Roger Hilsman (born November 23, 1919)[1] is an author and political scientist. He served as an American soldier in Merrill's Marauders and then the Office of Strategic Services in China-Burma-India Theater of World War II during World War II and as an aide and adviser to President John F. Kennedy. He left government in 1964 to teach at Columbia University.
Hilsman attended the United States Military Academy and graduated in June 1943. He served with the Detachment 101 of the OSS and in August 1945, went on an OSS mission into Manchuria to liberate American prisoners of war held in a Mukden Japanese POW camp and there found his father.
During the Kennedy Administration Hilsman became director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), and in 1963 became the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs. He resigned in March 1964 in a disagreement with President Johnson's Vietnam policy and was replaced at the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs by William Bundy. Hilsman has been professor of government and international politics at Columbia University since 1964. Now retired, Hilsman serves as a professor emeritus.
He has since written at least 11 books about 20th Century American foreign policy. They include:
Hilsman is married to the former Eleanor Hoyt.
Roger Hilsman has been interviewed as part of Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, a site at the Library of Congress.
| Government offices | ||
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| Preceded by Hugh S. Cumming, Jr. |
Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research February 19, 1961 – April 25, 1963 |
Succeeded by Thomas L. Hughes |
| Preceded by W. Averell Harriman |
Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs May 9, 1963 – March 15, 1964 |
Succeeded by William Bundy |
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