As C.I.A. director, William J. Burns was deeply focused on China and Russia when the Middle East conflict plunged him back into his old life. By Julian E. Barnes and David E. Sanger Julian Barnes ...

In the autumn of 1787 Burns was the guest of Sir William Murray of Ochtertyre, and one of Murray's cousins recalls the poet reciting the poem after supper one evening. The poem was first published ...

That’s when you could really use someone giving you a round of applause and a bottle of champagne,” quipped Murray, who is the Burns Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies at Boston College this semester, ...