The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal
William J.
William Burns, described by The Atlantic magazine as the "secret diplomatic weapon" of the United States, was in the service of the US State Department under five presidents and ten secretaries of state. During his long career, Burns has been involved in many significant events of recent years: Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1999, discussions of NATO expansion, the nuclear deal with Iran. In the book, the author reveals previously unknown historical details and cites recently declassified telegrams and memorandums, which provide a rare opportunity to understand how diplomatic work is actually carried out - far from always it goes only through official channels, through ambassadors and summits. Because since the late 1980s William Burns actively worked in the Russian direction, and in 2005–2008. was the US Ambassador to the Russian Federation, his opinion on Russian politics and the situation in the country can provide a lot of valuable information about why Russian-American relations were built in one way or another and why they ended up in a dead end.
