John Hubert Kelly was born in
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, on July 20, 1939. He attended
Emory University, receiving a
B.A. in 1961. He spent 1962 through 1965 working as a
teacher, first in
Danville, Virginia, then in
Niles, Michigan. Kelly entered the
United States Foreign Service in 1964. His first posting was in
Turkey, first in
Adana, then in
Ankara, where he worked from 1965 to 1967. He spent 1968 in
Thai language instruction and was then posted to
Songkhla from 1969 to 1971. He spent 1971–72 as a student at the
Armed Forces Staff College. He spent 1972–73 working on political-military affairs in the
Bureau of Intelligence and Research. In 1973, he was detailed to the
United States Department of Defense as an expert on
Thailand, and then spent 1974 working in the
Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. He spent 1975–76 as Special Assistant to
Counselor of the United States Department of State Helmut Sonnenfeldt. He returned to the field in 1976 and spent the next four years as a political-military officer in
Paris. In 1981–82 he was the Una Chapman Cox Fellow and Diplomatic Associate at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at
Georgetown University and worked on French defense and international terrorism. Returning to the State Department, Kelly spent 1982–83 as Senior Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and 1983–85 as Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs. From 1985 to 1986, he was Short Terms Project Specialist in the Office of the
Under Secretary of State for Management. During this time Kelly played a minor role in the Iran-Contra scandal, where he interacted with key figures such as
George Shultz,
John Poindexter, and
Oliver North. He returned to Washington, D.C., in 1988 to become Deputy
Director of Policy Planning. President
George H. W. Bush then nominated Kelly as
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and Kelly held this office from June 16, 1989, until September 30, 1991. Bush next nominated Kelly as
United States Ambassador to Finland; he presented his credentials on December 20, 1991, and held this position until July 5, 1994. Kelly later founded John Kelly Consulting, Inc., a consulting firm that provided its American clients with strategic, marketing and business advice for their overseas operations. ==References==