'Statecraft': Experts discuss the PBS documentary

William Antholis serves as director and CEO of the Miller Center. Immediately prior, he was managing director at The Brookings Institution, and from 1995 to 1999 he served in government. At the White House, he was director of international economic affairs on the staff of the National Security Council and National Economic Council, where he served as the chief staff person for the G8 Summits in 1997 and 1998. Antholis is the author of Inside Out India and China: Local Politics Go Global and, with Strobe Talbot,Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming.

Ann Compton began her distinguished career in journalism as the first female reporter for the WDBJ TV in Roanoke, before being hired by ABC news in 1973. By the next year, Compton became the first woman assigned to cover the White House full-time basis by a network television news organization. She covered seven different administrations, served on the panel of two presidential debates and covered both Republican and Democratic National conventions in 1976. On September 10, 2014, Compton retired from ABC News, 41 years to the day after she began at the network. Compton has won an Emmy, a Peabody, and the Silver Baton from the DuPont awards at Columbia University. She has been inducted into six Halls of Fame and has received five honorary university degrees.

Susan Glasser is a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of the weekly “Letter from Trump’s Washington” as well as a global affairs analyst for CNN. She previously served as editor of POLITICO through the 2016 election and is the founder of POLITICO Magazine. Prior to that, Glasser was editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine after spending 10 years at The Washington Post, where she served as assistant managing editor for national news, editor of the Outlook section, and Moscow co-bureau chief. With her husband, Peter Baker, she is author of two books, including The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III, to be published in September 2020, and Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution, named one of the Best Books of 2005 by The Washington Post Book World. 

Barbara Perry is the Gerald L. Baliles Professor and director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, where she co-directs the Presidential Oral History Program. She has authored or edited 12 books on presidents, First Ladies, the Kennedy family, the Supreme Court, and civil rights and civil liberties. Perry has conducted more than 100 interviews for the George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush Oral History Projects; researched the Bill Clinton Oral History Project interviews, and directed the Edward Kennedy Oral History Project. She served as a U.S. Supreme Court fellow and has worked for both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate.

Jayme Swain is CEO of the Virginia Foundation for Public Media and President of VPM, Virginia’s home for Public Media. She is leading transformational change at VPM to be a best-in-class local multi-media content producer, an essential provider of early childhood education resources, and a partner in strengthening local communities. Swain oversees VPM’s digital presence and broadcast stations, which reach nearly 2 million people across central Virginia. Prior to joining VPM in January 2019, Swain served as senior vice president of strategy and operations at PBS. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia.

Philip Zelikow is the Miller Center’s White Burkett Miller Professor of History and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the University of Virginia, where he has also served as dean of the graduate school and director of the Miller Center. His scholarly work has focused on critical episodes in American and world history. His federal service during five administrations has included positions in the White House, State Department, and the Pentagon. His last full-time government position was as the counselor of the Department of State, a deputy to Secretary Condoleezza Rice. He directed a small and short-lived federal agency, the 9/11 Commission. He is one of the few individuals ever to serve on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Boards for presidents of both parties, in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Robert Zoellick was the president of the World Bank Group from 2007 to 2012, U.S. trade representative from 2001 to 2005, and deputy secretary of state from 2005 to 2006. From 1985 to 1993, Zoellick served as counselor to the secretary of the treasury and under secretary of state, as well as the White House deputy chief of staff.

Zoellick is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State’s highest honor, the Alexander Hamilton Award of the Department of the Treasury, and the Medal for Distinguished Public Service of the Department of Defense. The German government awarded him the Knight Commanders Cross for his achievements in the course of German unification.