Center for the National Interest Honors Secretary of Defense James Mattis
The Center for the National Interest presented its 2018 Distinguished Service Award to Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis on July 25, 2018. The award recognized Secretary Mattis for a life and career devoted to America.
Secretary Mattis arriving at the dinner. Center President and CEO Dimitri K. Simes is to his left and Center Executive Director and COO Paul J. Saunders is to his right.
Secretary Mattis in conversation with General Charles G. Boyd (USAF, Ret.), Chairman of the Center for the National Interest, and Dr. Jessica Mathews, President Emeritus of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane is visible to the right.
Dinner Chairman David Zalaznick stands to offer welcoming remarks, with Secretary Mattis to his left and Chubb Chairman and CEO Evan Greenberg to his right.
Center Vice Chairman Dov S. Zakheim, a former Under Secretary of Defense during the George W. Bush administration, presents the Distinguished Service Award to Secretary Mattis.
Other Center board members attending the dinner included Vice Chairman Drew Guff, Founder and Managing Partner of Siguler Guff, as well as Harvard scholar Graham Allison, Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, and Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Senators Rand Paul and Dan Sullivan also participated, as did Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, and the Ambassadors of China, Japan, and India, among many others.