Bill Burns honored as Diplomat of the Year

Last night, Foreign Policy played host to

ambassadors, think tankers, corporate executives, and State Department personnel for

the magazine’s annual Diplomat of the Year dinner, hosted at Washington’s

Ronald Reagan Building and emceed by FP CEO and Editor-at-Large David Rothkopf .

Cocktail chatter alternated between personal anecdotes about

the night’s honoree, Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, and the latest

revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance program PRISM. “I

don’t care if the government’s listening to my calls because I’ve never done

anything wrong,” chuckled an ambassador from Eastern Europe.

Burns, who holds the highest rank in the Foreign Service –

career ambassador — was feted by outgoing National Security Advisor Tom Donilon,

who praised Burns’s role as a mentor for generations of State Department personnel

and gently teased him about his mustache, which has “become grayer” over the

years.

Burns thanked his family members for their support over the

years and accepted the award on behalf of his colleagues in the U.S.

Foreign Service. “I am extraordinarily proud to be a career American diplomat,

proud of the people I serve with, and proud of the country we serve,” he said.

“Teddy Roosevelt once remarked that life’s greatest gift is the

opportunity to work hard at work worth doing,” he continued. “By that standard,

my friends and I in the American diplomatic service are extraordinarily

fortunate. For all the political trauma and physical risk, for all the

uncertainties and tough choices that all of us have to navigate every day in an

endlessly complicated world, ours is a chance to make a difference, a rare

opportunity through public service to make our country safer and more secure

and more prosperous, and to help make the world a little bit more hospitable

place for the pursuit of human dignity.”

Some 40 ambassadors attended the event, including envoys from Brazil, France, India, Russia, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. Business leaders from companies such as VISA, Lockheed Martin, and General Electric, and administration officials such as Acting Commerce Secretary Cameron Kerry and Acting U.S. Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro were also in attendance, as were a range of State Department personnel, including David McKean, director of policy planning, a team from the bureau of public affairs, including Mike Hammer and Moira Whelan.

Bill Burns honored as Diplomat of the Year