For 55 years, the Foreign Policy Discussion Group has brought unique insight and perspective on pressing international issues and world events to its distinguished membership.  Our monthly Black Tie dinner discussions – held on the second Wednesday of each month, October through June – are built around a featured eminence from the national security policy community or expert guest whose remarks launch the evening’s discussion.  From its inception until recently, our dinners were held at Georgetown’s City Tavern Club.  Post-pandemic, they are now held in the Federal-period elegance of DACOR-Bacon House, two blocks from the White House.

In all this time, ‘the Group’ has had only three Presidents: its founder, the late, Austrian-born Charles Mayer, an inimitable and candid personality on the Washington scene through the mid-80s; Raymond Albright, long the senior-most professional at the Export-Import Bank of the U.S.; and Thomas J. Reckford, former President of the World Affairs Council of Washington, D.C.  A member of ‘the Group’ since 1986, I was honored this summer to be elected its fourth President as Tom Reckford became President Emeritus. 

With the support of the FPDG’s dedicated and devoted Board of Directors and the help of our able Administrator, Grayce McAllister (who also assists me at the Council of American Ambassadors) we will continue to bring FPDG’s membership the insightful and enlightening dinner discussions that have been our hallmark from our founding. 

We are always alert for opportunities to expand our membership, consistent with our high professional standards and long-standing traditions.  Those interested should introduce themselves to me or another member of our Board of Directors via email or in person. 

The apogee of our 2022-23 dinner season was undoubtedly the address by Dame Karen Pierce, British Ambassador to the United States.  Other dinners featured, for example, sessions with Heather Conley, President of the German Marshall Fund, on how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is reshaping trans-Atlantic security and on the need for a Marshall Plan for the Ukraine and with George Washington University’s Bob Sutter on how domestic politics are hardening U.S. policy toward China.  Our 2023-24 dinner discussions will be comparably timely and provocative.

I look forward to an exciting – and enlightening – season of dinner discussions with the Foreign Policy Discussion Group members – and to carrying forward our proud traditions.