Massachusetts native John Joseph Sullivan has had a long career in
government service. In 1991 he served as Counselor to Assistant Attorney
General J. Michael Luttig in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal
Counsel. The next year he served as Deputy General Counsel of President
George H.W. Bush’s 1992 re-election campaign. Following several years in
private practice with the Washington D.C. firm Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw,
where he practiced Supreme Court law and co-chaired the firm’s national
security practice, in 2004 he was appointed Deputy General Counsel of the
U.S. Department of Defense. He later moved to the U.S. Commerce
Department where he served as General Counsel and soon after was
nominated by President Bush to serve as Deputy Secretary of Commerce and
sworn in on March 14, 2008, after senate confirmation.

In 2017 he was confirmed as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State after nomination
by Donald Trump and overwhelming senate support for his confirmation. In
October 2019, Sullivan was nominated and confirmed to be the United States
Ambassador to Russia. Following Trump’s departure, incoming President Joe
Biden asked Sullivan to stay on during his term as president, which he did
until family health issues required his return to the U.S in September 2022.

Ambassador Sullivan was on the diplomatic front lines when Russia invaded
Ukraine. He had been warning it would happen for weeks. When troops
crossed the border, he was awakened in the middle of the night with a
prearranged code that meant he needed to collect his bodyguards and get to
the embassy as soon as possible. It meant that the war had begun.

He has written a memoir about his service titled Midnight in Moscow. In it,
Ambassador Sullivan leads readers into the office of the U.S, Embassy in
Moscow and the halls of the Kremlin during possibly the most dangerous
period since World War II. He describes how the Putin regime repeatedly lied
about its intentions regarding Ukraine while devoting huge numbers of
personnel and vast resources to undermine the U.S. diplomatic mission. He
explains his belief that when Putin gave his order on February 24, 2022, Russia
went not just to war with its neighbor but with the United States and everything it represents. His memoir details how the U.S. relationship with Russia deteriorated, and where it is headed.

During the 2024 NAFUSA annual conference in Oklahoma City, John C.
Richter, NAFUSA’s president, will interview Ambassador Sulivan about his
experience and what the future portends vis-à-vis Russia and Putin.