He was a Mossad operative, Israeli foreign minister and leader of the Labor party. What's less well-known is that Ehud Barak, recently elected prime minister of Israel, spent time at Stanford in the 1970s.
Barak was a colonel in the Israeli Army when he enrolled, at age 31, in the department of engineering-economic systems in 1973. He left campus to fight in the Yom Kippur War and other conflicts, eventually taking a master's degree in 1979. He lived in Escondido Village, which he and his Israeli friends dubbed "the kibbutz."
"He knew what he was doing, even though several things got in his way, including a war," says department chair James Sweeney. Barak's coursework may prove relevant. "He learned the kind of strategic thinking that helps when you have people who might not want to cooperate with you," says Sweeney, who recalls his student as open and engaging. "Even when we were having serious conversations there was a twinkle there."
