I.M. 'Mac' Destler

We are saddened to share that School of Public Policy Professor Emeritus Mac Destler passed away on March 27, 2025. We encourage you to read more about Mac and share your thoughts and memories of him here. 

Destler was a scholar who specialized in the politics and processes of US foreign policymaking. He was co-author, with Ivo H. Daalder, of In the Shadow of the Oval Office (Simon and Schuster, 2009), which analyzed the role of the President's national security adviser from the Kennedy through the George W. Bush administration. His "American Trade Politics" (Institute for International Economics, 4th edition, 2005) won the Gladys M. Kammerer Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book on U.S. national policy. Over 100,000 copies of this book are now in print, including Japanese and Chinese translations. Other works included "Misreading the Public: The Myth of a New Isolationism" (Brookings Institution Press, 1999, with Steven Kull), and "Protecting the American Homeland" (Brookings Institution, 2002 and 2003, with co-authors).

Destler was also a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (IIE), Washington, DC, where he conducted research on the political economy of trade policymaking. He consulted on government organization for economic and foreign policymaking at the Executive Office of the President and the Department of State, and held senior research positions at IIE, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Brookings Institution. He was the recipient of the University of Maryland's Distinguished International Service Award for 1998. Destler taught trade policy, American foreign policymaking and political institutions.