Board Members
Elizabeth L. Cheney
Liz Cheney is an attorney and specialist in U.S. Middle East policy. From 2005-2006, she was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. In this capacity, she was the second-ranking State Department official responsible for U.S. policy in the Middle East. Prior to that, Ms. Cheney served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from 2002 to 2004. She was responsible for the establishment of the $300 million Middle East Partnership Initiative to support political, economic and educational reform and the empowerment of women in the Middle East.
Ms. Cheney practiced law at White & Case LLP in the area of international project finance from 1996 to 1999. From 1999 to 2002 she served on assignment with the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. Ms. Cheney served previously at the Department of State and at the Agency for International Development from 1989 to 1993 designing and managing US assistance projects in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
She is currently collaborating with Vice President Cheney on his memoirs, covering 40 years of his career in Washington. She is also a member of the International Board of Visitors at the University of Wyoming, and chairman of the board of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, DC. Ms. Cheney earned her law degree from the University of Chicago in 1996 and her bachelor’s degree from the Colorado College in 1988. She is married to Philip J. Perry and they have five children.
Debra Burlingame is the sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame, III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. She is the co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America and a director of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum Foundation at the World Trade Center. She has published featured articles for the Wall Street Journal and other publications on national security issues, including the Patriot Act, the National Security Agency terrorist surveillance program, al Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein regime, the 9/11 Commission, aviation security and the Guantanamo detainees. She has testified before the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives on terrorism-related issues and works with the Center for Security Policy as an advocate for its Divest Terror program aimed at Iran, Syria, Sudan and North Korea.
Ms. Burlingame has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, Fox’s O’Reilly Factor, Fox & Friends, Your World with Neil Cavuto and Hannity & Colmes, CNN’s Larry King Live and Paula Zahn Now and MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews.
Ms. Burlingame was formerly a producer at Court TV where she covered dozens of civil and criminal legal proceedings ranging from the OJ Simpson trial and the Clinton impeachment hearings to the Microsoft anti-trust case. She wrote pieces for broadcast on Constitutional appellate cases, consumer law, and legal news and helped launch a documentary series involving cold criminal cases. Prior to her career in television, she was an attorney in New York City.
She is a graduate of New York University and the Cardozo School of Law.
William Kristol
William Kristol is founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, a journal of politics and ideas located in Washington, D.C. He is also a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday, a contributor for the Fox News Channel and a monthly columnist for the Washington Post. Before starting the Weekly Standard in 1995, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory. Prior to that, Mr. Kristol served as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle during the first Bush Administration, and to Education Secretary William Bennett under President Reagan. Before coming to Washington in 1985, Mr. Kristol was on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (1983-1985) and the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania (1979-1983).
Mr. Kristol has published widely in areas ranging from foreign policy to constitutional law to political philosophy. He has co-edited several books, including The Neoconservative Imagination (with Christopher DeMuth, 1995), Educating the Prince: Essays in Honor of Harvey Mansfield (with Mark Blitz, 2000), Present Dangers (with Robert Kagan, 2000), Bush v. Gore: The Court Cases and the Commentary (with E. J. Dionne, Jr., 2001), and The Future is Now: America Confronts the New Genetics (with Eric Cohen, 2002). He is the co-author, with Lawrence Kaplan, of the best-selling 2003 book, The War Over Iraq.
Mr. Kristol received both his A.B. (1973) and Ph.D. (1979) from Harvard University.
