Thomas A. Dine (born 29 February 1940, Cincinnati, Ohio) served as a senior policy advisor atIsrael Policy Forum (IPF), assisting with policy, programming, and development decision-making in the Washington office. Dine had served as chief executive officer of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, president ofRadio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, and as Assistant Administrator for Europe and the New Independent States of Eurasia atUSAID.
Most notably, he was the executive director of theAmerican Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) from 1980 through 1993.Alhurra, a US-based public Arabic-language TV channel, has hired Tom Dine as a consultant.[1]
Dine was educated atColgate University (B.A.) in 1962, theUniversity of California in Los Angeles (M.A.) andJohns Hopkins University (M.A.).
Dine was also a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines from 1962 through 1964. He was also a Senior Analyst for the United StatesSenate Special Committee on National Emergencies and Delegated Powers from 1973 through 1974. Following this, he worked for theSenate Budget Committee in 1975 through 1978. In 1979 through 1980, he was an advisor to SenatorEdmund Muskie on the nuclear weapons policy and theStrategic Arms Limitation Talks, as well as a defense and foreign policy advisor to SenatorEdward M. Kennedy.
Dine came to prominence as Executive Director of AIPAC in 1980 through 1993. His work with AIPAC involved extensive lobbying across the US Administration and the Congress. He played a main role, for example, in lobbying different branches of the US government in early 1986 over a US arms deal with Saudi Arabia.[2]
In 1993 through 1997, he worked for theU.S. Agency for International Development, as the Assistant Administrator for Europe and the New Independent States (NIS). Subsequently, he was the longest serving director ofRadio Free Europe (based inPrague). He left this position in November 2005 to become Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco.
In April 2013, Dine was one of 100 prominent American Jews who sent a letter to Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu urging him to "work closely" with Secretary of StateJohn Kerry "to devise pragmatic initiatives, consistent with Israel's security needs, which would represent Israel's readiness to make painful territorial sacrifices for the sake of peace."[3]
Dine is a member ofPrague Society for International Cooperation, a respected NGO whose main goals are networking and the development of a new generation of responsible, well-informed leaders and thinkers.
Dine is married and has two children. He is also the brother of the pop artistJim Dine.