Peter Michael McKinley (born January 1954) is an American diplomat. A career

Foreign Service Officer A Foreign Service Officer (FSO) is a commissioned member of the United States Foreign Service. Foreign Service Officers formulate and implement the foreign policy of the United States. FSOs spend most of their careers overseas as members of U ...

, McKinley served as

U.S. Ambassador to Peru The following is a list of United States ambassadors, or other chiefs of mission, to Peru. The title given by the United States State Department to this position is currently ''Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.'' Notes Se ...

(2007–2010),

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

(2010–2013), Afghanistan (2015–2016), and Brazil (2017–2018), and then as Senior Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State (2018–2019).

Early life and education

McKinley was born in

Maracaibo ) , motto = "''Muy noble y leal''"(English: "Very noble and loyal") , anthem = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_alt = ...

, Venezuela, and grew up in Brazil, Mexico, Spain, and the United States. McKinley earned a B.A. from Southampton University and an

M.Phil. The Master of Philosophy (MPhil; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. In the United States, an MPhil typically includes a taught portion and a significant research portion, during which a thesis project is conducted under supervision. An MPhil m ...

and

D.Phil. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from the University of Oxford. He was a member of Linacre College, Oxford.

Career

McKinley joined the Foreign Service in 1982. He was based in

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

from 1983 until 1985 and had three tours of duty at the

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

's headquarters in Washington from 1985 until 1990. He then served in the U.S. Embassy in London from 1990 until 1994 and as deputy chief of mission and ''

chargé d'affaires A ''chargé d'affaires'' (), plural ''chargés d'affaires'', often shortened to ''chargé'' (French) and sometimes in colloquial English to ''charge-D'', is a diplomat who serves as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassador ...

'' at U.S. Embassies in Mozambique, Uganda, and Belgium from 1994 until 2001. He was '' chargé d'affaires ad interim'' at the U.S. Embassy in Mozambique from July 1996 to December 1997.Peter Michael McKinley (1954–)
Office of the Historian, United States Department of State. From 2001 until 2004, McKinley served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department's

Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) is a bureau within the United States Department of State. It has primary responsibility for formulating policies on population, refugees, and migration, and for administering U.S. refugee ...

. He then was deputy chief of mission and chargé d' affaires at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels from 2004 to 2007. McKinley served as the

from 2007 to 2010 and United States Ambassador to Colombia from 2010 to 2013. The United States Senate confirmed McKinley's nomination to both posts by voice vote. As ambassador to Colombia, McKinley demanded the release of an American man who had been abducted by the militant group FARC; the man was later released. McKinley was U.S. Deputy Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2013 to 2014. On December 9, 2014, the Senate confirmed McKinley to be the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan by voice vote. He presented his credentials in Kabul on January 6, 2015. During a tense period of political instability in 2016, McKinley met nearly daily between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his coalition partner, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah; McKinley acted as a mediator and engaged in shuttle diplomacy to try to preserve the fragile national coalition government and stymie an upsurge in Taliban activity in Afghanistan. As U.S. Ambassador, McKinley called upon the Afghan government to conduct a full, transparent investigation into the allegations of Ahmad Ishchi of Jowzjan Province, who in 2016 accused General Abdul Rashid Dostum of abducting and torturing him. McKinley served as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan until December 18, 2016, upon being appointed

U.S. Ambassador to Brazil The following is a list of ambassadors of the United States, or other chiefs of mission, to Brazil. The title given by the United States State Department to this position is currently Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. List ...

. On September 8, 2016 the Senate confirmed McKinley to be the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil by a vote of 92–0. He presented his credentials on January 20, 2017 and served until November 3, 2018, when he took up the post of Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State. On October 10, 2019, McKinley resigned from the State Department in protest of the failure of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to support department employees, including U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, in connection with the Trump–Ukraine scandal. On October 16, 2019, McKinley gave deposition testimony to the House Intelligence,

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, and

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committees in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.READ: Ex-State Department Adviser Michael McKinley's Testimony To Congress
NPR (November 4, 2019). McKinley's testimony was publicly released on November 4, 2019. McKinley testified that his resignation was prompted in part by the Trump administration's attempted use of U.S. diplomatic missions "to procure negative political information for domestic purposes, combined with the failure I saw in the building to provide support for our professional cadre in a particularly trying time." McKinley testified: "I was disturbed by the implication that foreign governments were being approached to procure negative information on political opponents." McKinley testified that another senior official, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs

George P. Kent George P. Kent is an American diplomat. He is ambassador to Estonia since February 21, 2023. George Kent served as deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, European and Eurasian Affairs from 2018 to 2 ...

, had told him that he felt bullied by the department, that the department's legal advisor was seeking to "shut him up," and that State Department leadership was failing to timely provide document requests from Congress to him.Michael Warren
Ex-Pompeo adviser tells lawmakers State's top Eurasia official felt 'bullied' by department
CNN (November 4, 2019). Kent provided a memo to McKinley detailing his concerns, which McKinley forwarded to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale, acting legal adviser

Marik String Marik String is an American attorney, national security expert, and U.S. Navy officer, who served as Acting Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State from 2019 to 2021. Education String earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University ...

, and

Deputy Secretary of State The deputy secretary of state of the United States is the principal deputy to the United States Secretary of State, secretary of state. The current deputy secretary of state is Wendy Ruth Sherman, serving since April 2021 under United States Secre ...

John J. Sullivan, but received no response. McKinley's testimony, and that of other high-ranking U.S. diplomats, revealed deep discontent among the U.S. diplomatic corps with Pompeo's leadership.Carol Morello
Testimony exposes deepening discontent with Pompeo at State Department
''Washington Post'' (October 16, 2019).

Published works

McKinley's ''Pre-revolutionary Caracas: Politics, Economy and Society 1777-1811'' (1985),Kathy Waldron
Review of McKinley, P. Michael. Pre-Revolutionary Caracas: Politics, Economy, and Society, 1777–1811 (Cambridge Latin American Studies, number 56.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 1985
in '' American Historical Review'', Vol. 93, Issue 1, February 1988, pp. 262–263. a history of colonial Venezuela, was published by Cambridge University Press and also appeared in a Spanish edition. A 1988 book review in the '' American Historical Review'' described it as "the first English-language

monograph A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In library cataloging, ''monograph ...

to appear on colonial Venezuela in over ten years and ... the first in language to provide a broad synthesis of the late colonial period."

Personal life

He is married to Fatima Salces Arce; they have three children.Hannah Stone
Obama nominates new ambassador to Colombia
''Colombia Reports'' (May 7, 2010). In addition to English, McKinley speaks Spanish,

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, and Portuguese.

References

External links