Keynote Speaker
John O'Sullivan, CBE is Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Vice-President and Executive Editor, setting editorial vision and direction for the organization.
RFE/RL broadcasts in twenty-eight languages and reaches an estimated thirty-five million listeners in a geographic region stretching from the Ukraine/Polish border to Vladivostok, Russia and from Archangel to the Persian Gulf.
He has served as a senior editor at The London Times and The Daily Telegraph, and he was a member of the team that launched the Canadian daily, The National Post. Mr. O'Sullivan has also been Editor-In-Chief of United Press International and Editor of the magazines The National Interest and National Review. Most recently, Mr. O'Sullivan was a senior fellow at The Hudson Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.
He is the founder of the bi-partisan, transatlantic New Atlantic Initiative, an international organization dedicated to reinvigorating and expanding the Atlantic communities of democracy. The New Atlantic Initiative was launched at the Congress of Prague in 1996 by President Vaclav Havel and Lady Margaret Thatcher and has spent more than a decade sponsoring symposiums in Prague, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, and Amman in support of the goal of strengthened transatlantic ties.
He served as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street. He later served as her Advisor on the writing of her memoirs.
His recent book, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister, has been translated into Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. He is a contributor to papers on both sides of the Atlantic and frequently lectures on American and European politics and has served as Chair and Moderator for various NATO conferences throughout Europe. He has appeared as a guest on CSPAN, Fareed Zakaria GPS, and Real Time With Bill Maher. He was also recently interviewed for Brit Hume’s series on the history of the conservative movement.
He was made a Commander of the British Empire in the 1991 Honours List.
About Rev. Robert A. Sirico
Rev. Robert A. Sirico is known by many as a public intellectual. He is often in the pages of prominent newspapers or on the radio or television, being called upon for statements regarding economics, civil rights, and issues of religious concern. In addition to his 20 years of leadership as president of the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Rev. Sirico is a parish priest with responsibility to St. Mary's parish in Kalamazoo and is the founder and leader of a new religious order in formation. As president of the Acton Institute, Fr. Sirico lectures at colleges, universities and business organizations throughout the U.S. and abroad. His writings on religious, political, economic, and social matters are published in a variety of journals, including: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The London Financial Times, The Detroit News, and National Review.
About Kate O'Beirne
Kate O'Beirne is president of the National Review Institute. Before joining the Institute, O'Beirne was National Review magazine's Washington Editor where she directed the magazine's political coverage and wrote principally about Congress, politics, and domestic policy. She spent ten years as a member of CNN's Capital Gang and was a frequent panelist on NBC's Meet the Press. Before joining National Review in 1995, O’Beirne served as vice president of government relations at The Heritage Foundation as well as deputy assistant secretary for legislation at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Reagan Administration. O’Beirne received her J.D. degree from St. John’s University and practiced law in New York. She is the author of Women Who Make the World Worse and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military and Sports, published by Sentinel Press in December 2005.