Helping to Bring the U.S. to the World

Blair grew up in Monticello, Ill., and earned a bachelor's degree in communications from the University of Illinois in 1970. He then entered the Air Force for four years, serving as a Minuteman ICBM launch control officer and support officer for the Strategic Air Command's Airborne Command Post.

He also trained on warplanes and on the launching of up to 50 missiles.

He earned a doctorate in operations research from Yale in 1984.

From 1982 to 1985, he worked at the now-defunct congressional Office of Technology Assessment. In 1987, he joined the Brookings Institution and remained there until 2000. In 1999, he was named a MacArthur fellow, an honor that comes with $350,000 to pursue one's dream or purpose.

At the World Security Institute, Blair has doubled his organization's budget in the past five years by urging donors to back efforts "to engage the world."

Blair credits Lynn Strauss , a former educator who lives in New York, for being the impetus behind the Farsi and Arabic services, which were launched this spring.

"We took a trip to Iran around 1999," Strauss said in a telephone interview, "and we were just so impressed by the way young people are for everything American. They seemed so dynamic and engaged. I felt we should be in close touch with them. As I heard of what Bruce was doing in Russia and China, I told him, 'You have got to do this in Farsi and Arabic.' " Strauss donated $1 million to the effort.

"I think there is a revolution underway," Blair said. "My dream is to find something lucrative to pay for our project at WSI and our fledgling operations. I'd like to figure out a model to become the Microsoft of NGOs. The purpose would not be to make money, but to subsidize our effort."