Talbott was born in Dayton, Ohio, to Helen Josephine and Nelson Strobridge "Bud" Talbott II. He attended the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut and graduated in 1968 from Yale University, where he had been chairman of the Yale Daily News, a position whose previous incumbents include Henry Luce, William F. Buckley, and Joe Lieberman. He was also a member of the Scholar of the House program in 1967–68, and belonged to a society of juniors and seniors called Saint Anthony Hall. He became friends with former President Bill Clinton when both were Rhodes Scholars at the University of Oxford; during his studies there he translated Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs into English.
Career
In 1972, Talbott, along with his friends Robert Reich and David E. Kendall, rallied to his friends Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton to help them in their Texas campaign to elect George McGovernpresident of the United States. In the 1980s, he was Time's principal correspondent on Soviet-American relations, and his work for the magazine was cited in the three Overseas Press Club Awards won by Time in the 1980s. Talbott also wrote several books on disarmament. Following Bill Clinton's election as president, Talbott was invited into government where he served at first managing the consequences of the Soviet breakup as Ambassador-at-Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of StateWarren Christopher on the New Independent States. After leaving government, he was for a period Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Talbott was the sixth president of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., from 2002 to 2017. At Brookings, he was responsible for formulating and setting policies, recommending projects, approving publications and selecting staff. He brings to Brookings the experience of his careers spanning journalism, government service and academe, and his expertise in US foreign policy with specialties on Europe, Russia, South Asia and nuclear arms control. On January 31, 2017, Talbott announced his resignation from the Brookings Institution. The resignation was later retracted, but in October he was succeeded by General John R. Allen. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Talbott currently also sits on the DC non-profit America Abroad Media's advisory board.
Controversy
The former Russian Foreign Intelligence Service operative Sergei Tretyakov said that SVR considered Talbott a source of intelligence information and classified him as "a special unofficial contact," even though "he was not a Russian spy." The allegations center on Talbott's relationship with Russia's ambassador to Canada, Georgiy Mamedov, who was a longtime SVR "co-optee," according to Tretyakov. Mamedov called the allegations "blatant lies." Talbott also rejected the accusations, calling them "erroneous and/or misleading in several fundamental aspects..." and said that his meetings with Mamedov advanced US objectives, such as getting Russia to accept NATO enlargement and helping to end the Kosovo War.
"In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all."
"The Russians have provided an opening for renewed diplomacy. Since last summer, President Dmitry Medvedev has been calling for a 'new Euro-Atlantic security architecture'. So far, except for rehashing old complaints and the unacceptable claim that other former Soviet republics fall within Russia's 'sphere of privileged interests', Mr Medvedev and Mr Lavrov have been vague about what they have in mind.
"We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trumpinto the White House and played him for a sucker…. Trump has been colluding with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency."
