Tibor P. Nagy Jr.

Tibor P. Nagy Jr., served as the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia from 1999-2002 and Ambassador to Guinea from 1996-99. Before that, he attended the Department of State's prestigious Senior Seminar. Joining the Foreign Service in 1978 as a management analyst in the Bureau of Personnel, his first overseas assignment was as General Services Officer in Lusaka, Zambia, from 1979-81. After that, he was assigned to Victoria, Seychelles, for two years as Administrative Officer. He served as Systems Administrator for the African Bureau in Washington from 1983-84 and then returned overseas as Administrative Officer in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 1984-86. For the next eight years, he was Deputy Chief of Mission at Lome, Togo (1987-90); Yaounde, Cameroon (1990-93); and Lagos, Nigeria (1993-95).

Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1949, Nagy arrived in the United States as a political refugee in 1957. He received a B.A. from Texas Tech University in 1972 and an M.S.A. from George Washington University in 1978. He speaks Hungarian and French, and has received numerous awards, including the Department of State's "Superior Honor" award, five "Meritorious Honor" awards, as well as being runner-up for the prestigious "Deputy Chief of Mission of the Year" award.

Nagy served as Associate Vice Provost for International Affairs at Texas Tech University. During the 2002 academic year, he was the Department of State's "Diplomat in Residence" at the University of Oklahoma. 

—Adapted from the original event program distributed at Tibor P. Nagy Jr.'s LBJ Distinguished Lecture

“Unfortunately, we are the only country in the world that really cannot hide. We are a superpower with interests everywhere and on every single issue. And frankly we are confronting a globe where we see troubles in every direction. And we are no longer certain, beyond a very few countries on either side, who are the real friends, who are the real enemies. It almost seems like most countries are a little bit of both.”

“Well, there’s a foreign policy stove, and there are many pots on there. Some are boiling with the tops off — we can see them. Some are on there and they’re covered — we don’t know if they’re boiling or not, and those may be the most dangerous of all.”