Warren Christopher was a secretary of state in the first administration of President William J. Clinton. Christopher graduated from the University of Southern California in 1945 and was then commissioned as a naval officer. He earned a law degree from Stanford University in 1949. Christopher held in a variety of government posts, including deputy attorney general in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson. He was also deputy secretary of state under James E. Carter. Following the 1992 elections, Christopher led the transition team of Clinton before his appointment as secretary of state.

Christopher identified three main goals during his tenure. First, he sought to reorganize the nation’s security arrangements to take advantage of the “peace dividend” occasioned by the end of the Cold War. Second, he wanted to promote economic liberalization through expanded international agreements as the cornerstone of the administration’s trade policy. Finally, Christopher endeavored to reorient American foreign policy to emphasize human rights and democracy. His goals were constrained by a series of crises. The United States withdrew from the Somalia intervention in 1994 following the deaths of 18 American troops in a 1993 battle. The administration failed to take strong action in the former Yugoslavia, preferring to allow the European Union to take the lead in the crisis. This prolonged the civil war until eventual U.S. involvement began through the 1995 Dayton Accords. The United States participated in the subsequent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) peacekeeping mission during the Bosnian Conflict. Internal strife in Haiti also led to the deployment of U.S. forces following negotiations that resulted in the removal of a military dictatorship. The United States avoided participation in efforts to prevent the 1994 Rwandan genocide and was unable to achieve a breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Christopher opposed the decoupling of trade and human rights issues toward the People’s Republic of China and emerged as the administration’s most vocal critic of Beijing’s internal policies. He did support a negotiated settlement over the North Korean nuclear crisis. The 1994 Framework Agreement with North Korea was supposed to end the country’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for American economic aid; however, North Korea continued its program and developed nuclear weapons. Christopher’s major success in security policy involved a series of initiatives at the 1994 Brussels Summit. These efforts were designed to maintain a U.S. role, through NATO, in European security through the Partnership for Peace program and eventual NATO enlargement. Christopher’s greatest trade success was ensuring domestic support for the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement despite considerable opposition from his own party.

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