Ted was a friend of the Center and an eloquent, inspiring guest whose presence reminded us all that wise political thinking is indeed an art. The country will miss him.
Theodore C. Sorensen, former Special Counsel and Adviser to President John F. Kennedy and a widely published author on the presidency and foreign affairs, practiced international law for more than 36 years as a Senior Partner, and now of Counsel, at the prominent U.S. law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. The former chairman of the firm’s International Practice Committee, he has represented U.S. and multinational corporations in negotiations with governments all over the world and advised and assisted a large number of foreign governments and government leaders, ranging from the late President Sadat of Egypt to former President Mandela of South Africa.
Mr. Sorensen and his team at Paul, Weiss have advised U.S. corporations on factories in Russia and Africa, pipelines in the Caribbean and Latin America, and disputes in the Middle East and North America, and negotiated on their behalf with government officials at the highest level in dozens of countries. He has advised foreign corporations from five continents on investments in the United States and elsewhere, foreign governments on problems with the World Bank, the United Nations, the U.S. government and foreign investors, and on changes in their respective mining, petroleum, investment and election codes, and constitutions.
In 2002, Mr. Sorensen was a fellow at the Institute of Politics in Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is on the Advisory Board of the Foreign Policy Leadership Council, a member of the Advisor Board for the Lloyd N. Cutler Center for the Rule of Law at Salzburg Global Seminar, director of the Council on Foreign Relations (until 2004) and the Century Foundation, a member of the Advisory Board of the Partnership for a Secure America (“PSA”) and an honorary co-chair of the ABA Commission on the Renaissance of Idealism in the Legal Profession.
An active figure in the Democratic Party, Mr. Sorensen has participated in 10 of the last 14 Democratic Party National Conventions and served in a number of governmental, political and civic posts. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, he served on the boards of the Central Asian-American Enterprise Fund (covering Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) and the Commission on White House Fellows. He is experienced in the ways of Washington, the United Nations and the multilateral (World Bank, IFC, etc.) and U.S. (AID, OPIC, etc.) financing institutions.
On February 25, 2010, Mr. Sorensen was honored with the highest national award in the humanities as selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities, which he received at the White House from President Obama. He is the author of the 1965 international best seller Kennedy, eight other books on the presidency, politics or foreign policy and numerous articles on those subjects in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times and other publications. Mr. Sorensen’s memoirs, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History, were published on May 6, 2008 by HarperCollins and quickly became a bestseller.
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Mr. Sorensen graduated from the University of Nebraska and its College of Law. He is the father of three sons and one daughter and is married to Gillian Martin Sorensen, a former New York City Commissioner to the United Nations, a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General and current Senior Adviser and national advocate at the United Nations Foundation.
Posts:
Why All the Steam about Obama’s Team?, March 23rd, 2010
