Bill Burns served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a member of the President’s Cabinet from 2021 until 2025. He was a career diplomat for three and a half decades, ambassador to Russia and Jordan, and only the second serving career diplomat to become Deputy Secretary of State. He was President of the Carnegie Endowment for international Peace from 2015 until 2021, and is the author of two books, including the bestselling The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for its Renewal.
