This speech was given at The Future of Freedom Foundation’s June 2008 conference, “Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy & Civil Liberties” held in Reston, Virginia.
Stephen Kinzer is an American author and newspaper reporter. He is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more than fifty countries on five continents. During the 1980s he covered revolution and social upheaval in Central America. In 1990, he was promoted to bureau chief of the Berlin bureau and covered the growth of Eastern and Central Europe as they emerged from Soviet rule.
He was also New York Times bureau chief in Istanbul (Turkey) from 1996 to 2000. He has also written several non-fiction books about Turkey, Central America, Iran, and most recently about the US overthrow of foreign governments from late 19th and 20th century to present. His books include All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror and Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. Kinzer is currently a New York Times correspondent based in Chicago.