Gary Sick

Columbia University

Gary Sick is a senior research scholar and an adjunct professor of international affairs at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

He is the author of All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter With Iran (Random House 1985) and October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan (Random House 1991).

Sick served on the National Security Council under presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. Sick is a captain (ret.) in the U.S. Navy, with service in the Persian Gulf, North Africa, and the Mediterranean.

He was the deputy director for international affairs at the Ford Foundation from 1982 to 1987, where he was responsible for programs relating to U.S. foreign policy. Sick is also a member of the board of Human Rights Watch in New York and the chairman of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch/Middle East.

Sick is the executive director of Gulf/2000, an international online research project on political, economic and security developments in the Persian Gulf, being conducted at Columbia University since 1993 with support from the W. Alton Jones, Ford, MacArthur, Carnegie, Soros, Rockefeller, and ExxonMobil Foundations.

Featured Work

(L to R) Dr. Ernest Moniz, John Kerry, Javad Zarif, Dr. Ali Akbar Salehi. CREDIT: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/us-mission/16489523537">U.S. Mission Geneva/Eric Bridiers</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/"> (CC)</a>

AUG 20, 2015 Podcast

Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran: Assessment and Prospects

Professor Gary Sick, Iran expert at Columbia University and lead White House negotiator during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, assesses the merits of the recently negotiated ...

SEP 27, 2013 Podcast

U.S. Policy on Iran and the Middle East: Where Do We Go From Here?

Are we on the brink of a new era in Iran-U.S. relations? Maybe. Iran expert Gary Sick discusses President Rouhani's UN speech, which took ...

Iranian Flag

MAY 27, 2010 Article

Dealing with Iran: "Missed Opportunities" and "Holding Contradictory Ideas at the Same Time"

How, ask David Speedie and Gary Sick, can we move the U.S.-Iran dialogue beyond the current mutually recriminatory stalemate?

NOV 21, 2008 Podcast

Iran and the United States: David Speedie Interviews Gary Sick

The Bush administration has been toying with the idea of talking to Iran for the last two years. With the arrival of Obama, now the ...