Winston Lord

Lord was born in New York City, New York on August 14, 1937.[1]

Lord is the third of three sons born to Oswald Bates Lord (1903–1986) and Mary Pillsbury Lord (of the flour family, Pillsbury) (1904–1978). His older brother, Richard, died in 1935, aged three months. The oldest brother is Charles Pillsbury Lord. His father was a leader in the textile industry. His mother served for eight years under President Eisenhower as United States Delegate to the United Nations and U.S. Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and she was the recipient of many awards including International Rescue Committee's Freedom Award. Mary Pillsbury Lord was a survivor of the sinking of the Clyde-Mallory Line's passenger liner SS Mohawk off the New Jersey Coast in January 1935.

After attending The Buckley School and the Hotchkiss School, Lord graduated magna cum laude from Yale College in 1959 and obtained an M.A. at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University in 1960, first in class. He has honorary doctorate degrees from several institutions, including Williams College, Tufts University, Bryant College, Dominican College, and Pepperdine University. He is a member of the Yale secret society Skull and Bones.[2][3]

During the summers of 1959 and 1960, Lord worked for Senator Estes Kefauver and the Nixon Presidential campaign. In 1961 he served in the US Army National Guard and was selected Trainee of the Post.

Lord played a pivotal role in the restoration of relations between the United States and China in the early 1970s, and he has been a key figure in US-China relations ever since. From 1969–73, as a member of the United States National Security Council's planning staff, he was the special assistant to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, accompanying him on his secret trip to Beijing in 1971. The following year, he was part of the U.S. delegation during President Richard Nixon's historic visit to China, was in charge of President's briefing books and secretly attended the Nixon-Mao meeting. He was also on President Ford's visit in 1975 and seven other Kissinger trips. Lord was in every Nixon, Ford, and Kissinger meeting with Mao Zedong (five), Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping (hundreds of hours with them) during the 1970s.

Lord was also the top assistant on Vietnam negotiations, in every Kissinger meeting with North Vietnam and South Vietnam from 1970–1973. Lord was a principal drafter of both the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué, which opened relations with China, and the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, which ended the Vietnam War.[4] Lord also participated in the 1972 Nixon Moscow Summit Meeting and other trips to the Soviet Union, and was on the Kissinger shuttle negotiations between Israel and Egypt in the mid 1970s.

Lord became the State Department's Director of Policy Planning and top policy adviser on China (1973–77) under Presidents Nixon and Ford, United States Ambassador to China (1985–1989) under President Reagan, and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (1993–1997) under President Clinton. Early in his career he served in the Foreign Service and the Defense Department's Policy Planning Staff. He was a senior counselor for the President's National Bi-partisan Commission on Central America (1983–1984).

Between governmental posts Ambassador Lord has headed and helped direct many private organizations related to international affairs. He served as President of the Council on Foreign Relations (1977–1985). He was co-Chairman of the International Rescue Committee Board and then Advisors, Chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy, and Chairman of the Carnegie Endowment National Commission on America and the New World (1992). He is, or has been a director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.[5] , a global advisor to the Women's Tennis Association, Chair Emeritus of the International Rescue Committee, trustee of the Trilateral Commission, Vice Chair of the NCAFP Northeast Asia Security Forum, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.[6]

Lord has also previously served on the Boards or as a member of the America-China Forum, The Fletcher School, National Committee on US-China Relations, US-Japan Foundation, American Academy of Diplomacy, Asia Society, and Aspen Institute Distinguished Fellows.

Lord has written articles in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Time, and Foreign Affairs. In 2019, Lord published Kissinger on Kissinger: Reflections on Diplomacy, Grand Strategy, and Leadership, a book of interviews that Lord conducted with the former National Security Advisor.[7] Lord's extensive oral history on his career can be found at https://adst.org/ (go to oral histories and name).

Among the awards Lord has received are the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award, The Defense Department's Outstanding Service Award, The National Committee on US-China Relations Award, the Hotchkiss School Alumni Award and the Fletcher School Alumni Award.

Lord has been married since 1963 to international best selling author and human rights activist Bette Bao Lord. They have two children, Elizabeth Pillsbury and Winston Bao and two grandchildren, Levi Thomas and Winston Tennessee.

• Interview with Winston Lord as part of Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, a site at the Library of Congress. Complete oral history at ADST.org
• Appearances on C-SPAN