James A. Kelly
American government official (born 1936)

James Andrew Kelly (born September 15, 1936) is an American foreign policy advisor who served as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2001 to 2005.
Education
Raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Kelly attended Georgia Tech for one year before receiving an appointment to the United States Naval Academy. In 1959, he earned a Bachelor of Science from the Naval Academy. Kelly later earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968. He graduated from the National War College in 1977.
Career
Kelly served in the United States Navy from 1959 to 1982, concluding his active duty as a Captain in the Navy Supply Corps. From June 1983 to March 1986, Kelly worked at the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs (East Asia and Pacific). Kelly served special assistant for national security affairs to President Ronald Reagan, and as senior director for Asian affairs on the United States National Security Council from March 1986 to March 1989. From 1989 to 1994, Kelly was president of EAP Associates, Inc., of Honolulu, which provided international business consulting services with an Asia and Pacific focus to private clients.
From 1994 to 2001, Kelly was president of Pacific Forum International, which has analyzed and led dialogue on Asia–Pacific political, security, and economic/business issues since 1975.
The public source identifies “James A. Kelly” as american government official (born 1936). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around James, Kelly and American.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6128162. VIAF identifies the subject as 78129554. The Library of Congress control number is n2001103002. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 2001, 2005 and 1959.
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This entry incorporates text from “James A. Kelly” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.