(Posted November 17, 2003)

HUNTINGDON, PA. -- Edward Peck, former chief of mission in Iraq from 1977 to 1980 and a career diplomat and foreign service officer, will speak at Juniata College on ?The United States and the Middle East? at 8 p.m., Monday, Nov. 24 in Neff Lecture Hall in the von Liebig Center for Science.

The lecture, sponsored by the college?s Model U.N. Club, is free and open to the public.

Since retiring from the Foreign Service in 1989, Peck has served as a trainer and consultant for governments, businesses and educational institutions in the United States and abroad. He also is a well-known commentator on the Middle East, terrorism and other foreign affairs issues for American and foreign television and radio networks.

Peck served as an American diplomat for 32 years. In addition to his posting in Iraq, Peck was an embassy officer in Sweden, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, and served as chief of mission in Mauritania.

He also held a variety of important intelligence jobs in the federal government, including deputy director of the White House Cabinet task force on terrorism, deputy coordinator for covert intelligence programs at the State Department, and liaison officer to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also served as a Fellow at the Institute for Higher Defense Studies at the Pentagon.

He also worked as executive secretary of the American Academy of Diplomacy from 1989 to 1992 and served as chairman of the political tradecraft program for the National Foreign Affairs Training Center from 1992 to 1996.

Peck earned a bachelor?s degree from the University of California-Los Angeles and a master?s of business administration degree from George Washington University in Washington. D.C. He also served in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper from 1946 to 1949 and from 1951 to 1953.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.