William J. Burns (diplomat)

thesis, Economic Aid and American Policy toward Egypt, 1955–1981, was completed in 1985.

While at Oxford, Burns was also a member of the men's basketball team.

William Joseph Burns (born April 4, 1956) is an American diplomat who has served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Biden administration since March 19, 2021.

Burns was born at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1956.

Burns attended Trinity High School in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, where he graduated valedictorian in 1973.

He then studied history at La Salle University and graduated with honors in 1978.

He was then awarded a Marshall Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford, becoming La Salle's first Marshall Scholar.

He earned M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees in international relations from St. John's College, Oxford.

His D.Phil.

Burns entered the Foreign Service in 1982 and served as deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2014.

He is the son of Peggy Cassady and William F. Burns, who was a United States Army major general, a deputy assistant secretary of state for arms control, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1988–1989 in the Ronald Reagan administration, in addition to his service as the first U.S. special envoy to denuclearization negotiations with former Soviet countries under the legislation sponsored by U.S. senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar.

Burns served as ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs from 2001 to 2005, ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008 and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2008 to 2011.

In January 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Burns to become CIA director.

He was unanimously confirmed by voice vote in the Senate on March 18, 2021, sworn in officially as director on March 19, as well as ceremonially sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on March 23.

In July 2023, Biden elevated Burns to a position in his cabinet, a largely symbolic action.

He was ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from 2001 to 2005, and ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001.

He had also been Executive Secretary of the State Department and special assistant to secretaries of state Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, minister-counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, acting director and principal deputy director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, as well as special assistant to the president and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the United States National Security Council.

A leaked diplomatic cable that Burns signed as ambassador to Russia in August 2006 provided a detailed eyewitness account of the lavish wedding organized in Makhachkala by Russian State Duma member and Dagestan Oil Company chief Gadzhi Makhachev for his son.

The wedding lasted for two days; its attendees included Chechnya's Ramzan Kadyrov.

An FSB colonel sitting next to the cable's authors tried to add "cognac" to their wine until an FSB general told him to stop.

He had served as under secretary for political affairs from 2008 to 2011.

In 2008, Burns was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate as a career ambassador, the highest rank in the U.S. Foreign Service, equivalent to a four-star general officer in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Promotions to the rank are rare.

In 2008, Burns wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests."

Burns had met secretly with Iranian officials as early as 2008, when President George W. Bush dispatched him to do so.

He previously served as U.S. deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2014; in 2009 he served as acting secretary of state for a day, prior to the confirmation of Hillary Clinton.

In June 2013, Andrew Kuchins remarked about Burns's stint in Moscow, "It was a period when the relationship was deteriorating very significantly, but he was personally respected by Russian authorities as a consummate professional diplomat."

In 2013, Burns and Jake Sullivan led the secret bilateral channel with Iran that led to the interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 and ultimately the Iran nuclear deal.

Burns was reported to be "in the driver's seat" of the American negotiating team for the interim agreement.

In a piece published in The Atlantic in April 2013, Nicholas Kralev praised him as the "secret diplomatic weapon" deployed against "some of the thorniest foreign policy challenges of the US."

Burns retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after a 32-year career.

From 2014 to 2021, he served as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Burns retired from the Foreign Service in 2014, later becoming president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In 2015, Burns told Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times that the cable had been "largely written by his colleagues," with Rachman remarking that the telegram had gained a reputation of "a minor classic of comic writing, its tone very much not what one might expect of a diplomatic cable."

In November 2020, as Burns's name was being cited by press as one of several possible candidates to be nominated by Joe Biden for secretary of state, Russia's broadsheet Kommersant stated that its sources "in the state structures" of the Russian Federation agreed that his candidacy would "be the most advantageous for Moscow of all the five cited" in the media.

On January 11, 2021, Joe Biden announced he planned to nominate Burns as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, saying Burns shared his belief "that intelligence must be apolitical and that the dedicated intelligence professionals serving our nation deserve our gratitude and respect."

On February 24, his nomination was well-received in the confirmation hearing in the Senate.

On March 2, the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously approved Burns's nomination, setting him up for a final floor vote.

On March 18, Burns was confirmed to the role with unanimous consent after Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) lifted his hold on the nomination.

He was officially sworn in as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on March 19.