Brandon Grove
Born
in Chicago, he holds degrees from Bard College and the Woodrow Wilson School
at Princeton University. As an amphibious boat group commander in the U.S. Navy,
he served to the rank of Lieutenant. Before joining the U.S. Foreign Service
in 1959, he worked on the staff of Congressman Chester Bowles, of Connecticut.
His diplomatic assignments took him to posts in Africa, India, East and West
Berlin, and Jerusalem, where he was consul general during the war with Lebanon.
In 1974, he became the first American diplomat accredited to East Germany, where
he established the American embassy in Berlin. During 1984-87, he served as
President Reagan’s ambassador to Zaire.
Among assignments in Washington, he has twice filled positions managing U.S.
relations with Panama, Central America, and the Caribbean: first as director
of the Office of Panamanian Affairs as the 1903 Treaty with Panama was being
renegotiated; and later as deputy assistant secretary of state for Inter-American
Affairs. He served on the policy planning staffs of secretaries of state Henry
Kissinger and Warren Christopher.
Ambassador Grove, during 1988-92, was director of the State Department’s
Foreign Service Institute, responsible for foreign affairs training throughout
the government. He coordinated the design and construction of its permanent
facility at Arlington Hall, Virginia.
Brandon Grove was chairman of the editorial board of The American Foreign Service
Journal during 1994-96. He has written professional articles, and is the author
of an essay on Zaire in Oxford University’s Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign
Relations. In 2000, Bard College awarded him its John Dewey Medal for Distinguished
Public Service. He has three times received the President’s Meritorious
Service Award, and is listed in Who’s Who in America as well as in Who’s
Who in the World.
Brandon Grove serves on the boards of directors of the American Academy of Diplomacy,
the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and Georgetown University’s
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. He is a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations, and the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs. At Hamilton College,
Grove was the Sol M. Linowitz Professor of International Affairs, teaching a
course on diplomacy in practice.
The University of Missouri Press published his acclaimed autobiography, BEHIND
EMBASSY WALLS: The Life and Times of an American Diplomat, in 2005.
