Middle East Institute history

In 1947, he founded the Middle East Institute.

The monthly newsletter, intended primarily for members and consisting largely of announcements regarding the Institute itself, evolved in 1953 into the Middle East Report, an illustrated magazine that appealed to a much wider audience.

A 1955 announcement about MEI's relocation to larger headquarters, including photos of the Institute's Library and Harvey P. Hall, the first editor of The Middle East Journal.

L. Dean Brown, later a president of MEI, and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, 1956

They settled on Ambassador Raymond Hare, who in 1966 was elected the first full-time president since Keiser.

By 1969, the Institute, now with over 1,000 members, was poised to enter a new phase of growth.

In 1971, the Institute held its first annual Economic Seminar, a gathering of businessmen and investors interested in working in the Middle East, and in the same year helped to organize a series of “Arab-Western Dialogues,” panel discussions held in cities around the world.

The program was repeated in 1978, funded by the United States Information Agency and the State Department.

In 1981 she offered to sell the buildings to the Institute on favorable terms.

Keiser’s offer and raised enough money in just five years so that the mortgage was paid off in full by 1986.

Ambassador Robert Keeley succeeded Ambassador Brown and served as President until 1995.

The next man to assume this post was Ambassador Roscoe S. Suddarth, who stayed on as President until 2001.

The Institute’s language department, which offers instruction and private tutoring in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Pashto, and Dari, gained national accreditation in 2005, a validation of the high quality of teaching offered under the Institute’s auspices.

In 2007, Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin became the first woman to hold this position.

PMEI’s Third Annual Conference (November 2010) featured former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and also featured several ambassadors from the Middle East and a business keynote address by an OPEC Governor representing Qatar.

The Arab Spring uprisings that swept across the region in 2011 spurred a new set of challenges that are still reverberating a decade later and sharply increased demand for greater understanding of the region’s social, economic, and cultural dynamics.

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Though never constructed, the arched terraces are echoed in the rear courtyard of MEI's renovated office opened in 2019.

After an extensive restructuring process, the Center regained national accreditation for language instruction in April 2020.

Initially ranked #72 among the list of “Top think Tanks in the US,” the Institute improved its ranking in each of the next five consecutive years, most recently ranking #31 in 2021.