ST. MARY’S CITY, Md. (March 1, 2011) — This year’s Nitze Senior Fellow at St. Mary’s College of Maryland followed in Ambassador Paul H. Nitze’s footsteps literally: He is his grandson. The New Yorker senior editor Nicholas Thompson will visit the college this spring to give three public lectures and work with students in the select Nitze Scholars Program. The first lecture is 8 p.m. Monday, March 7, in the college’s Daugherty-Palmer Commons. His topic: “Does Social Media Cause Social Upheaval?” The other public lectures are March 28 and April 11.
Thompson also is a contributing editor for Bloomberg Television. He wrote The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War, a widely acclaimed narrative of the two Americans who held positions of great influence throughout the Cold War. In the unique position of being both author and grandson of his book’s subject, Thompson was granted unprecedented access into the lives of these men. According to The Washington Times, it “may be the most important political biography in recent memory.”
Thompson appears weekly on CNN International’s “World Business Today,” discussing the week in technology and has appeared on every major cable and broadcast news network. Thompson also is a panelist on CNNI’s “Connect the World” with Becky Anderson. He is a Whitehead Fellow at the Foreign Policy Association. And as an acoustic guitarist, Thompson has released three albums.
Paul Nitze served under every president from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, and received both the Medal of Merit and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Each year, St. Mary’s invites an accomplished writer, journalist, or other professional figure to be the Nitze Senior Fellow. Last year’s Fellow was human rights activist John Prendergast who has led the fight against African genocide. Other previous Fellows include Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland; David Sanger, New York Times chief correspondent for the White House; and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward P. Jones.
Source: St. Mary's College of Maryland