“Hand-Off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama,” edited by Stephen Hadley, former U.S. national security advisor, provides a detailed look at the foreign policy that the George W. Bush administration turned over to President Barack Obama via a set of newly declassified Transition Memoranda. The book also includes a series of fascinating, present-day postscripts written by National Security Council experts who advised President Bush. The postscripts take a self-critical look at the Bush foreign policy legacy as well as how subsequent administrations have dealt with the same vexing agenda of threats and opportunities — China, Russia, Iran, the Middle East, terrorism, proliferation, cyber, pandemics and climate change — an agenda that is still with us today.
At this event, Hadley discussed the book and the invaluable lessons of the Bush administration’s foreign policy with Ambassador David M. Satterfield, director of the Baker Institute.
Copies of the book were available for purchase courtesy of Brazos Bookstore.
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Agenda
5:30 pm — Reception
6:00 pm — Presentation
7:00 pm — Book signing
Registration
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Featured Speaker
Stephen Hadley, J.D., completed four years as the assistant to the president for National Security Affairs on January 20, 2009. In that capacity he was the principal White House foreign policy adviser to then President George W. Bush, directed the National Security Council staff, and ran the interagency national security policy development and execution process.
From January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2005, Hadley was the assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser, serving under then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. In addition to covering the full range of national security issues, he had special responsibilities in several specific areas including U.S. relations with Russia, the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, developing a strategic relationship with India and ballistic missile defense.
From 1993 to 2001, Hadley was both a partner in the Washington D.C. law firm of Shea & Gardner (now part of Goodwin Proctor) and a principal in The Scowcroft Group (a strategic consulting firm headed by former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft). In his law practice, Hadley was administrative partner of the firm. He represented a range of corporate clients in transactional matters and in certain of the international aspects of their business — including export controls, foreign investment in U.S. national security companies and the national security responsibilities of U.S. information technology companies. In his consulting practice, Hadley represented U.S. corporate clients seeking to invest and do business overseas.
From 1989 to 1993, Hadley served as the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy under then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. Hadley represented the Defense Department on arms control matters, including negotiations with the Soviet Union and then Russia, on matters involving NATO and Western Europe, on ballistic missile defense, and on export and technology control matters.
Prior to this position, Hadley alternated between government service and law practice with Shea & Gardner. He was counsel to the Tower Commission in 1987, as it investigated U.S. arms sales to Iran, and served on the National Security Council under President Ford from 1974 to 1977.
During his professional career, Hadley has served on a number of corporate and advisory boards, including: the National Security Advisory Panel to the Director of Central Intelligence, the Department of Defense Policy Board, the Board of Directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace, as a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and as a trustee of ANSER (Analytical Services, Inc.), a public service research corporation.
Hadley graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1969. In 1972, he received his juris doctor degree from Yale Law School, where he was Note and Comment editor of the Yale Law Journal.