Conversations in Public Diplomacy: James Kelman

About James Kelman

Jim Kelman has been an officer in the Department of State and U.S. Information Agency for nearly 30 years. Currently Senior Public Diplomacy Advisor in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, he is engaged in the design and implementation of public diplomacy activities related to the Iran nuclear issue and the various U.S. counterproliferation efforts, as well as a range of other nonproliferation activities. He previously served as Senior Advisor to the Director of USIA, designing international public diplomacy strategies, primarily in the area of humanitarian activities. He designed and activated a public diplomacy strategy to explain the humanitarian element of the Kosovo intervention to European countries, and helped to develop a media strategy to circumvent Serbian propaganda radio and develop a Kosovar radio network. Jim spent a number of years managing and designing public diplomacy speaker programs in the area of defense and security in the European and Asia-Pacific regions, and has administered Fulbright Academic programs for the Middle East. In 2003, he served as the Liaison Officer from the U.S. Embassy in Manama, Bahrain to the U.S. Navy Coalition Press Information Center (CPIC) for the duration of active combat in the Iraq war, assisting international press to cover the war (under the DOD embed program), and explaining its goals. He has served as Public Affairs Officer in the Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration at the State Department, assigned to the 1994 Cairo Population Conference as Spokesman for the U.S. Delegation, and from 1991-93 he was Congressional Affairs Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Earlier assignments include a period as Director of the J-1 Exchange Visitor (visa) Program, where he helped to formulate the program where exchange visitors from China came to the U.S. as students and scholars, and an assignment to the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok as a Refugee Affairs Officer, spent mostly on the Thai-Cambodian border with the U.S. Cambodian refugee program. He entered USIA as a Foreign Service Reserve Officer in the Management Intern program. He has held temporary assignments in the U.S. embassies in Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul, Cairo, Bonn, Manama (Bahrain) and most recently at the US Mission to the IAEA, working on the Iran nuclear issue.

Jim Kelman has lectured extensively on issues involving public diplomacy, U.S. relations with the Asia-Pacific region, U.S. policies on nonproliferation, and other public issues at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, Georgetown and George Washington Universities, UCLA, the Universities of Connecticut and Georgia, and Syracuse and George Mason Universities. He has also lectured before the Singapore Ministry of Information and the Arts (MITA), as well as the Thai Foreign Ministry (2001).

Jim Kelman received a B.A. degree from Clark University (Massachusetts) in Government/International Relations, spent a term at the London School of Economics (UK) researching the topic of European Integration, and received an MPA degree from the University of Connecticut.