Robert Dean Blackwill (born August 8, 1939) is a retired American diplomat, author, senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, and lobbyist. Blackwill served as the United States Ambassador to India under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003 and as United States National Security Council Deputy for Iraq from 2003 to 2004, where he was a liaison between Paul Bremer and Condoleezza Rice. Early life, education, and Peace Corps service Blackwill was born August 8, 1939, in Kellogg, Idaho and grew up in Kansas. In June 2001, at his Senate confirmation hearings to become ambassador to India, he said, "From my boyhood on the Great Plains, I brought back east more than 30 years ago the values of Kansas and its people: honesty, candor, compassion, hard work, a dogged stamina in the face of challenge and adversity, a sense of humor, a recognition of one's own limitations, and a deep and abiding love of country." He earned a B.A. from Wichita State University. Blackwill served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi from 1964 to 1966. While in the Peace Corps, he served with writer Paul Theroux, who Blackwill later described as "the glorious American writer who was my friend in the Peace Corps in Africa more than thirty years ago". In an interview with Rediff News on June 27, 2006, Blackwill was asked if he was still in contact with Theroux, and he replied, "Not recently. But I just finished reading his new novel, Blinding Light. It is terrific." Diplomatic career 1960s In 1967, Blackwill was appointed as a Foreign Service Officer. He served as a training officer in the Bureau of Personnel of the US State Department from 1968 to 1969 and as an associate watch officer in the State Department's Operations Center from 1969 to 1970. 1970s Blackwill took Swahili language training in 1970 at the Foreign Service Institute. He served as a political officer in Nairobi, Kenya from 1970 to 1972 and as a staff officer in the Executive Secretariat of the State Department from 1972 to 1973. In 1974, Blackwill was a special assistant to State Department counselor Helmut Sonnenfeldt. While he was a special assistant, Blackwill worked closely with Paul Bremer, who was then a chief aide to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Blackwill and Bremer forged a close relationship through mediating policy differences between their bosses. The two would come