*Affiliations are for identification purposes only, and do not represent any institutional endorsement by the affiliated organizations.

The Honorable Mitch McConnell

Minority Leader
United States Senate
S-230 The Capitol
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator McConnell,

We are writing to urge you to act swiftly on the nomination of Bathsheba Crocker to be Assistant
Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. We are writing as a bipartisan group of
individuals with significant service and experience in American foreign policy because we believe that
Ms. Crockers nomination is an urgent national security priority.*

The United States currently faces a startling array of consequential issues that are playing out in various
international organizations, particularly the United Nations. The crisis in Crimea and Ukraine, the civil
war in Syria, and the efforts to stop the Iranian nuclear program and defend Israel in international
institutions, to name just a few, all require vigorous U.S. diplomacy at international organizations around
the world. If we are to effectively represent U.S. positions at the UN Security Council, the UN Human
Rights Council, and the IAEA, among others, and to push forward our UN reform agenda, we need to
have in place the senior U.S. diplomat responsible for organizing our efforts for developing U.S.
diplomatic strategy across the range of international organizations.

We recognize that the confirmation process is difficult. But there is no known opposition to Ms.
Crockers confirmation. She has been endorsed by senior Democratic and Republican leaders in the
Senate and was voted unanimously out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Because of her
varied and impressive experience, including work in the private sector with the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, leadership inside the UN on peace building and humanitarian response issues, and multiple
previous positions of responsibility in the State Department, Ms. Crocker is extremely well positioned to
advance U.S. priorities within international organizations.

Her nomination has been pending for over six months, and her quick confirmation would send a strong
message that the U.S. Senate is serious about ensuring the United States remains a strong force for
democracy and freedom around the world.

The position of Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs has been vacant since June
2013. Leaving it empty handicaps our diplomacy in crucial areas. We urge you to act as soon possible to
fill this important position.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,


Morton Abramowitz
Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation

Nazanin Ash
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near
Eastern Affairs


Alyssa Ayres
Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

John B. Bellinger III
Former Legal Adviser, Department of State




Daniel Benjamin
Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for
Counterterrorism, Department of State

Samuel R. (Sandy) Berger
Former National Security Advisor

Nancy Birdsall
President, Center for Global Development

Thomas Carothers
Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace

Craig Cohen
Executive Vice President, Center for Strategic and
International Studies

Christopher S. Chivvis
Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation

Isobel Coleman
Senior Fellow, The Council on Foreign Relations

Paula J. Dobriansky
Former Under Secretary of State for Democracy and
Global Affairs

Stuart E. Eizenstat
Former Ambassador to the European Union; Former
Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and
Agricultural Affairs

Johanna Mendelson Forman
Scholar-in-Residence, American University; Senior
Associate, CSIS

Michele Flournoy
Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy

David Gordon
Chairman, Eurasia Group

Morton H. Halperin
Former Director of Policy Planning

Amy Hawthorne
Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council

Kathleen H. Hicks
Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and International
Studies

Duncan B. Hollis
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Temple University
School of Law
Helen-Louise Hunter, Esq.
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

Heather Hurlburt
Senior Adviser for National Security, Human Rights First

Bruce Jones
Senior Fellow and Director, Project on International
Order and Strategy, The Brookings Institution

Brian Katulis
Senior Fellow, Center for America Progress

David Kaye
UC Irvine School of Law

Dalia Dassa Kaye
Director, Center for Middle East Public Policy, The
RAND Corporation

Mark Lagon
Chair, Global Politics and Security, Georgetown
University

Louis Lauter
Director of Congressional Affairs, Center for Strategic
and International Studies

Princeton N. Lyman
Former Assistant Secretary of State for International
Organization Affairs.

Peter Mandaville
Professor of Government & Politics,
George Mason University

Matteo Mecacci
President, International Campaign for Tibet

J. Stephen Morrison
Senior Vice President, Center for Strategic and
International Studies

Todd Moss
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African
Affairs

John Negroponte
Former Deputy Secretary of State; Former Permanent
Representative to the United Nations

Michael OHanlon
Director of Research and Senior Fellow, The Brookings
Institution





Thomas Pickering
Former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs;
Former Permanent Representative to the United Nations

Eric P. Schwartz
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Population,
Refugees and Migration

Jeremy Shapiro
Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Anne-Marie Slaughter
Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs,
Princeton University

Julianne Smith
Senior Fellow and Director of the Strategy and Statecraft
Program, Center for New American Security

James B. Steinberg
Former Deputy Secretary of State

Mona Sutphen
Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff

Ashley J. Tellis
Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace

Richard Verma
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative
Affairs

Andrew S. Weiss
Former Director, Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian
Affairs, National Security Council

Frank Wisner
Foreign Affairs Advisor, Patton Boggs

Tamara Wittes
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near
Eastern Affairs

Peter Yeo
Executive Director, Better World Campaign

Casimir Yost
Senior Associate, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy,
Georgetown University