William R. Polk studied at Harvard and Oxford and taught at Harvard until 1961 when President J. F. Kennedy, McGeorge Bundy, director of the National Security Council, and Under Secretary of State, Chester Bowles put him on the newly reorganized Policy Planning Council. There he was responsible for much of Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. He was one of three members of the Crisis Management Committee during the Cuban Missile Crisis; headed the American task force that helped to end the Algerian war; and later he negotiated the Egyptian-Israeli cease fire on the Suez Canal. In 1965, the resigned to become Professor of History at the University of Chicago where he founded the Middle Eastern Studies Center, and subsequently was President of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs. He is author of scores of essays and 17 books on world affairs. In 2012, he organized and chaired the conference on Affordable World Security that has been called the best meeting of its kind ever held in Washington.