Born in 1922 in the United States, former Graduate Institute student William Stearman was a professional cowboy at 18 years old in California until he had enough and decided to go to university.

Later as a soldier in World War II he was in the first wave of attacks against the Japanese occupation of the Philippines and Borneo. He went on to become one of the youngest navy captains.

After World War II, he was a freelance journalist for a time and covered the coup d’états in Czechoslovakia and Hungary and the beginning of the cold war. He then married Austrian born wife Eva.

In 1946, on a United States military scholarship he came to the Graduate Institute, in what he calls a life-changing move, to earn the equivalent of a Master and PhD in international relations. He then joined the United States Foreign Service and was privy to the summit meeting between President Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961. He later was stationed in Viet Nam during the war.

William Stearman joined the US National Security Staff in 1971 and left in 1993, having served under ten presidents.

Stearman's academic experience includes part-time service as professor of international relations, faculty of law, University of Saigon, Vietnam (1965-1967) and adjunct professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, Washington, DC (1977-1993).

William Stearman’s memoir An American Adventure: From Early Years Through Three Wars to the White House was released in March this year.