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Officers and Directors Richard V. Allen, Co-Chair, served as the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ first Senior Staff Analyst and Research Principal from 1963 to 1966. During the first year of the Reagan administration, he was Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Mr. Allen, who writes and lectures on U.S.-Asian policy, is Chairman of the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center Advisory Council. A former member of the President's Task Force on U.S. Government International Broadcasting, he currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and as a member of the CSIS Advisory Board. He is president of the Richard V. Allen Company, a Washington-based consulting firm. Stephen J. Solarz, Co-Chair, served for twenty-four years in public office both in the New York State Assembly and in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected from Brooklyn’s 13th Congressional District to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974 and re-elected eight times. Mr. Solarz served for 18 years on the U.S. House of Representatives International Affairs Committee, serving as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, and the Subcommittee on Africa. As a Congressman, Mr. Solarz, who traveled widely and met with dozens of world leaders, emerged as a leading spokesman on behalf of democracy and human rights. He played a major role in the Congressional effort to restore democracy to the Philippines, abolish apartheid in South Africa and bring peace to Cambodia in 1993. Mr. Solarz is President of Solarz Associates, an international consulting firm, and a Senior Counselor at APCO Worldwide, a Washington, D.C. public affairs firm. Upon leaving Congress in 1993, Mr. Solarz served as a Visiting Professor of International Relations at George Washington University and a Distinguished Consultant at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 1995, together with former Senator George Mitchell and Ambassador Morton Abramowitz, Mr. Solarz founded the International Crisis Group (ICG). In June 1996, he co-chaired the international election observer delegation to Bangladesh. In July 1997, he served as President Clinton’s special envoy to Cambodia. In 1998, he co-chaired the National Democratic Institute’s election observer delegation to Cambodia. In January 1999, he flew to Phnom Penh to meet with Prime Minister Hun Sen and National Assembly President Prince Ranarridh to discuss a tribunal for senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge. He is a Board Member of the Center for Ethics of Brandeis University and The Campaign Against Genocide. Suzanne Scholte, Vice-Chair, is President of the Defense Forum Foundation (DFF), a non-profit educational foundation that sponsors programs on national security, foreign affairs and human rights issues. Human rights in North Korea has been a major focus for the DFF since 1996, when Scholte launched a project to bring defectors from North Korea to the United States to speak out publicly for the first time about conditions in North Korea. Since 1996, DFF has hosted over 57 defectors including North Korea's highest ranking defector, Hwang Jang-yop, Colonel Joo Hwal Choi, diplomats Ko Young Hwan, as well as survivors of the political prison camps Kang Chul Hwan and Ahn Hyok. Since 1998, DFF has been the US partner of the Seoul-based Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights and the Tokyo-based Society to Help Returnees to North Korea. Ms. Scholte organized and testified before the first hearing ever held on North Korea's political prison camps in 1999 and continues to work closely with Members of Congress on hearings to address North Korea human rights issues. Scholte also chairs the North Korea Freedom Coalition and North Korea Freedom Week to promote awareness and encourage action on this issue. Helen-Louise Hunter, Secretary, is an attorney who has engaged in private practice with a large international law firm in Washington, D.C., and has served as Permanent Law Clerk in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. For more than 20 years, she was a Far East specialist at the Central Intelligence Agency. In the late 1970s, she served as the Assistant National Intelligence Officer for the Far East. She is the author of Kim Il-song’s North Korea (1999). Morton Abramowitz is a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation. He retired in 1997 as President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and from the State Department in 1991. Dr. Abramowitz also served recently as Acting President of the International Crisis Group—a multinational, nongovernmental organization headquartered in Brussels and Washington, focusing on crisis prevention. Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment in August 1991, he was Ambassador to Turkey. He has also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, United States Ambassador to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Negotiations in Vienna, Ambassador to Thailand, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Inter-American, East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, and Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State. He also served in Hawaii as political advisor to the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific. He is the author of numerous books and articles. Jaehoon Ahn retired as Director of the Korean Service of Radio Free Asia in 2007. Mr. Ahn served as a foreign correspondent for the Joong-Ang Ilbo Daily where he covered the 1967 Middle East War. During his 25-year career with The Washington Post, he held several positions, most recently as an online news editor. Prior to joining RFA, Mr. Ahn, while on leave of absence from The Washington Post, served as senior editor, columnist and special adviser to the publisher for the Joong-Ang Ilbo Daily in Seoul, Korea. Mr. Ahn has extensive broadcasting experience in Korea as a radio new commentator. He has lectured at the Foreign Service Institute as well as at various journalistic conferences in Korea and the United States. Mr. Ahn’s book, AHN JAEHOON’S COMMENTARY, (Seoul, 1995) is a collection of his radio pieces and columns. MBC Radio awarded Mr. Ahn a gold medal on the occasion of his 1300th Broadcast of Ahn Jaehoon’s News and Commentary from Washington, broadcast from 1991-95. Lisa Colacurcio is with UBS in Tokyo, Japan. She served as Vice President of Acquisitions of Fog Cutter Capital Group from 2002 to 2004. Ms. Colacurcio had worked in Europe since 1992, as Senior Vice President at Donaldson Lufkin and Jenrette's High Yield Group in Paris and at Banque Paribas' Real Estate Group. She has also acted as an advisor to many investment-banking institutions in Europe, Asia and the US, specializing in distressed real estate and debt transactions. Prior to that, Ms Colacurcio was in Hong Kong and China with Jardine Fleming and Wardley Direct Investment Ltd. Roberta Cohen is a specialist in human rights, humanitarian and refugee issues. She is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Senior Associate at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration, Senior Adviser to the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, and Senior Adviser to the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement. For more than a decade Cohen co-directed the Brookings Project on Internal Displacement, has published more than 100 articles on human rights and humanitarian issues and together with Francis Deng co-authored the first major study on internal displacement, Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement (Brookings, 1998). In 2002, Cohen won the DACOR Fiftieth Anniversary Award for Exemplary Writing in Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy, and in 2005, Deng and she won the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. In 2003, Cohen was a public member on the US delegation to the OSCE and in 1998 was a public member on the US delegation to the Commission on Human Rights. Cohen also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the Carter Administration, Senior Adviser to the US Delegation to the UN, Honorary Secretary of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group (London) and Executive Director of the International League for Human Rights (NY). John Despres has worked as a consultant on international financial and strategic affairs since his retirement from the U.S. government in 1997. From May 1999 to March 2000, Mr. Despres assisted Bill Bradley in developing foreign, defense and international economic policies for his presidential campaign. From 1993 to 1997, Mr. Despres served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement under President Clinton. From 1985 to 1993, Mr. Despres served as Senator Bill Bradley's principal staff advisor on national security policy and served as his designated assistant on the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In President Reagan's administration, from 1982 to 1985, Mr. Despres served as the founding Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, and as Assistant to the Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs in 1981. From 1977 to 1979, Mr. Despres served in President Carter's administration as Director of Strategic Assessments at the Department of Energy and as National Intelligence Officer for Nuclear Proliferation. Nicholas Eberstadt is Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, where he specializes in demographics, foreign aid, poverty, Korea, East Asia, Russia and other former Soviet republics. He has been a Visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Population and Developmental Studies (1980-present); a Consultant to the World Bank, the U.S. Department of State; the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Dr. Eberstadt is the author of Korea's Future and the Great Powers, co-editor (2001); Comparing the Soviet and American Economies, co-editor (2000); Prosperous Paupers and Other Population Problems (2000); The End of North Korea (1999); Korea Approaches Reunification (1995); and The Tyranny of Numbers: Mismeasurement and Misrule (1995). Gordon Flake was appointed Executive Director of the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Foundation in February 1999. Prior to joining the Mansfield Foundation, he was a Senior Fellow and Associate Director of the Program on Conflict Resolution at The Atlantic Council of the United States. Before moving to The Atlantic Council, he served as Director for Research and Academic Affairs at the Korea Economic Institute of America. Mr. Flake is a regular contributor on Korea issues in the U.S. and Asian press, and he has traveled to North Korea on six occasions. He is co-editor of two books; Understanding New Political Realities in Seoul (2008) and Paved with Good Intentions: The NGO Experience in North Korea (2003), which examines the impact of NGO and UN humanitarian relief efforts in North Korea after 1995. Carl Gershman was appointed President of the National Endowment for Democracy by the Endowment's Board of Directors and assumed his position on April 30, 1984. In that capacity he has presided over the development of the Endowment's grants program in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Latin America. Under his leadership, the NED created the quarterly Journal of Democracy in 1990 and launched the International Forum for Democratic Studies in 1994. Mr. Gershman is currently encouraging other democracies to establish their own foundations devoted to the promotion of democratic institutions in the world. Prior to assuming the position with the Endowment, Mr. Gershman was Senior Counselor to the United States Representative to the United Nations beginning in January 1981. In that capacity, he served as the U.S. Representative to the U.N.'s Third Committee, which deals with human rights issues, and also as Alternate Representative of the U.S. to the U.N. Security Council. While at the U.S. Mission to the U.N., Mr. Gershman also served as lead consultant to the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, and helped draft the final report. Prior to his assignment at the United States Mission to the United Nations, Mr. Gershman was a Resident Scholar at Freedom House (1980-81) and Executive Director of Social Democrats, USA (1974-80). Fred Charles Iklé is a Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. He is a member of the Defense Policy Board, a Governor of the Smith Richardson Foundation, and an advisory board member of the American Foreign Policy Council. Prior to joining CSIS in 1988, Dr. Iklé was Undersecretary of Defense for Policy during the first and second Reagan administrations. In 1987, he co-chaired the bipartisan Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy, which published Discriminate Deterrence. Dr. Iklé received the highest civilian award of the Department of Defense, the Distinguished Public Service Medal in 1987 and he was awarded the Bronze Palm in 1988. From 1973 to 1977, Dr. Iklé served Presidents Nixon and Ford as Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. From 1977 to 1978, he was chairman of the Republican National Committee's Advisory Council on International Security, and 1979 to 1980 coordinator of Governor Ronald Reagan's foreign policy advisers. Since 1988, he is chairman of CMC Energy Service. From 1968 to 1972, Dr. Ikle was head of the Social Science Department of the RAND Corporation. From 1964 to 1967, he was professor of political science at M.I.T. Dr. Ikle is the author of The Social Impact of Bomb Destruction (Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1958); How Nations Negotiate (Harper & Row, 1964; reissued by Praeger); Every War Must End (Columbia Univ. Press, 1970; reissued with new preface in 1991; second reissue with new preface in 2005); and Annihilation From Within (Columbia Univ. Press, 2006). Steven Kahng is a General Partner of 4C Ventures, an early stage high technology venture capital firm. Prior to this, he was a co-founder, chairman and CEO of Power Computing Corporation. Mr. Kahng has been a consultant to many major U.S. and international computer companies including Digital Equipment Corp, Compaq Corp and Motorola. Prior to this he was a Senior Vice President of Chips and Technologies, a leading semiconductor supplier to computer industry. During the 1980s, he was a consultant to major Korean electronic companies including, Samsung, LG and Daewoo Electronics. Mr. Kahng has received many awards including a finalist of Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year, Lifetime achievement award by Mac User Magazine and Businessman of the year by Korean American Chamber of Commerce. Thai Lee is President and Co-CEO of Software House International, Inc., a global procurement outsourcing company and leading business-to-business solutions provider. Ms. Lee has held positions at American Express, Inc. and Proctor & Gamble Company. Notably, she is the first Korean-American woman to graduate from Harvard Business School. Debra Liang-Fenton was executive director of HRNK from 2002-2007. Earlier, she directed the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Human Rights Implementation initiative from 1998 to 2002. Before joining the Institute, she was Project Officer of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy. She has also served as an editor of the Journal of Democracy. Ms. Liang-Fenton is the editor of Implementing U.S. Human Rights Policy: agendas, policies and practices (USIP Press, 2004). This volume examines 14 country case studies and distills lessons learned from the successes and failures of U.S. human rights policy. She has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and in April 2003, Ms. Liang-Fenton was the keynote presenter at Amnesty International’s Annual General Meeting. Andrew S. Natsios is a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Natsios served as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2001 to January 2006. In addition to his teaching at Georgetown he served as President Bush’s Special Envoy to Sudan to deal with the crisis in Darfur from October 2006 to December 2007. A former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for six terms, he also served in state government as the Secretary of Administration and Finance, and the CEO of the Big Dig in Boston, the largest construction project in American history which depressed the elevated highway through the center of Boston 60 feet underground. He took over the Big Dig after a cost over run scandal was uncovered in the project. From 1993 to 1998, Natsios was vice president of World Vision U.S., the largest faith-based NGOs in the world. Natsios was a member of the US Army Reserves for 23 years, served in the Gulf War in 1991 on active duty and was a Lt. Colonel when he retired in the 1990’s. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Natsios is the author of two books, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1997) and The Great North Korean Famine (2001) and numerous articles.
Gary Ackerman, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, is presently serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the Fifth Congressional District of New York. Congressman Ackerman is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee where he focuses on issues such as national security, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. He is the Ranking Democrat of the International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, which has oversight of U.S. policy towards the nations of the Middle East and South Asia, including Israel and India. He is also a member of the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, which has jurisdiction over U.S. policy toward countries in Asia and the Pacific. In this capacity, Ackerman made history in October 1993 by traveling to North Korea to discuss with Kim Il Sung, then the country’s leader, the framework under which North Korea would agree to cease building nuclear weapons. Upon his return to South Korea, Ackerman became the first person since the Korean War to cross the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). In addition, the Clinton Administration consulted with Ackerman in formulating its trade policies toward many Asian nations including China, Japan and Vietnam. Joseph Pitts a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, represents the 16th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. Throughout his tenure in Congress, he has been an advocate for oppressed people in places as far away as Turkmenistan and Western Sahara. He is a member of the Helsinki Commission—the arm of Congress that participates in the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, an international Human Rights group. He also belongs to the Human Rights Caucus and the International Relations Committee. In 1997, Congressman Pitts founded the Religious Prisoners Congressional Task Force to advocate for prisoners of conscience in countries like Sudan and China. Samantha Power is a Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University. Her book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, was awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award for general nonfiction. Power was the founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy (1998-2002) at Harvard. From 1993-1996, Power covered the wars in the former Yugoslavia as a reporter for the U.S. News and World Report, the Boston Globe, and the Economist. She is the editor, with Graham Allison, of Realizing Human Rights: Moving from Inspiration to Impact, and has written a new introduction to Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism. Mark Kirk, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, represents the 10th District of Illinois. He serves on the Armed Services, Transportation & Infrastructure and Budget Committees. Kirk served as an officer on the World Bank's International Finance Corporation in 1990. He joined the State Department and worked on the Central American peace process as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for inter-American Affairs at the U.S. State Department from 1992-93. From 1993-95, Kirk practiced law with the international firm of Baker & MacKenzie where his field of expertise was international trade and finance. In 1995, Kirk joined the staff of the U.S. House International Relations Committee as Counsel serving under Chairman Ben Gilman (R-NY). Kirk was responsible for foreign assistance legislation, but also built on his record of drafting legislation that became law including: rewards for the capture of war criminals, expansion of the Peace Corps, creation of the Global Program on AIDS, and the first debt-for-nature swap. Kirk also conducted congressional missions to 42 countries, including Bosnia, Kosovo and North Korea. Helie Lee is the author of Still Life with Rice (Scribner, 1996) in which she depicts the concerns and conflicts that shaped a woman’s search for home. Her memoir In The Absence of Sun (Harmony Books 2002) recounts her Korean-American family’s risky attempt to rescue her uncle from North Korea. The story has been featured on Nightline, CNN, the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times. Cosmopolitan Magazine selected Ms. Lee out of thousands of women nominated for their “1999 Fun Fearless Female” competition as a “Freedom Fighter.” She has also been published in Mademoiselle, Essence, KoreAm Journal, and has been included in an anthology, “Becoming American: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women” (Hyperion). Ms. Lee is a member of the Asian American Writers Workshop, PEN, a community of writers defending freedom of expression and building a literary culture, and Visual Communications, a nonprofit organization that promotes Asian Pacific media arts for the American public. She lectures around the country on her bicultural heritage and human rights issues for North Korea refugees.
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