President, Asia Society
Nicholas Platt, the fifth president of the Asia Society, has spent
most of his life working on relations between the US and Asia. He
assumed his current position in 1992 after a thirty four-year career
as an American diplomat in Asia which culminated in service as US
Ambassador to the Philippines (1987-1991) and Pakistan (1991-1992).
Ambassador Platt's involvement with Asia began as a student of
the Chinese language in Taiwan in the early sixties, and continued
with Foreign Service assignments in Hong Kong (1964-68), Beijing
(1973-74) and Tokyo (1974-77). In 1972 he accompanied President
Nixon on the historic trip to Beijing that signaled the resumption
of relations between the United States and China. He was one of
the first members of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing when the
United States established a mission there in 1973.
In the course of his government service, Ambassador Platt served
in several capacities in Washington, including China analyst, Director
of Japanese Affairs, National Security Council Staff Member for
Asian Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (responsible
for politico-military relations with Japan, Korea, China and Southeast
Asia), Acting Assistant Secretary of State for UN Affairs (1981-1982),
and Executive Secretary of the Department of State (1985-1987).
Born in 1936, Ambassador Platt graduated from Harvard College in
1957 and earned an MA from the Johns Hopkins University School of
Advanced International Studies in 1959. He is a member of the New
York Council on Foreign Relations, a director of Fiduciary Trust
Company International, and a member of the international advisory
board of the Financial Times. He and his wife Sheila have three
grown sons: Adam, a writer; Oliver, an actor and Nicholas Jr., a
publishing executive.
|