Richard T. Arndt

Richard Arndt "spent 24 years in the US Foreign Service focusing on expanding the potential for cultural diplomacy. Arndt left his professorship in 18th-century French literature at Columbia University in 1961 to take up cultural diplomacy with the US Information Agency and the Department of State, serving as US Cultural Attach in Beirut, Colombo (Sri Lanka), Tehran, Rome and Paris, and in various positions with USIA and State.

"On retirement in 1985, he served as Diplomat in Residence at the University of Virginia (1986-89) where he also directed mid-career educational programs and joined the permanent faculty of the Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction; he then taught at the George Washington University (1992-94). He served on the boards of the National Peace Foundation (NPF), Americans for the Universality of UNESCO (AUU), the Fulbright Association (FA), the Council of International Programs, the National Association of Foreign Student Affairs, the US Committee for the Preservation of Ancient Tyre, the International Society for Educational, Scientific and Cultural Interchange (ISECSI), and on the advisory bodies of the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research, the American Iranian Council, and the NPF. He is also Founding-President of the Roth Endowment, honoring his late wife and fellow cultural diplomat Lois W. Roth. Dr. Arndt's latest book is entitled, First Resort of Kings: U.S. Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century."


 * Member of the Public Diplomacy Council
 * Director, Streit Council