Stuart Eizenstat began his six-plus-decade career in politics and public service in the late 1960s as a junior staff member in the White House during the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson.
He met Jimmy Carter when he was running for Governor of Georgia in 1970 and remained a central figure of Carter’s team until he left the White House in 1980. During President Carter’s administration Eizenstat served as Carter’s Chief Domestic Policy Adviser, and he was Executive Director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff. Throughout his career and life Ambassador Eizenstat remained a close advisor to President Carter, and he delivered his eulogy at Carter's funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
During the Clinton Administration Eizenstat was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union from 1993 to 1996, and he went on to serve as Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade; Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs; and U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. President Barack Obama named him Special Advisor for Holocaust Issues, a position established by President Obama in 2013.
We speak with Ambassador Eizenstat about his career in politics and the changes he's witnessed over the decades, and about his longtime colleague and friend Jimmy Carter.
The ambassador was in Southwest Florida for the Jewish Book Festival in Naples promoting his book, "The Art of Diplomacy", which based on interviews with more than 60 key figures in American diplomacy and covers every major contemporary international agreement from the treaty to end the Vietnam war to the Kyoto Protocols and the Iranian Nuclear Accord.
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