Program archives

Ambassador Goodwin Cooke is currently Professor of Practice, International Relations, at Syracuse University, and was Ambassador to the Central African Republic. He graduated from Friends Seminary in New York City, received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Harvard in 1953, and served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1956, and held a variety of appointments in Embassies in Pakistan, Yugoslavia, Italy, Belgium, Canada, Ivory Coast, and the Central African Republic, where he was U.S. Ambassador. Upon retiring from the Department of State in 1981, he was named Vice President for International Affairs at Syracuse University. He became a Professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Administration, and for seventeen years was director of the undergraduate program in International Relations. He is now Professor Emeritus, but continues to teach and is active in the Syracuse community. He speaks French, Italian, and Serbo-Croatian.

Ambassador Cooke has published articles in newspapers throughout the United States, and has had many public speaking engagements and radio and television appearances. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.