For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 28, 2001

Statement by the Press Secretary

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice announced today the appointment of Elliott Abrams as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations at the National Security Council, effective June 25, 2001.

Mr. Abrams has been President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., since 1996. He served as Chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom from June 2000 to May 2001.

Mr. Abrams began his service in the U.S. Government in the 1970s as Assistant Counsel to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, as Special Counsel to Senator Henry M. Jackson, and as Special Counsel and then Chief of Staff to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan. During the Reagan Administration, Mr. Abrams served as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and then as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. He was a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute from 1989 to 1996.

Mr. Abrams was born in New York City. He received his B.A. from Harvard College in 1969, a master’s degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics in 1970, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1973. Mr. Abrams and his wife Rachel have three children.

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