Director of Policy Planning

The director of policy planning is the United States Department of State official in charge of the department's internal think tank, the policy planning staff, with a rank equivalent to assistant secretary.^[1][2] The position has traditionally been held by many members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. Former directors of policy planning include two national security advisors, a president of the World Bank, and several presidents of the Council on Foreign Relations.^{[citation needed]}

Director of Policy Planning
Seal of the United States Department of State
Incumbent Michael Anton since January 20, 2025
Appointer	United States Secretary of State
Inaugural holder	George F. Kennan
Formation	1947
Website	https://www.state.gov/about-us-policy-planning-staff/

Directors of policy planning

No.	Name	Assumed office	Left office	President appointed by
1	George F. Kennan	1947	1949	Harry S. Truman
2	Paul Nitze	1950	1953
3	Robert R. Bowie	1953	1957	Dwight D. Eisenhower
4	Gerard C. Smith	1957	1961
5	George C. McGhee	1961	1961	John F. Kennedy
6	Walt Whitman Rostow	1961	1966
7	Henry David Owen	1966	1969	Lyndon B. Johnson
8	William I. Cargo	1969	1973	Richard Nixon
9	James S. Sutterlin	1973	1973	Richard Nixon
10	Winston Lord	1973	1977	Gerald Ford
11	Anthony Lake	1977	1981	Jimmy Carter
12	Paul Wolfowitz	1981	1982	Ronald Reagan
13	Stephen W. Bosworth	1983	1984
14	Peter W. Rodman	1984	1986
15	Richard H. Solomon	1986	1989
16	Dennis B. Ross	1989	1992	George H. W. Bush
17	Samuel W. Lewis	1993	1994	Bill Clinton
18	James Steinberg	1994	1996
19	Gregory B. Craig	1997	1999
20	Morton Halperin[3]	1998	2001
21	Richard N. Haass	2001	2003	George W. Bush
22	Mitchell Reiss	2003	2005
23	Stephen D. Krasner	2005	2007
24	David F. Gordon	2007	2009
25	Anne-Marie Slaughter	2009	2011	Barack Obama
26	Jake Sullivan	2011	2013
27	David McKean[4]	2013	2015
28	Jonathan Finer	2015	2017
29	Brian Hook	2017	2018	Donald Trump
30	Kiron Skinner[5]	2018	2019
31	Peter Berkowitz[6]	2019	2021
32	Salman Ahmed	2021	2025	Joe Biden
33	Michael Anton	2025	Present	Donald Trump