Richard Burt

Richard R. Burt (born February 3, 1947) is an American businessman and diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to Germany and was a chief negotiator of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Prior to his diplomatic career, Burt worked as director of a non-governmental organization and from 1977 to 1980 was a national security correspondent for The New York Times.

Early life and education Burt was born on February 3, 1947, in Sewell, Chile. He attended Cornell University, where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi. He earned his bachelor's degree, and earned a master's degree in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1971. Following graduate school, he was selected for a research fellowship at the United States Naval War College. Following this fellowship, Burt moved to London to work as a research associate and later Assistant Director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies. In 1977, he was hired by The New York Times to work as a correspondent on national security issues.

Career

Burt began working for the United States Department of State in the early 1980s. In 1981, he was appointed Director of Politico-Military Affairs, and in 1983 Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs. In 1985, he became the United States Ambassador to Germany. His tenure as Ambassador to Germany coincided with the beginning of the process that would lead to the reunification of Germany. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush appointed Burt as chief negotiator for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) between the United States and the Soviet Union, with the rank of ambassador.

Private intelligence firm (2000–2007) In 2000, he, Lord Powell of Bayswater and others founded the Washington, D.C.–based private intelligence and risk-assessment and management firm Diligence with Diligence Europe headed by Michael Howard. While he chaired Diligence, Nathaniel Rothschild, a close friend of Oleg Deripaska, purchased a large stake in Diligence. he hired Diligence for corporate intelligence gathering, visa lobbying through its considerable GOP connections and, crucially, helping to obtain a $150 million World Bank/European Bank for Reconstruction and Development loan for the Komi Aluminum Project at Sosnogorsk, Komi Republic, a Deripaska subsidiary of Rusal. Through the support from Diligence, Deripaska received a multiple entry visa to the United States in December 2005. in which the auditing firm KPMG was infiltrated by Diligence in order to obtain KPMG's audit of the Jeffrey Galmond and Leonid Reiman associated firm IPOC International Growth Fund for the benefit of Alfa Group's telecom subsidiary Altimo. During Project Yucca, the shareholders of Diligence were CEO Nick Day who was a former British agent, the Chairman of Diligence Richard Burt, the Exxel Group which is a Buenos Aires private equity firm, and Edward Mathias from The Carlyle Group which is a private equity company from Washington D.C. of money laundering and also accused Diligence of impersonating secret service personnel. Kissinger Associates does not disclose if it lobbies on behalf of Russian foreign policy interests. Deutsche Bank's Scudder and Germany mutual fund families, International Games Technology, UBS mutual funds, He has lobbied on behalf of LOT Polish Airlines, the Capital Bank of Jordan, and Ukrainian construction firm TMM. He has a working relationship with Mikhail Fridman who is closely associated with the Alfa Group.

In 2014 through early 2016, Burt served as an unpaid foreign policy advisor for Rand Paul's campaign for president.

During the first two quarters of 2016, McLarty Associates received $365,000 to lobby for New European Pipeline AG, a firm owned by Russian oil company Gazprom.

Supported Donald Trump for president Burt claims to have contributed to Trump's first major foreign policy speech, April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel. In the speech, Trump called for greater cooperation with Russia and encouraged Trump to take a less interventionist approach to foreign affairs. In an April 2019 interview of the Center for the National Interest's Dmitry Simes by Christiane Amanpour, Burt was the top national security adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign. During the campaign, Burt also wrote white papers for Jeff Sessions on foreign policy and national security.

Supported Joe Biden for President

In 2020, Burt, along with over 130 other former Republican national security officials, signed a statement that asserted that President Trump was unfit to serve another term, and "To that end, we are firmly convinced that it is in the best interest of our nation that Vice President Joe Biden be elected as the next President of the United States, and we will vote for him."

Burt is a board member of the Dmitri Simes headed Center for the National Interest.