Frederick Holborn was born in Heidelberg, Germany in 1928 and raised for the majority of his life in New Haven, Connecticut where his father was a professor at Yale University. He received both his bachelors (1949) and masters degrees (1957) from Harvard University before teaching at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then, from 1959 to 1966, Holborn worked as an assistant to President Kennedy and the White House staff. He continued his work in government with a variety of agencies before joining the faculty of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 1971, teaching courses related to foreign policy. He continued teaching even after his official retirement in 1999 and received numerous awards for his scholarship, political advising, and service to the country. In this oral history, Holborn discusses the history of SAIS, its relationship to Johns Hopkins, and his colleagues and teaching in SAIS. This oral history is part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.