Thomas Dine is the former head of the militarist pro- Israel lobby group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and a supporter of a number of hardline policies of the George W. Bush administration that were championed by the neoconservative political faction in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He joined the likes of Eliot Cohen, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Perle, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), and a number of other hardline foreign policy elites in creating the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which was set up in late 2002 "t o promote regional peace, political freedom, and international security by replacing the Saddam Hussein regime with a democratic government that respects the rights of the Iraqi people and ceases to threaten the community of nations." Dine is CEO of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin, and Sonoma Counties. He is also the past president of Radio Free Europe (RFE), the station made famous during the Cold War for its CIA-funded, pro-West broadcasts into the Soviet Union. Today, RFE is a private, congressionally funded operation.
At the invitation of former Czech President Vaclav Havel, RFE moved its headquarters to Prague in the mid-1990s, which after 9/11 became a source of concern among some Czech observers who worried about the station being a terrorist target because of its close association to the Bush administration's war on terror. Under Dine's watch, after 9/11 RFE began to focus on antiterror stories, broadcasting them to Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq. According to a report from OpenDemocracy.net, "More than a few people have now suggested moving [RFE] to a 'safer location,' most notably Petr Pithart (dissident, Charter 77 signatory, prime mover in the revolution of 1989, and former Czechoslovak Prime Minister). Pithart is also a member of the Republic's National Security Council, which recently voted to move RFE elsewhere. Quite where to has yet to be agreed. It's something that the RFE's current programming director, Jeffrey Trimble, currently refuses to do. In theory, the Czech government may have to force RFE out of the capital—admittedly an unlikely scenario, but one I'd pay good money to watch. The Republic's commitment to an organization that itself braved attacks during the Cold War (the KGB once tried to poison the salt in the canteen of its Munich offices) in order to bring the voice of freedom to the oppressed seems to be, at least on the face of it, a pretty fair-weather affair."
Dine was also involved in championing the first Gulf War. During the lead up to that war, he worked behind the scenes as AIPAC director to garner support for U.S. intervention. According to the Wall Street Journal (January 8, 1991): "When Congress debated going to war with Iraq, the pro-Israel lobby stayed in the background—but not out of the fight. Leaders of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee now acknowledge it worked in tandem with the Bush administration to win passage of a resolution authorizing the president to commit U.S. troops to combat. The behind-the-scenes campaign avoided AIPAC's customary high profile in the Capitol and relied instead on activists—calling sometimes from Israel itself—to contact lawmakers and build on public endorsements by major Jewish organizations. 'Yes, we were active,' says AIPAC Director Thomas Dine. 'These are the great issues of our time. If you sit on the sidelines, you have no voice.'"
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Affiliations
Radio Free Europe: Former Director
Committee for the Liberation of Iraq: Former Member
American Israel Public Affairs Committee: Executive Director (1980-1993)
Brookings Institute: Senior Fellow, 1979
Council on Foreign Relations: Member
Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco: CEO
Government Service
U.S. Agency for International Development: Assistant Administrator for Europe and the New Independent States (1993-1997)
U.S. Senate: Legislative Assistant to Sen. Frank Church (D-ID)
Senate Budget Committee: National Security Staff Director (1975-1978)
Senate Special Committee on National Emergencies and Delegated Powers: Senior Analyst (1973-1974)
Education
ohns Hopkins University: M.A.
University of California/Los Angeles: M.A.
Colgate University: B.A.
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