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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.
January 5, 2009
Interview
Mohammad Yaghi, a veteran Palestinian political expert, says the current fighting in the Gaza Strip wasn't necessary and proposes that the incoming Obama administration consider calling together Arab states and Israel to overcome Hamas' refusal to negotiate with Israel.
See more in Middle East, Israel, Palestinian Authority, International Peace and Security
December 29, 2008
Interview
Steven A. Cook, CFR's leading Middle East expert, says the latest attacks by Israel against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip were "not surprising" given the renewed rocket attacks on southern Israel from the Gaza, and the political and military environments in Israel.
See more in Israel, Palestinian Authority
December 29, 2008
Transcript
A Council on Foreign Relations conference call.
See more in Israel, Wars and Warfare
December 23, 2008
Interview
European affairs analyst William Drozdiak says Barack Obama's administration will lead Washington to demand from Europe more troops for Afghanistan, a coordinated economic stimulus package, and help resettling Guantanamo detainees.
See more in Europe/Russia, Presidency
December 19, 2008
Interview
As President George W. Bush enters his final month in office, Leslie H. Gelb, a former high-ranking national security official who served ten years as CFR's president, assesses the Bush administration's legacy. It "drained and lessened American power in the world," he says, and as a result U.S. credibility in the world "was sorely damaged."
See more in United States, Presidency
December 18, 2008
Interview
Matthew C. Waxman, a former Pentagon official overseeing detainee affairs, says the controversial camp at Guantanamo Bay should be closed but that doing so will raise several key questions about legal process and the fate of the most dangerous detainees.
See more in United States, International Law, Rule of Law
December 17, 2008
Interview
Gareth Porter, a veteran journalist and historian just returned from Iran, says early optimism that President-elect Barack Obama would open a new dialogue with Iran has dissipated.
December 12, 2008
Interview
Elizabeth Economy, CFR's director of Asian Studies, says that China's economy is now "losing steam very quickly" and that the "global economic crisis is going to make it much harder for China to address its own domestic economic problems."
See more in China, Economics, Financial Crises
December 10, 2008
Interview
Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institution says that he is concerned that the U.S. and political establishment" increasingly feels that Iraq is heading toward victory" even though "Iraq still is a very troubled country."
See more in Iraq, National Security and Defense, Nation Building
December 5, 2008
Interview
Scott Lasensky, a Middle East expert, says the new U.S. administration should listen carefully to voices from the Middle East and that President Barack Obama's first speeches will be scrutinized for signals on his approach.
See more in Israel, Palestinian Authority, International Peace and Security
November 25, 2008
Interview
Robert E. Hunter, who was U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Clinton administration, says he does not expect NATO foreign ministers to enlarge the alliance to include Georgia or Ukraine at the next meeting in December.
See more in Caucasus, Russian Fed., Ukraine, NATO
November 19, 2008
Interview
Barnett R. Rubin, a leading expert on Afghanistan, says to end the current crisis there the United States should reach out to other parties such as Pakistan, Russia, India, and Iran, as well as to encourage dialogue between Afghan government emissaries and Taliban insurgents who are not tied to al-Qaeda.
See more in Afghanistan, Defense Strategy
November 12, 2008
Interview
President-elect Barack Obama assembles his national security team at a time when responsibility for foreign policymaking has shifted increasingly to the White House, says Carnegie Endowment scholar David Rothkopf.
See more in United States, U.S. Election 2008
November 5, 2008
Interview
CFR President Richard N. Haass, who worked on previous presidential transitions, says that given the current world situation, he believes the first priority for President-elect Barack Obama lies in "the financial and economic side," and that "the near-term foreign policy challenges are probably Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, [and] a little bit of Iraq."
See more in United States, U.S. Election 2008
October 30, 2008
Interview
Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, a former advisor to Iran's nuclear negotiating team, says the U.S. cross-border incursion from Iraq into Syria has Tehran worried about the implications for its own territory.
See more in Iran, Syria, National Security and Defense
October 24, 2008
Interview
Daniel Markey, a former State Department specialist on South Asia, says Pakistan "is going through another series of really tough times" brought on by the economic downturn that has hit the country, and by the continuing problems fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
See more in Pakistan, Economics
October 23, 2008
Interview
Veteran New York Times correspondent John F. Burns discusses the declining security situation in Afghanistan and what he says are the dim prospects for fruitful peace talks between the Taliban and Karzai government.
See more in Afghanistan, Defense Strategy, Wars and Warfare
October 22, 2008
Interview
F. Gregory Gause III, a leading expert on Iraq and Saudi Arabia, says a lack of leadership among Iraq's Shiite politicians is holding up approval of a U.S.-Iraqi security pact. He also talks about new Saudi efforts to engage the Taliban in a peace parley.
See more in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Nation Building, Diplomacy
October 14, 2008
Interview
Gary Samore, who was active in nuclear diplomacy with North Korea in the Clinton administration, says the latest agreement between the United States and North Korea is only a "very modest step forward" because it allows the next administration to proceed further in seeking a nuclear-disarmed North Korea.
See more in North Korea, Arms Control and Disarmament, State Sponsors of Terrorism
October 10, 2008
Interview
Ashley J. Tellis, an expert on South Asia, foresees an improvement across the board in U.S.-India relations as a result of the U.S.-India nuclear deal, but warns that only careful diplomacy can insulate it from future complications.
See more in United States, India, Energy, Energy Security, Proliferation
In The Closing of the American Border, Edward Alden goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the Bush administration’s struggle to balance security and openness in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.
Complete list of CFR Books.
This report lays out a thoughtful agenda for U.S. policy toward the Democratic Republic of Congo, arguing that what happens there should matter to the United States--for humanitarian reasons as well as economic and strategic ones.
In this report, CFR Senior Fellow Michael A. Levi analyzes the potential use of deterrence in preventing terrorist groups from acquiring nuclear weapons and recommends a new approach to U.S. declaratory policy, as well as ways to improve U.S. capabilities to determine the sources of terrorist attacks.
Complete list of Council Special Reports.
For more information on the David Rockefeller Studies Program, contact:
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Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
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Geoeconomic Studies, Deputy Director of Studies, and Paul A. Volcker Senior
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Deputy Director of Studies Administration
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