Program archives

Vicki Huddleston recently completed fifteen months as the acting American Ambassador in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and is currently a Non-resident Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution as well as a commentator for NBC Universal. She has served as Ambassador to Mali and Madagascar, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa. She has had extensive experience with Cuba, having served as Chief of Mission at the United States Interests Section in Havana and as Director and Deputy Director of Cuban Affairs at the Department of State.

As our chief diplomat in Havana she sought to empower the Cuban people by creating an "outreach" program resulting in the distribution of thousands of books and radios, and was instrumental in effecting the return of a shipwrecked child, Elian Gonzales, to his father in Cuba. While Deputy Chief of Mission in Haiti she acted as operational liaison during the 1994 deployment of U.S. and multinational forces.

In the late 1980's, as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow on the staff of Senator Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, she drafted the "Missile Technology Control Regime," the principal legislation regulating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Prior to entering the diplomatic service Vicki worked for the American Institute for Free Labor Development in Peru and Brazil. She began her public career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru.

Upon retiring Vicki spent a semester as a Fellow at the Institute of Politics of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she organized a seminar on "Perceptions of the U.S. Policy in Developing Countries". She has been a featured speaker at Harvard's Rockefeller and Kennedy Centers, the Commonwealth Club, and various World Affairs Councils.

She has a M.A. degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. from the University of Colorado, where she gave the first Distinguished Alumni plenary speech at its 57th World Affairs Conference. She has received the Department of State's Distinguished Honor Award, the President's Meritorious Service Award, and the Secretary's Career Achievement Award.