American Educational Trust

The American Educational Trust (AET) is a non-profit foundation incorporated in Washington, DC by retired U.S. foreign service officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states. AET perceives a dearth in knowledge about the Middle East, Arabs, and Muslims, in the U.S., and pursues an educational mission of “Interpreting the Middle East for North Americans; Interpreting North America for the Middle East.”

AET's Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright, and Republican Senator Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Members of AET's Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services.

AET does not take partisan domestic political positions. In general, AET supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations, international law, the Geneva Conventions, and traditional American support for human rights, self-determination, and fair play.

As part of its educational mission, AET publishes the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a 100-page magazine published 10 times per year in Washington, DC, that focuses on news and analysis from and about the Middle East and U.S. policy in that region. AET also maintains the Washington Report Web site, http://www.wrmea.com.

The AET Library Endowment Fund, a 501(c)3 registered charity, provides educational materials to schools, libraries, and religious institutions, including, but not limited to, subscriptions to the Washington Report, books, pamphlets, white papers, and multi-media educational tools.

AET, in conjunction with Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU), Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel (JPPI), and Black Voices for Peace (BVFP), published the two booklets “Who Will Save the Children?” and “Remember These Children,” and maintains the Web site, http://www.rememberthesechildren.org, to further educate the American public about the realities of the situation in Palestine and Israel.

AET also maintains a bookstore which offers a variety of books, and other multi-media tools. Political and historical monographs, fiction, cookbooks, children’s books, poetry, maps, music, and movies, as well as Palestinian handicrafts are just some of the offerings of the Washington Report Book Club. To make these materials more readily available to the general public, AET offers virtually every item at a discounted price, all the time. The book club can be found at http://www.middleeastbooks.com.

AET also maintains an inventory of Palestinian Arts and Crafts.

Experts on the Middle East are available for interviews, panel discussions, or presentations by contacting communications@wrmea.com. A list of available speakers and their biographies can be found below.

AET receives no government funds, and is funded solely by magazine sales, book sales, advertisements, and the generous donations of our “choir of angels”—a partial listing of which can be found in every issue of the Washington Report.

Founders

The American Educational Trust was founded in Washington, DC in January, 1982. Its founding chairman was Edward Firth Henderson, a British Army Officer during World War II who served in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

Co-founders were Andrew I. Killgore, AET's first president, who was U.S. Ambassador to the State of Qatar when he retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980; and Richard H. Curtiss, AET's first executive director, who was chief inspector of the U.S. Information Agency when he retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980.

In addition to the three founding directors, other initial directors of the American Educational Trust were Prof. John Ruedy, former director of studies at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; former Democratic Member of Congress Thomas Rees of Los Angeles; John Law, Middle East correspondent for U.S. News & World Report for some 20 years before he founded Mideast Markets, a publication of the Chase Manhattan Bank; and Dr. John Duke Anthony, president and chief executive officer of the National Council on U.S. Arab Relations.

Subsequent board chairmen have included Dr. John Davies, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and the Reverend Dr. L. Humphrey Walz, former associate executive of the Presbyterian synod of the Northeast.

Speaker’s Bureau

The following people are available to speak on a variety of topics related to the Middle East, Arabs, and Islam.

Ambassador Andrew Ivy Killgore

Andrew I. Killgore, a retired US ambassador, is the publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a monthly magazine with the largest circulation of any Middle East related publication in North America. The Washington Report covers political, cultural, economic, and military issues in the Middle East and the Arab World. Recently, the magazine has also concentrated on the Arab-Israeli peace process and US foreign policy toward the Middle East.

Mr. Killgore is also the president and one of the founders of the American Educational Trust (AET), a non-profit organization founded in 1982 by retired Foreign Service Officers to provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning US relations with Middle Eastern states. The American Educational Trust publishes the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Middle East-related books.

Education and Experience

Ambassador Killgore received a B.S. from the University of West Alabama and a J.D. from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1949 after serving in the 7th Fleet of the United States Navy during World War II. After the war, he served as a member of the US Displaced Persons Commission in Germany. In 1950 he joined the Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer and served in Frankfurt, London, Beirut, Jerusalem, Amman, Baghdad, Dhaka, Tehran, Bahrain, and New Zealand. He was US ambassador to the Emirate of Qatar in 1977. He retired from foreign service in 1980. Since his retirement, he has devoted his time to publishing the Washington Report and speaking to civic and community activism organizations, as well as universities. He has also been an active member of the board of the American Near East Refuge Aid Foundation.

Writings and Awards

Ambassador Killgore has written extensively for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, particularly on the Persian Gulf states and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. In 1996 he received the Foreign Service Cup, an annual award given to the retired Foreign Service Officer selected by his or her peers as the outstanding retiree of the year. He has appeared many times on national radio and television to discuss US Middle East policy and the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and Iranian-Arab relations.

Janet McMahon

Managing Editor, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

Education:

Ms. McMahon earned her B.A. in English at Reed College in Portland, OR in1970. She subsequently studied economic and Arabic on a part-time basis at Portland State University in Oregon. She attended the American University in Cairo in 1987 and 1988, receiving a graduate diploma in Middle East Studies, with an emphasis in economics.

Work Experience:

Prior to joining the Washington Report, Ms. McMahon served as assistant director of the Metropolitan Arts Commission in Portland, Oregon. She administered the pubic agency’s program of grants to arts organizations and individual artists, and ran a multicultural arts program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

After completing her studies at the American University in Cairo, Ms. McMahon joined the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in 1989 as associate editor. She has overseen its transition from a 60-page black-and-white publication to its current four-color, 116-page format. In addition to her editorial duties, she has interviewed Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, former Sen. James Abourezk, Dr. Hala Maksoud and Dr. Alfred Lilienthal, among others. She has written special reports on Israel and Palestine, and on domestic issues related to the conflict, and has contributed articles to special issues of the Washington Report on Iran, Tunisia, Cyprus and Libya. Her article “Libya: Who’s Isolating Whom?” was selected for inclusion in U.S. Foreign Policy Since the Cold War, a compilation of articles designed for school, college, and public libraries.

Travel:

In addition to travel in North America, Baja California and the Caribbean, Ms. McMahon has visited Yugoslavia (1984), Egypt (1987 – 88), Greece, Europe, Palestine/Israel, Jordan, Tunisia, Cyprus, Libya, China, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Delinda Curtiss Hanley

Executive Director and News Editor, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

Delinda Curtiss Hanley is news editor and executive director of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a 98-page nearly monthly magazine with the largest circulation of any Middle East related publication in North America. The Washington Report features insightful analysis of the political, economic, and historical realities of the U.S.-Middle East relationship. Each colorful issue is packed with special reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq, current Middle East issues and grassroots activism in the U.S. and abroad. The magazine is important to every Muslim- and Arab-American organization because it is the only publication that reports on every group's symposiums, lectures, dialogues and activities. The magazine also focuses on U.S. lobbying groups involved in crafting U.S. policy.

Background Information:

Delinda Hanley spent most of her childhood in the Middle East accompanying her foreign service officer father Richard Curtiss, co-founder of the Washington Report. After attending the American University in Washington, DC, and American University of Beirut, she earned a degree in education from the University of Maryland. She joined the Peace Corps and taught English in the Sultanate of Oman. She stayed for three additonal years to work in the Musandam Province of Oman as a consultant for a development project. After several years of teaching in Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom, she returned the United States in 1988 to work as an editor and picture researcher for a publisher of historical magazines. In 1996 she came to work for the Washington Report and is now the executive director and news editor. She writes extensively for the magazine on an array of topics and her stories have also been published in the Arab News, Saudi ARAMCO World, the Minaret, Islamic Horizons and other U.S. magazines, including the Jewish Spectator. She has written extensively on Palestine Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Libya, the emergence of the Muslim voice in Arab politics, and fairness in the mainstream American media. Ms. Hanley has given talks at various conferences and demonstrations across the United States and Canada.