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William J. Burns (diplomat)

American diplomat (born 1956)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

William Joseph Burns is an American diplomat who served as the 8th director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Biden administration from March 19, 2021 to January 20, 2025. He previously served as U.S. deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2014; in 2009 he served as acting secretary of state for a day, prior to the confirmation of Hillary Clinton. Burns retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after a 32-year career. From 2014 to 2021, he served as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “William J. Burns (diplomat)” as american diplomat (born 1956). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2021, 2025, 2011, 2014—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where William, Burns and diplomat can be independently traced.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as american diplomat (born 1956). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2021, 2025, 2011 and 2014.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William J. Burns (diplomat)” 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.