- Peter Bourne
Dr. Peter Bourne (born 1939) is a
physician , anthropologist, biographer,author and international civil servant with experience in several seniorgovernment positions. He is currently chairman of the board of theAmerican Association for World Health , and Professor and Vice Chancellor Emeritus at St. George's University Medical School,Grenada .Bourne was born in 1939 in
Oxford ,England , where he received his early education at theDragon School . He graduated with an M.D. degree fromEmory University ,Atlanta , Georgia in 1962, and received an MA in anthropology fromStanford University in 1969. After graduating, he entered the military, serving as a Captain in theUnited States Army . He was assigned to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), where he studied the psychological and physiological effects of stress on basic trainees and men incombat . He spent one year inVietnam as head of the Army's psychiatric research team, where he was awarded the Bronze Star, theAir Medal and theCombat Medical Badge . After returning from Vietnam he was active in theanti-war movement.Bourne became active in Democratic
politics in 1971 when he worked in the offices of the newly elected Governor of Georgia,Jimmy Carter . Bourne was also influential in convincing Carter to run for the Presidency several years later, and became a deputy campaign manager for Carter in Washington.After setting up and successfully running Georgia's first statewide drug treatment program, Bourne was asked to take a position as deputy in charge of treatment programs in President Nixon's
Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP) in Washington.Under President Carter, Bourne was appointed special assistant to the President for
health issues. He resigned this position amidcontroversy after NORML directorKeith Stroup leaked a story to reporter Jack Anderson that Bourne had snortedcocaine at a NORMLChristmas party in 1977 withHunter S. Thompson andDavid Kennedy .In 1979 Bourne became an Assistant Secretary-General at the
United Nations , where he established and ran the "International Drinking Water Decade," a ten-year program that provided clean drinking water to 500 million people worldwide. After leaving the UN in 1982 for the private sector, he served on the boards of numerouscharities .In 1995 as an Advisor on
Foreign Policy to US CongressmanBill Richardson , Bourne accompanied him toBaghdad for a meeting withSaddam Hussein to secure the release of two American aerospace workers who had been captured by the Iraqis after wandering over theKuwait i border. Richardson and Bourne subsequently collaborated on a number of such efforts inIran , theUnited Arab Emirates ,Kenya , andNorth Korea , where they helped win the release of an American laypreacher who had crossed to the wrong side of the border.Dr. Bourne has authored over a hundred articles and written or edited ten
book s.References
* [http://www.annonline.com/interviews/970423/biography.html Biography: Peter Bourne] , AnnOnline.
* Anderson, Patrick: [http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/highinamerica1.htm High in America: The True Story Behind NORML and the Politics of Marijuana] .
* http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/bourne.html
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