LITERATURE + LECTURES

The World Affairs Council of Houston presents the Dillon Anderson Lecture on National Security:  Keeping America Safe.

Featuring:
Stephen Hadley (pictured)
Former National Security Advisor

Diplomacy, intelligence, and military strength are central to keeping our country safe. We must not only win the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we must also deal effectively with new threats such as cyber-terrorism, failed states, and competition for resources. Former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley will discuss the challenges to our national interests and how to keep the nation safe.

Stephen Hadley was the 21st assistant to the president for national security, serving George W. Bush. He is a senior advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Before being Condoleezza Rice’s deputy at the National Security Council, he was the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, directing policy toward NATO and Western Europe.

Between 1993 and 2001, he was a partner in the law firm of Shea & Gardner and a principal in The Scowcroft Group, inter-national consultants. He was counsel to the Tower Commission in 1987, as it investigated arms sales to Iran, and served on the National Security Council under President Ford from 1974 to 1977. Hadley has been a member of the Department of Defense Policy Board, the National Security Advisory Panel to the director of central intelligence, and the board of trustees of Analytical Services, Inc. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a law degree from Yale University.

Dillon Anderson, statesman and writer, earned a bachelor of science at the University of Oklahoma and a law degree from Yale. In 1929, and joined Baker, Botts, Andrews, and Shepherd in Houston. In World War Two, Anderson was a colonel in the United States Army. After having been a consultant to the National Security Council for two years, President Eisenhower chose Anderson to be his assistant for national security in 1955. Anderson presided over the National Security Council and accompanied Eisenhower to the summit conference in Geneva in 1955. He returned to Houston in 1956. Anderson won O. Henry prize for short fiction and wrote three novels. Anderson was a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.

Conversation with History
In addition to hearing the lecture, a select group of 30 students will have the opportunity to meet and interview Stephen Hadley. Students are nominated for this honor by their teachers based on academic performance, interest in foreign affairs, and their eagerness to learn outside of the classroom.