Herman J Cohen

HERMAN J. "HANK" COHEN, a 38-year Foreign Service officer who retired with the top rank of Career Ambassador, took a special interest in the economics of developing nations and specialized in U.S. relations with sub-Saharan Africa. Overseas posts included Paris, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Zaire, and, as ambassador, Senegal. At home he served as assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, the president's special assistant on Africa, deputy head of State's Intelligence and Research Bureau,...See more

HERMAN J. "HANK" COHEN, a 38-year Foreign Service officer who retired with the top rank of Career Ambassador, took a special interest in the economics of developing nations and specialized in U.S. relations with sub-Saharan Africa. Overseas posts included Paris, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Zaire, and, as ambassador, Senegal. At home he served as assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, the president's special assistant on Africa, deputy head of State's Intelligence and Research Bureau, World Bank senior adviser on Africa, president of Cohen and Woods international consulting firm, and adjunct professor at SAIS. He is the author of Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent (2000), The Mind of the African Strongman: Conversations with Dictators, Statesmen, and Father Figures (2015), and U.S. Policy Toward Africa: Eight Decades of Realpolitik (2020). See less