Group, the political risk consultancy. He is fluent in the Arabic, French, Hebrew, Spanish, and Swahili languages.

From 1997 to 2001, he served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the number three position at the State Department. Following the resignation of Secretary of State Warren Christopher in 1996, Pickering was reportedly a top contender for the post, but was ultimately passed over in favor of then-UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright. http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/press/usia/archive/november/us21121.htm.

His four decade long career in Foreign Service included ambassadorships in Russia (1993?1996), India (1992?1993), Israel (1985?1988), El Salvador (1983?1985), Nigeria (1981?1983), and Jordan (1974?1978). From 1978 to 1981, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. Earlier in his career, he was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Tanzania and later as Special Assistant to Secretaries of State William P. Rogers and Henry Kissinger. He holds the distinction of Career Ambassador, the highest in the U.S. Foreign Service.http://www.cfr.org/bios/299/thomas_r_pickering.html

Following his retirement from the Foreign Service in 2001, he served as Senior Vice President for International Relations at Boeing until 2006. Currently, he is affiliated with the International Crisis Group, and overses their international actions as a co-chair. In addition, he is Chairman of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Global Panel Foundation based in Berlin and Prague.

Following his retirement, the U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Fellowship Program was renamed the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship Program to honor Pickering. Fellowships are funded by the U.S. Department of State, and administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (WWNFF). ^[2]

He serves on the board of directors for the American Iranian Council, an organization devoted to the normalization of relations between Iran and America.http://www.american-iranian.org

He is currently a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee.http://www.constitutionproject.org/libertyandsecurity/members.cfm?categoryId=3

He lives in Arlington County, Virginia with his wife, the former Alice Jean Stover, whom he married in 1955, and has two children, Timothy and Margaret.

References

• Archived State Department Biography
• U.S. State Department Archives (People)