U.S. CIA Director William Burns chose Britain’s Ditchley Foundation to make repeated attacks yesterday against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia, stating that the CIA has a wide opening to recruit people in Russia, and expressing “an enduring appreciation of the power and purpose of the trans-Atlantic Alliance and of the particular significance of Anglo-American partnership.”
The Ditchley Foundation, a force of British intelligence, was founded in 1958, in Oxfordshire to promote Anglo-American working relationships. Chairman Jonathan Hopkin Hill, Baron Hill of Oareford, is a director of The Times newspaper, House of Lords (2010-), former Leader of the House of Lords and former Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, responsible to the British Sovereign for administration of the Duchy, which is a private estate owned by the monarch.
In the course of the 59th Ditchley Annual Lecture July 1, Burns, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia (2005-2008), described his speech as a homecoming: “I first came here in 1979 as a young and unformed Marshall Scholar at Oxford … but the effect it had on me was profound.” His enduring appreciation of the Anglo-American partnership was a guiding thread of his speech.
Burns remarked: “In a transition memo that I drafted for the incoming Clinton Administration at the end of 1992, I tried to capture the dim outlines of the challenges ahead. ‘While for the first time in 50 years we do not face a global military adversary,’ I wrote, ‘it is certainly conceivable that a return to authoritarianism in Russia or an aggressively hostile China could revive such a global threat.’ ”
