After matriculating at Harvard College in the late 1950s, Lake went straight into politics a year after graduation and served until 1970 as a Foreign Service Officer. He assisted Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., during the Vietnam War and in 1969, worked in national security affairs. Eventually, Lake collaborated with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and even accompanied him on the first secret meeting with North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris. However, due to his objections to the course of the war and Kissinger’s actions regarding Africa, particularly in Cambodia, Lake resigned from the State Department. Despite this fallout, Lake continued pursuing a career in foreign policy and served under the Carter administration as head of policy planning in the U.S. State Department until 1980, working under the Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance.
However, Lake’s career took a new direction into the world of academia when Carter was not re-elected. “As his term came to a close in 1980, I learned that he would be interested in teaching in the Five College area since he owned a farm in Worthington,” remembered Political Science Professor William Taubman. Thus, in 1981, Lake came to Amherst with most of his courses based on the Vietnam War. Due to the popularity and relativity of the topic during this time, Lake was hired as a Five College professor of international relations based at Mount Holyoke, but continued teaching one course every other year at Amherst. “In addition to being very smart and informed, he had an informal teaching style, often telling stories about his time in government, and his diplomatic experience attracted students interested in world politics and diplomatic careers, in particular,” added Taubman.
After teaching for 12 years in Massachusetts, Lake went back into politics and served under the Clinton administration as a foreign policy advisor from 1993 to 1997. Though regretted by his colleagues, his departure from academia was not shocking. “Tony gave a sense that he was coming to teach temporarily,” said Political Science Professor Paval Machala. “Even though he was in a tenured position, when someone’s party comes back to power, he or she will try to return back to Washington. Tony never pretended that he was giving this commitment and he had a sense that Amherst was too small for him.” As a Clinton foreign policy aide, Lake helped end the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea and was considered for the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency but due to complications within the administration, his nomination was withdrawn.
Finally, in 2003, Lake met Obama and became a foreign policy advisor for him during his presidential campaign in 2007. The two share the same opinions on the invasion of Iraq and believe that Western ideals should not be imposed on other countries. “I believe strongly that our foreign policies must marry principle and pragmatism,” said Lake in 1993 to students at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington D.C. “We should be principled about our purposes but pragmatic about our means.”
Lake’s vast experience in foreign policy and overall demeanor made him an asset to the Five College student body and also other faculty members, who are not surprised that Obama has brought him on as an advisor. “His body language was very modest and he was very soft-spoken,” said Machala. “He had a calm effect on people. Many adjectives used to describe Obama could be used to describe Tony as well, so it’s not unexpected that he’s a part of the administration.”
Lake has occasionally returned back to the Pioneer Valley to speak and taught a course at Mount Holyoke last spring. In addition, he is a member of the Mount Holyoke College Board of Trustees. He is also the author of over five books, his most recent being More Than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa, which he co-authored with Christine Todd Whitman.
During his time in the Five College Area 47 years ago, Lake provided his students and colleagues with a wealth of experience that was often overlooked because of his approachable and diplomatic nature; two qualities he brings to the White House. “The Obama administration prides itself on being able to accommodate diverse individuals in terms of temperament and intellectual positions,” said Machala. “Tony is a team player and if anybody can help Obama hold different foreign policy egos together and channel their incompatibilities into a joint project, it’s Tony Lake.”