On Wednesday, May 13, 1998 at 7:00 pm in the History Corner, Bldg. 200, 
Room 2, Richard Curtiss, Executive Editor of the Washington Report on
Middle Eastern Affairs, will speak on "What Everyone Should Know About
Palestine: America's Legacy in Israel." 

A brief biography of Mr. Curtiss is attached below.  

For more information, please contact Salim Yusufali, (650) 497-1253, or
email MSAN@cs.stanford.edu.

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Brief biography of Richard Curtiss:

Washington Report Executive Editor Richard H. Curtiss enlisted in the U.S. Army in 
World War II, and served as a military correspondent in Berlin, Germany after the 
war.  

After earning a B.A. in journalism from the University of Southern California and 
working on newspapers and for the United Press in California, he served as a career 
foreign service officer with the Department of State and the U.S. Information 
Agency in Djakarta, Bonn, Stuttgart, Ankara, Beirut (three times), Baghdad, 
Damascus and Rhodes, Greece, where he headed the Arabic Service of the Voice 
of America, and in various positions in Washington DC.  

During his U.S. government career he received the U.S. Information Agency's 
Superior Honor Award for his service as Embassy Counselor for Public Affairs in 
Lebanon during the civil war there, and the Edward R. Murrow award for excellence 
in Public Diplomacy, U.S.I.A.'s highest professional recognition.  

Following his retirement from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980, Mr. Curtiss was a 
co-founder of the American Arab Affairs Council (now the Middle East Policy 
Council) in 1981 and the Council for the National Interest in 1984, remaining on the 
initial board of directors of each of those organizations for one year.  

Since he co-founded the American Educational Trust in 1982, its magazine, the 
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, has received an award from the National 
Association of Arab-Americans in 1993. For his work as its executive editor, Mr. 
Curtiss received awards from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee 
(ADC) in 1992, the Council for the National Interest (CNI) and Partners for Peace in 
1993, the United Muslims of America and the Islamic Association for Palestine in 
North America in 1994, and the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community 
Development and the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in 1995.  

Mr. Curtiss has written two books on U.S.-Middle East relations. The first, A 
Changing Image: American Perceptions of the Arab-Israeli Dispute, was published 
in 1982 and commended for its objectivity by all three then-living ex-Presidents of 
the United States, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter. An updated 
second edition was published in 1986.  

His second book is Stealth PACs: Lobbying Congress for Control of U.S. Middle 
East Policy. The first three editions were published in 1990, 1991 and 1992. This 
book is already being published in its fourth edition.