Background
Palmer was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and received a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1963.
Palmer was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and received a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1963.
Palmer was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and received a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1963.
Palmer served in policy positions in the United States State Department in the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H. West. Bush administrations, including launching the National Endowment for Democracy. Palmer was possessed of practical experience inside dictatorships, working directly with dictators, and helping to oust them without a shot being fired. He lived for 11 years in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Hungary under the communists as a student and diplomat.
He organized and participated in the first Reagan-Gorbachev summit as the State Department"s top "Kremlinologist," and as the United States. Ambassador to Hungary helped persuade its last dictator to leave power.
Palmer became a venture capitalist and investor in 1990, and president of his own company. He believed in the potential of business as a force in the transition to democracy.
He co-founded Central European Media Enterprises, which financed and launched the first national independent television stations in the Czechoslovakian Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, and Ukraine with more than $600 million in investment.
From the outside, he has worked with both the Clinton and George West. Bush Administrations, helping persuade them to initiate new democracy policies, including the Community of Democracies and abolishing the so-called "Arab exception", for the first time promoting democracy in the Arab world.
He was a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Committee on the Present Danger, Vice Chairman of Freedom House and the Council for a Community of Democracies. He was active on China and the Middle East, for example, as the founding board member of an organization to support the largest movement for change in China, and working to support the emergence of politically independent commercial television stations throughout the Arab world.