The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, Security Advisor Juan Zarate Discuss the Secrets of National Security

Seymour Hersh's investigative reporting
has earned every major journalism award.
Image courtesy of U. of Minnesota.

CHESTERTOWN, MD—How does a democratic society, facing serious threats of terrorism, strike the right balance between the government’s need for secrecy and the public’s right to know? In a special event at Washington College on Monday, October 8, one of the nation’s preeminent investigative journalists and a top security analyst who has served in the front lines of counter-terrorism efforts will offer their answers and perspectives.

             “Secrecy, the Media and National Security,” a conversation with Pulitzer-Prize winning New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh and former Deputy National Security Advisor Juan Zarate will be moderated by Washington College president Mitchell B. Reiss. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Decker Theater, Gibson Center for the Arts, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue. It is sponsored by the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs.

            “This is a special opportunity to hear true voices of experience address this complex and important issue from different perspectives,” says President Reiss. “We could not ask for a better expert to represent the view of journalists than the legendary Sy Hersh. And Juan Zarate brings great insight from his years in the thick of the battle to protect the country from an increasingly dangerous matrix of threats.”

            In a career that spans more than five decades, Seymour M. Hersh has won dozens of accolades and every important award in his profession, including a Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, and two National Magazine Awards. He earned the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting with his expose of the My Lai Massacre and its cover up during the Vietnam War. More than thirty years later, he was uncovering abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

            Hersh wrote his first piece for The New Yorker in 1971 and has been a regular contributor since 1993, focusing heavily on military and security issues. He is the author of nine books, most recently Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, and is currently at work on a volume about the Cheney vice-presidency.

Juan Zarate provides security analysis for CBS News.
Image courtesy of CBS News.

            Juan C. Zarate is Senior Adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS), national security analyst for CBS News, and a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard Law School. He served as Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism from 2005 to 2009. Today he advises companies and organizations on homeland security, financial-related terror risks, new  technologies and investments.

            In the George W. Bush Administration, Zarate was responsible for
 developing and overseeing implementation of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism
 strategy. He also oversaw policies related to transnational security threats, including counter-narcotics, 
maritime security and critical energy
infrastructure protection. 
Earlier, as the first Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for
 Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, Zarate expanded the Treasury Department's powers to advance national security interests. 



            Mitchell B. Reiss, a scholar in international affairs, became president of Washington College in July 2010 after serving as Dean and Vice Provost for International Affairs at the College of William & Mary. As Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department from 2003 to 2005, he provided Secretary Colin L. Powell with independent strategic advice.  And as the President’s Special Envoy for the Northern Ireland Peace Process from 2003 to 2007, he led historic progress towards ending “the Troubles.” In 1999 Reiss helped manage the start-up and operations of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, leading its negotiations with the North Koreans. His most recent book is Negotiating with Evil: When to Talk to Terrorists (2010, Open Road). 

Photos courtesy of University of Minnesota and CBS News.

"Victory Lab" Author Reveals the Secret New Science of Winning in Politics, October 2

CHESTERTOWN, MD— Gone are the days when you could win the presidency just by making speeches and kissing babies. Instead, as a new book by journalist Sasha Issenberg chronicles, today’s campaigns are run by teams of technicians using statistics, behavioral psychology and data-mining to determine just how millions of Americans will vote. Issenberg will discuss his findings in a free public talk on Tuesday, October 2, at Washington College.

The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns was published this month by Crown Books; a review in The New Republic called it “a timely, rare, and valuable attempt to unveil the innovations revolutionizing campaign politics.” For instance, Issenberg describes a “micro-targeting system” that the Obama campaign uses to predict the preference of every voter in the country. Other candidates use new insights from behavioral psychology in crafting their message and persona.

Issenberg’s talk will begin at 5:30 p.m. in Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue, and will be followed by a book signing.

Sasha Issenberg is the Washington correspondent for Monocle. He covered the 2008 presidential campaign for The Boston Globe as a national political reporter, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, Slate, and George, where he served as a contributing editor. He is also the author of The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy.

“Sasha Issenberg is our most acute observer of the modern political campaign,” says the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer. “He takes us beyond the charge-and-counter-charge, the rallies and stump speeches, to show us the hidden persuaders. This is the politics you'll never see on the nightly news.”

The Issenberg event is the second in a four-part series, “The Anatomy of an Election,” cosponsored by the College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and the Louis L. Goldstein Program in Public Affairs. The series continues on Oct. 16 with Trevor Potter, the former chair of the Federal Election Commission and a regular guest on “The Colbert Report,” who will talk about the problematic role of money in presidential politics, especially since the rise of so-called Super PACs. General counsel to John McCain’s 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns, Potter has been described by the American Bar Association Journal as “hands-down one of the top lawyers in the country on the delicate intersection of politics, law and money.”

The series concludes with an Oct. 23 event on the role of media. Panelists include Betsy Fischer, longtime executive producer of Meet the Press, political reporters James Hohmann and Jonathan Martin of Politico, and Washington College alumnus Jack Bohrer ’06, who has written about politics for many publications, including The New Republic and Salon.

Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. For more information, www.washcoll.edu.

The College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is dedicated to fostering innovative approaches to the American past and present. Through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach, and a special focus on written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between the academic world and the public at large. For more information on the Center, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

The Louis L. Goldstein Program in Public Affairs was established at the College in 1990 to encourage students to enter public service by introducing them to exemplary leaders, both in and out of government. The Goldstein Program sponsors lectures, symposia and visiting fellows, student participation in models and conferences, and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders experienced in developing public policy. For more information, visit http://academics.washcoll.edu/goldsteinprogram/.

Conservative Think Tank Staffer, WC Alum Offers Perspective on GOP Primary Contest, February 21

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Washington College’s Goldstein Program in Public Affairs kicks off its new “Young Alumni Speakers Series” Tuesday evening, February 21, with an insider’s look at the Republican presidential primary race.

Dan Holler ’05, Communications Director for Heritage Action for America, will share his perspective at 7 p.m. in Hynson Lounge of Hodson Hall on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue. His talk is titled, “Breaking All the Rules: The GOP Primary.”

Based in Washington, D.C., Heritage Action for America was created in June of 2010 as a sister organization to the Heritage Foundation, a well-known conservative think tank. With a goal of advancing conservative policy, Heritage Action provides policy analysis and lobbying for Heritage Foundation positions.

Holler is responsible for Heritage Action’s media outreach, including its blog and social media outreach, pushing for conservative policies and providing conservative perspectives on upcoming votes. Before joining Heritage Action, Dan was the Deputy Director of Senate Relations for The Heritage Foundation, sharing the think tank’s research and policy recommendations in the areas of energy and environment, taxes, health care and national security. An honors graduate of Washington College who majored in Political Science, Holler began his career as an intern at the Foundation.

Dan writes a weekly column for Townhall.com, serves as a regular guest on conservative talk radio stations around the country and comments regularly in Washington media outlets on congressional matters. For more information: www.washcoll.edu, and http://heritageaction.com.

Questions for Thursday's "9/11 NOW" Panel Can be Submitted through Wednesday Night

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Do you have a question about American security in a post 9/11 world for four top counter-terrorism experts to address? If so, you can email it in advance of the special panel discussion taking place Thursday, Sept. 8, at Washington College. Marking the 10-year anniversary of the Al Qaeda attacks on the United States, the panel, titled “9/11 NOW,’’ will convene in Decker Theater, Gibson Center for the Arts, at 5 p.m

To submit questions or topics for the panel, email them by midnight, Wednesday, Sept. 7, to Matthew Icenroad, Assistant to the President, at micenroad2@washcoll.edu.

Sponsored by the College’s Richard L. Harwood Colloquy and the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, the event is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required. Those unable to get to campus can watch the event live from the College Website: www.washcoll.edu.

College President Mitchell B. Reiss, author of Negotiating with Evil: When to Talk to Terrorists (2010, Open Road), will moderate. (CNBC’s Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood was originally announced as moderator but had to cancel because of a work conflict: he will be covering President Obama’s speech on job creation later that evening.)

The panelists will be CIA veteran Cofer Black, retired U.S. Navy Admiral Dennis Blair, George Mason University professor and author Audrey Cronin, and Harvard professor of international affairs Sarah Sewall. Each brings a unique perspective based on his or her experiences or research in the fields of warfare, intelligence and international security issues.

To read more about the panelists, click here for an earlier article on the event.

Panel of Top Counterterrorism Experts To Assess U.S. Security a Decade After the 9-11 Attacks

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Marking the 10-year anniversary of the Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, a panel of top counterterrorism experts will convene at Washington College on Thursday, September 8, for an important dialogue on the current state of national security. The event, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 5 p.m. in Decker Theatre on the Chestertown campus and will be simulcast through the College website, www.washcoll.edu.

Members of the Washington College community and the general public are encouraged to submit questions and comments for the panelists in advance by email to Matthew Icenroad, Assistant to the President, at micenroad2@washcoll.edu. The deadline for submitting questions is midnight, Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Washington College president Mitchell B. Reiss, author of Negotiating with Evil: When to Talk to Terrorists (2010, Open Road) and a leading expert on American foreign policy, will serve as moderator. The panelists will be CIA veteran Cofer Black, retired U.S. Navy Admiral Dennis Blair, George Mason University professor Audrey Cronin, and Harvard professor of international affairs Sarah Sewall. Each brings a unique perspective based on his or her experiences or research in the fields of warfare, intelligence and international security issues.

In a career with the CIA that spanned nearly three decades, Cofer Black completed six operational tours abroad before serving as director of the agency’s Counterterrorist Center. From 2002 to 2005, he helped develop, coordinate and implement U.S. counterterrorism policies in the office of the Secretary of State.

2008 profile in Men’s Journal described Black as “the foremost expert on counterterrorism in the world today.” He is credited with tracking and helping to capture noted terrorist Carlos the Jackal in Khartoum, Sudan in 1994 and was later targeted for assassination by Osama Bin Laden.

After leaving the CIA, he joined the private business sector, first as Vice Chairman of the controversial private-security firm Blackwater Worldwide and then as Chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions. Since 2009 Black has been Vice President for Global Operations at Virginia-based Blackbird Technologies, which provides technology solutions for clients in the defense, intelligence, and law enforcement communities.

Admiral Dennis Blair, U.S. Navy (Ret.), served 34 years in the Navy, retiring in 2002 as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command. He served as Director of National Intelligence from January 2009 to May 2010, leading 16 national intelligence agencies and administering a budget of $50 billion while providing integrated intelligence support to the President, Congress and operations in the field.

From 2003 to 2006, Blair was president and CEO of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA).From 2006 to 2008 he held the John M. Shalikashvili chair in national security studies studies at the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Omar M. Bradley Chair at the Army War College and Dickinson College.

He has been awarded four Defense Distinguished Service medals and three National Intelligence Distinguished Service medals. In addition, he has received decorations from the governments of Japan, Thailand, Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Taiwan. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Blair earned a master’s degree in history and languages from Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar.

Audrey Cronin, the author of How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns (2009, Princeton University Press), recently joined the faculty of George Mason University’s School of Public Policy in Arlington, Va. Prior to that, she was director of the core course on military strategy at the U.S. National War College, where she revised the curriculum for senior military officers to include the study of Thucydides and an emphasis upon classics in the history and theory of war.

Cronin joined the War College in 2007 after a two-year stint at Oxford University (Nuffield College) as Director of Studies for the Oxford/Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War. Earlier in her career, she taught in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where she created a renowned graduate course on political violence and terrorism. She also has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Maryland and Columbia University.

In addition to her 20-year career as a professor, Cronin, a graduate of Princeton University, holds extensive experience applying her research for government and military groups. She has served in various positions within the U.S. Navy and the Department of Defense. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, she advised members of Congress as a Specialist in Terrorism at the Congressional Research Service. Her previous books include Ending Terrorism: Lessons for Defeating al-Qaeda (Routledge, 2008) and Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy (Georgetown University Press, 2004).

Sarah Sewall, professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, has worked at the intersection of national security and humanitarianism throughout her career in government, academia, and non-governmental organizations. Her research focuses on U.S. national security strategy, civil-military relations, and the ethics of fighting insurgencies and terrorism.

Sewall is the founder and faculty director of the Mass Atrocity Response Operations (MARO) program, which she created in 2007 while serving as director of the Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. MARO’s mission is to create a military concept of operations for intervening to halt mass atrocities. Sewall subsequently co-wrote Mass Atrocity Response Operations: A Military Planning Handbook. She is also the co-author of Parameters of Partnership: U.S. Civil-Military Relations in the 21st Century (2009, CreateSpace). She led a seminal study for the U.S. military on efforts to reduce civilian casualties in 2010, and in 2008 directed the Obama Transition’s National Security Agency Review process.

Sewall was the first U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance during the Clinton Administration and previously served for six years (1987-1993) as Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. A graduate of Harvard College, she received her doctorate from Oxford University.

The “9/11 Now” panel is sponsored by the College’s Richard L. Harwood Colloquy and the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs. No tickets or reservations are required.

Former Bulgarian Prime Minister Recalls Fall of Communism In Washington College Lecture

CHESTERTOWN – The Honorable Philip Dimitrov looms large in the modern history of Eastern Europe: He led the Bulgarian reform movement while his country was still under Communist rule, and subsequently became the first post-Communism Prime Minister of Bulgaria.

Former Prime Minister Dimitrov will recount those turbulent times when he presents “Religion and the Transition from Communism in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe” at Washington College’s Litrenta Lecture Hall on Monday, November 23, at 7 p.m.

The event is sponsored by the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs and its Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture.

As the winds of change began sweeping over Europe’s Communist bloc countries in the waning years of the Cold War, Dimitrov was active in the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), a broad coalition against continued rule by the Bulgarian Communist Party.

After the demise of the single-party Bulgarian Communist state in 1990, Dimitrov became Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 1991. During his term, the new government managed to make nascent democratic institutions work and started an ambitious set of political and economic reforms.

Under Dimitrov’s administration, observance of human rights became an irrevocable legal and ethical norm, and previous ethnic tensions and abuses were eliminated. Foreign policy focused on integration into Europe and the West.

The Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture explores the role of religious belief in public life and is a vital part of the Louis L. Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, which was established in 1990 to encourage students to enter public service by introducing them to exemplary leaders, both in and out of government. The Goldstein Program has hosted journalists, political activists, foreign policy analysts, diplomats, military commanders and government officials of both national and international stature.

The Goldstein Program and the Institute sponsor lectures, symposia, visiting fellows, student participation in models and conferences, and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders experienced in developing public policy.

Litrenta Lecture Hall is located in the John S. Toll Science Center. Admission to “Religion and the Transition from Communism in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe” is free and open to the public.

Whitbeck, Washington College Alumnus-Turned-TV Correspondent, Presents 'Amazing Race: Latin America'

CHESTERTOWN – Harris Whitbeck, a member of Washington College’s Class of 1987 and now the host of a popular TV program, will give a presentation on his show, “The Amazing Race on the Discovery Channel: Latin America,” at Washington College’s Litrenta Lecture Hall on Thursday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m.

The event is sponsored by the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs.

“The Amazing Race on the Discovery Channel: Latin America” is a reality television game show produced by the Discovery Channel in association with Disney.

The program features 11 teams of two in a race across Latin America to win $250,000.

Prior to his current television assignment, Whitbeck was an international correspondent for CNN.

The Louis L. Goldstein Program in Public Affairs was established in 1990 to encourage students to enter public service by introducing them to exemplary leaders, both in and out of government. The Goldstein Program has hosted journalists, political activists, foreign policy analysts, diplomats, military commanders and government officials of both national and international stature.

The Goldstein Program sponsors lectures, symposia, visiting fellows, student participation in models and conferences, and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders experienced in developing public policy.

Litrenta Lecture Hall is located in the John S. Toll Science Center. Admission to “The Amazing Race on the Discovery Channel: Latin America” is free and open to the public.

Oxford Scholar To Explore 'Religious Freedom In A Secular Society' At Washington College

CHESTERTOWN – Roger Trigg, Professor of Theology at Oxford University and the Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion in Public Life, will discuss “Religious Freedom in a Secular Society” at Washington College’s Casey Academic Center Forum on Tuesday, October 20, at 5 p.m.

The event is sponsored by the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs and its Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture.

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Warwick University, Dr. Trigg is now based at St. Cross College, Oxford, and Kellogg College, Oxford. He is the founding director of the Oxford Centre for Religion in Public Life and a leading expert on the intersection of religion and politics.

Dr. Trigg is the author of numerous books, including Religion in Public Life (Oxford University Press, 2007), which served as the foundation for an international conference, “The Atlantic Conversation on Religion in Public Life,” held at Windsor Castle in 2007.

In addition to having served as first chair of the British Philosophical Association, Dr. Trigg is a member of the Princeton-based Center of Theological Inquiry and a past president of the Mind Association.

The Goldstein Program and its Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture sponsors lectures, symposia, visiting fellows, student participation in models and conferences, and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders experienced in developing public policy.

Admission to “Religious Freedom in a Secular Society” is free and open to the public.

Understanding the '08 Financial Crisis: 'New Iron Triangle' Analyzed at Washington College

Chestertown, MD — Dr. Kathryn Lavelle, Ellen and Dixon Long Associate Professor of World Affairs at Case Western Reserve University, will present "A New Iron Triangle? Congress, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve in the Financial Crisis of 2008" at Washington College's Casey Academic Center Forum on Wednesday, April 15, at 4:30 p.m. The lecture is presented by the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs.

Dr. Lavelle is currently a residential fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. She is writing a book that analyzes the relationship between the U.S. Congress, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. She recently served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, assigned to the staff of the House Committee on Financial Services for Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA).

Her first book, The Politics of Equity Finance in Emerging Markets (Oxford University Press, 2005), was praised by Foreign Affairs, which noted, "This book usefully recounts the recent evolution of equity markets in 16 emerging economies, [and] summarizes the nature and extent of privatization in many countries...."

Dr. Lavelle has published articles, book reviews and book chapters appearing in Perspectives on Politics, International Organization, Review of International Organizations, The Journal of Modern African Studies, Third World Quarterly, Review of International Political Economy, International Journal of Political Economy, International Studies Review and The Columbia Journal of World Business.

Washington College's Louis L. Goldstein Program in Public Affairs was established in 1990 to encourage students to enter public service by introducing them to exemplary leaders, both in and out of government. The Goldstein Program has hosted journalists, political activists, foreign policy analysts, diplomats, military commanders and government officials of both national and international stature.

The Goldstein Program sponsors lectures, symposia, visiting fellows, student participation in models and conferences, and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders experienced in developing public policy.

Admission to "A New Iron Triangle? Congress, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve in the Financial Crisis of 2008" is free and open to the public.