Richard H. Solomon served as President of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a congressionally established and funded organization, between 1993 and 2012. He led its growth into a nationally recognized center of international conflict management analysis and applied programs around the world. He currently is a Senior Fellow at the RAND Corporation.
Prior to his tenure at the Institute of Peace, Solomon was Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 1989 to 1992. In that position, he negotiated the Cambodia peace agreement (the first United Nations Security Council conflict settlement); had a leading role in the dialogue on nuclear issues between the United States and South and North Korea; helped establish the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation initiative; and led U. S. negotiations with Japan, Mongolia, and Vietnam on important bilateral matters. In 1992–1993, Solomon served as U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, where he coordinated the closure of U.S. naval facilities and developed a new framework for bilateral and regional security cooperation.
Solomon previously served as Director of policy planning in the State Department (1986-1989), and as a senior staff member of the National Security Council (1971-1976), where he participated in the normalization of relations with China. He began his career in 1966 as a Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. He also served for a decade as head of the Political Science Department at the RAND Corporation (1976-1986).
In 1995, Solomon was awarded the State Department's Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, and he has received awards for policy initiatives from the governments of Korea and Thailand, and from the Cambodian community in the U.S. In 2005, he received the American Political Science Association's Hubert H. Humphrey Award for "notable public service by a political scientist." In 2012, he received an honorary Doctorate from Whittier College; and also in 2012 he received an Honorary Doctorate in Human Letters from Plymouth State University.
Solomon holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has published eight books on a range of topics related to international affairs.
