Foreign Affairs Council founder to speak
Woodrow Wilson Scholar Thomas Boyatt, former U.S. ambassador and current founder and chief executive officer of the Foreign Affairs Council, will discuss “The Hundred Years War of the 20th Century” at a public lecture at 7 p.m. today in Washington & Jefferson College’s Howard J. Burnett Center’s Yost Auditorium.
Boyatt will be in residence at W&J all week and speak to individual classes and meet informally with students and faculty groups.
In discussing the series of conflicts between England and France in the 14th and 15th centuries, Boyatt will expand on most historical thinking, viewing the almost constant international conflicts of the 20th century not as separate wars, but as enormous battles in a modern 100-years war.
Boyatt entered the Foreign Service in 1959, serving as vice consul in Antofagasta, Chile; economic officer at the American Embassy in Luxembourg; and political counselor at the Embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus. In 1969, he received the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award for risking his life to save passengers and negotiating their release in Syria during the 1969 hijacking of a plane – on which he was a passenger – by Palestinian guerrillas.
After retiring from the Foreign Service, Boyatt became vice president of Sears World Trade, then president of U.S. Defense Systems.
He served as a trustee of Princeton University and on advisory boards at Princeton, the University of Kentucky,and Georgetown University. He lectures frequently in the United States and abroad.