Michael Kozak  Michael G. (Mike) Kozak (born 1946) is a diplomat in the United States Department of State, currently serving as Acting Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs. He previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Belarus between 2000 and 2003 and chief of mission at the United States Interests Section in Havana between 1996 and 1999, and was a nominee to be U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador in 1991. He achieved a measure of prominence in the 1980s for his attempts to negotiate with Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega to leave power. Kozak is a civil service employee of the U.S. State Department and charter member of the Senior Executive Service. He has been described as a problem solver with practical solutions, who is "not prone to ideological diatribes." He also been called "an outgoing, let's roll-up-our-sleeves kind of guy with a square boxer's body and face" and "pugnacious." During the 1970s, Kozak served as a negotiator on the Panama Canal Treaties during the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. He then participated in the multilateral efforts to mediate an end to the Nicaraguan civil war in 1978-1979, and was a member of the U.S. mediation team that implemented the Egypt-Israel peace treaty and sought a solution to the Lebanese Civil War. In the 1980s, Kozak was heavily involved in Cuba issues at the State Department, in its American Republic Affairs unit. In April 1980, as the State Department determined its policies toward the Mariel boatlift of Cuban refugees to the United States, and formulated its statements on possible prosecution of Cuban Americans and hired ships bringing family members from Cuba to the United States, Kozak wrote a memo outlining various options for dealing with migration of Cuban refugees. The memo included points that could be used to justify a decision to prohibit entry. Kozak noted that prosecutions for bringing Cubans to the United States in the past were rare, and that unless the government were prepared to demonstrate its willingness to do so, Cuban Americans would assume there was no serious risk in participating in the boatlift. In 1980 and 1981, Kozak was part of a State Department team meeting with Cuban officials over migration and other issues. Between 1982 and 1988, Kozak became a principal deputy assistant secretary of state level official in the Office of the Legal Advisor. In 1984, Kozak was the legal advisor in the State Department's delegation that met at a midtown Manhattan hotel (while registered under pseudonyms to avoid attention) with Cuba's Vice Foreign Minister Ricardo Alarcón.