Antony Blinken

Antony John Blinken (born April 16, 1962) is an American attorney, diplomat, and government official who served as the 71st United States Secretary of State from January 26, 2021, to January 20, 2025. Blinken attended schools in Paris during his youth, earning a French Baccalauréat, before graduating from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts in social studies and from Columbia Law School with a Juris Doctor. His career spans multiple Democratic administrations, including roles as a Senate staffer, National Security Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden from 2013 to 2015, and Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017 under President Barack Obama. As Secretary of State, Blinken oversaw U.S. foreign policy amid Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, prioritizing alliance-building, military aid to Ukraine totaling over $60 billion, and diplomatic engagement in the Middle East. His tenure included the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, which involved the rapid evacuation of over 120,000 people but ended with the Taliban takeover, the deaths of 13 U.S. service members in a suicide bombing at Kabul airport, and the stranding of thousands of Afghan allies, drawing bipartisan congressional criticism for inadequate planning and execution.

Antony Blinken was born on April 16, 1962, in Yonkers, New York, to Jewish parents Judith Frehm Blinken and Donald M. Blinken. His father, an investment banker and later U.S. ambassador to Hungary from 1994 to 1998, descended from Ukrainian Jewish immigrants; Donald's father had fled pogroms in Kyiv, part of the Russian Empire, in the early 20th century. Blinken's great-grandfather, Meir Blinken, was born in 1879 in Pereiaslav, near Kyiv, and received a traditional Jewish education at a Talmud-Torah school before emigrating.

Blinken's early childhood was spent in New York City, where he attended the Dalton School, a private preparatory institution, until age nine. His parents divorced around 1971, after which his mother remarried Samuel Pisar, a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor, international lawyer, and advisor to world leaders who had endured Auschwitz, Dachau, and other camps before immigrating to the U.S. Pisar's experiences and global outlook profoundly shaped Blinken's worldview, emphasizing commerce and engagement across divides.