Thomas A. Dine

Tom Dine commenced his career in foreign affairs and the politics of foreign policy as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines (1962-64). He went overseas again to serve as personal assistant to Amb. Chester Bowles in the American Embassy in New Delhi, India (1967-69).

Dine was legislative assistant for foreign policy to U.S. Senator Frank Church (1970-74), senior national security analyst for the U.S. Senate Budget Committee (1975-78), and defense/foreign policy advisor to U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy (1979-80).

For 13 years, he headed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (1980-1993), and served subsequently as assistant administrator for Europe and Eurasia at the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was the longest serving president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague (1997-2005), and CEO briefly of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation (2005-2007).

Dine currently directs Search for Common Ground's Track II diplomacy effort between Syria and the U.S., visiting Damascus nine times in the last two years, and is also a senior advisor to America's Arab-language television channel, Alhurra TV. He serves on several non-profit boards, including Freedom House, American Friends of the Czech Republic, the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, and Artists for Human Rights.

Dine received a BA degree from Colgate University (1962), an MA in South Asian History from UCLA (1966), and an MLA in the History of Ideas from John Hopkins University (2001). He has been married to Joan Corbett for 47 years; they have two daughters and two sons-in-law and four grandchildren.