Leach ’64 may be next ambassador to China

“I am willing to express views on most things in public life but I do not believe it appropriate to conjecture about appointments,” Leach said in an e-mail to The Daily Princetonian. “My hope and expectation is that I will be teaching at Princeton in the Fall.”

Former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel and Center for American Progress President John Podesta have both turned down the job, the publication reported, adding that it wasn’t clear if Leach had also turned down the post and that he has also been mentioned as a possible administrator for the United States Agency for International Development.

A former University trustee and member of Ivy Club, Leach represented Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 2007. He served as interim director of the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government from September 2007 to September 2008.

Leach, a Republican, broke party ranks in August 2008 and endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama’s bid for president. Leach also spoke at the Democratic National Convention later that month. After Obama’s election last November, Leach served as an emissary with former secretary of state Madeleine Albright for Obama at an international economic summit in Washington, D.C.

While in the House, Leach served as chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and what was then the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. He also authored legislation that created an international AIDS Trust Fund, authorized an International Monetary Fund quota increase and provided debt relief for some of the world’s poorest countries.

The magazine said other potential nominees include retired admiral and former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Bill Owens, former State Department counselor Wendy Sherman and Ken Lieberthal, a former senior director for Asia at the National Security Council.

Foreign Policy also reported that the Obama administration wants to announce its ambassadors to China and Japan at the same time.

Former assistant secretary of defense and National Intelligence Council chairman Joseph Nye ’58, famous for his theory of “soft power,” is widely considered to be Obama’s pick for U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Nye and Wilson School professor Robert Keohane are founders of the theory of neo-liberalism in international relations. They are generally considered among the top international relations theorists in the world.

A Wilson School graduate and a current Kennedy School professor, Nye attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship before receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard.

Nye published “Understanding International Conflicts” and “The Power Game: A Washington Novel” in 2002 and “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics” in 2004.