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Philip C. Wilcox, Jr. is President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a Washington, D.C.- based foundation devoted to fostering peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Wilcox retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in September 1997 after 31 years of service.

Born in Denver, Colorado on February 1, 1937, Wilcox attended public schools, graduated from William College with a BA in History in 1958, and obtained an LL.B. from the Stanford Law School in 1961. After law school, he taught school in Sierra Leone, West Africa, and practiced law for three years in Denver with the firm of Holme, Roberts & Owen. He entered the Foreign Service in 1966 and has served abroad at U.S. Embassies as Press Attache in Vientiane, Laos, Political and Economic/Commercial Officer in Jakarta, Indonesia, and as Chief of the Economic/Commercial Section in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His last overseas assignment was as Chief of Mission and U.S. Consul General, Jerusalem.

In the Department of State, Wilcox served in several key positions, including Special Assistant to the Undersecretary for Management, Deputy Director for UN Political Affairs in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Director for Regional Affairs in the Middle East and South Asia and as Director for Israeli and Arab-Israeli Affairs and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs. After his retirement he was appointed by the Secretary of State to serve as a member of an Accountability Review Board, chaired by Admiral William Crowe (ret.) to examine and make recommendations concerning the terrorist bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya on August 7, 1998.

Wilcox speaks French and Indonesian, graduated from the National War College, received the Department of State's Meritorious, Superior, and Presidential Honor Awards and serves as a member of the Washington Institute for Foreign Affairs and Dacor-Bacon House. He and his wife Cynda live in Bethesda, Maryland.