The Honorable Mike Rogers is a former member of Congress representing Michigan's Eighth Congressional District, officer in the U.S. Army, and FBI special agent. He is a highly sought-after expert on national security issues, intelligence affairs, and cybersecurity policy. He advises multiple boards and academic institutions, working to enhance America’s strength and security.
Mike built a legacy as a tireless and effective leader on counterterrorism, intelligence and national security policy from his years of service in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he chaired the powerful House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).
As chairman of HPSCI, he authorized and oversaw a budget of $70 billion that funded the nation's 17 intelligence agencies. In Congress Rogers was–and remains–a prominent leader on cybersecurity. During his tenure he shepherded multiple cybersecurity bills through the legislative process, greatly enhancing America’s cybersecurity posture.
In Congress, Mike worked across the aisle with two presidents, Congressional leadership, countless diplomats, military service members, and intelligence professionals to ensure the brave men and women who fight for our nation are equipped with the resources necessary to get the job done. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius remarked, Mike was "a rare example of bipartisanship."
He founded the Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs, within the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. Mike is working to align the interests of government and the technology industry through the Global Digital Challenge Initiative. The Initiative brings together leaders in policy, business, and technology to discuss critical issues facing the United States and the global digital economy.
Today, Mike advises multiple American companies on critical issues of national and cybersecurity. He serves as Chief Security Adviser for the global telecommunications provider AT&T. He also sits on the Board of Directors for IronNet Cybersecurity, a leading cybersecurity innovator that provides real time monitoring and analytics. He also sits on the Board of Advisors for Next Century Corporation, a technology company that focuses on innovations in the security and intelligence spaces. He serves on the Cybersecurity Industry Advisory Council for Trident Capital and on the Board of Trustees for MITRE Corporation.
Additionally, Rogers is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University, a Distinguished Fellow and member of the Board of Trustees at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, a Distinguished Fellow at the Hudson Institute, and a member of the Advisory Board for George Mason University’s National Security and Law Policy Institute.
Mike is a regular CNN national security commentator, host of CNN’s “Declassified” and regularly contributes to major print outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
Mike is a 1985 graduate of Adrian College. He is married to Kristi Rogers and has two children.
Valerie Plame A former career covert CIA operations officer, Valerie Plame worked to protect America’s national security and prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in particular nuclear weapons. During her career with the CIA, Valerie managed top-secret covert programs designed to keep terrorists and rogue nation states from acquiring nuclear weapons. This involved decision making at senior levels, recruiting foreign assets, deploying resources around the world, managing multi-million dollar budgets, briefing US policy-makers, and demonstrating consistently solid judgment in a field where mistakes could prove disastrous to national security. She was also involved in covert cyber operations and counterterrorism efforts in Europe and the Middle East.
Valerie sits on the boards of Global Data Security, a cybersecurity company, and Starling Trust, a predictive behavioral analytics company. She also served on the nonprofit boards of The Ploughshares Fund, Global Zero, the United Way of Santa Fe County, and Postpartum Support International. Valerie is affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute, a trans-disciplinary scientific think tank created by two Nobel Prize winners to address the most compelling and complex problems in the world today.
Valerie has done extensive public speaking throughout the country and internationally on issues including cyber security, national security, nuclear proliferation, women in intelligence, and the NSA revelations. She has written for many publications including Time, Newsweek, CNN, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, as well as The Guardian and O magazine.
Valerie is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, which was released as a major motion picture of the same name starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. Along with Sarah Lovett, she has published the well-received fictional spy thrillers Blowback and Burned. She also served as the narrator and appeared as an expert in the film Countdown to Zero, a documentary on the threat of nuclear war.
A graduate of Penn State, Valerie holds graduate degrees in International Relations from the London School of Economics and the College of Europe. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is the proud mother of twins.
David E. Sanger is a national security correspondent and a senior writer for the New York Times. In a 36-year reporting career for The New York Times, he has been on three teams that have won Pulitzer Prizes, most recently in 2017 for international reporting. His newest book, “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age,’’ examines the emergence of cyberconflict as the primary way large and small states are competing and undercutting each other, changing the nature of global power.
He is also the author of two Times best sellers on foreign policy and national security: “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power,” published in 2009, and “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power,” published in 2012. For The Times, Mr. Sanger has served as Tokyo bureau chief, Washington economic correspondent, White House correspondent during the Clinton and Bush administrations, and chief Washington correspondent.
Mr. Sanger spent six years in Tokyo, writing about the emergence of Japan as a major American competitor, and then the country’s humbling recession. He wrote many of the first articles about North Korea’s emerging nuclear weapons program.
Returning to Washington, Mr. Sanger turned to a wide range of diplomatic and national security issues, especially issues of nuclear proliferation and the rise of cyberconflict among nations. In reporting for The Times and “Confront and Conceal,” he revealed the story of Olympic Games, the code name for the most sophisticated cyberattack in history, the American-Israeli effort to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program with the Stuxnet worm. His journalistic pursuit of the origins of Stuxnet became the subject of the documentary “Zero Days,” which made the short list of Academy Award documentaries in 2016. With his Times colleague Bill Broad, he also described, in early 2017, a parallel cybereffort against North Korea.
Mr. Sanger was a leading member of the team that investigated the causes of the Challenger disaster in 1986, which was awarded a Pulitzer in national reporting the following year. A second Pulitzer, in 1999, was awarded to a team that investigated the struggles within the Clinton administration over controlling technology exports to China. He has also won the Weintal Prize for diplomatic reporting for his coverage of the Iraq and Korea crises, the Aldo Beckman prize for coverage of the presidency, and, in two separate years, the Merriman Smith Memorial Award, for coverage of national security issues. “Nuclear Jihad,” the documentary that Mr. Sanger reported for Discovery/Times Television, won the duPont-Columbia Award for its explanation of the workings of the A. Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network. That coverage was also a finalist for a Pulitzer.
1982 graduate of Harvard College, Mr. Sanger was the first senior fellow in The Press and National Security at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. With Graham T. Allison Jr., he co-teaches Central Challenges in American National Security, Strategy and the Press at the Kennedy School of Government.
Dr. Amy Zegart is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies (FSI), professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University, and a contributing editor to The Atlantic. She is also the Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where she directs the Robert and Marion Oster National Security Affairs Fellows program. From 2013 to 2018, she served as co-director of the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and founder and co-director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Program. She previously served as the chief academic officer of the Hoover Institution.
Her areas of expertise include cybersecurity, US intelligence and foreign policy, drone warfare, and political risk. An award-winning author, she has written four books. These include Bytes, Bombs, and Spies: The Strategic Dimensions of Offensive Cyber Operations (2019) coeditor with Herb Lin; Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity (2018) with Condoleezza Rice; Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and Origins of 9/11 (2007), which won the National Academy of Public Administration’s Brownlow Book Award; Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC (1999); and Eyes on Spies: Congress and the US Intelligence Community (Hoover Institution Press, 2011). She has also published in leading academic journals, including International Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and Political Science Quarterly.
Dr. Zegart has been featured by the National Journal as one of the ten most influential experts in intelligence reform. She served on the Clinton administration’s National Security Council staff and as a foreign policy adviser to the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign. She has also testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee; provided training to the US Marine Corps; and advised officials on intelligence, homeland security, and cybersecurity matters. Her commentary has been featured on national television networks, NPR, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Before her academic career, Dr. Zegart spent three years as a McKinsey & Company management consultant advising leading companies on strategy and organizational effectiveness. She came to Stanford from UCLA, where she was a professor of public policy in the Luskin School of Public Affairs.
She has won two UCLA teaching awards, the American Political Science Association’s Leonard D. White Dissertation Award, and grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Hewlett Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Zegart’s public service includes serving on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Task Force on Nuclear Nonproliferation, the FBI Intelligence Analysts Association National Advisory Board, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Counter-Terrorism and Community Police Advisory Board, the National Academies of Science Panel to Improve Intelligence Analysis, and the Social Science Research Council Task Force on Securing Knowledge. A former Fulbright Scholar, she received an AB. in East Asian studies magna cum laude from Harvard University and an MA and PhD in political science from Stanford University. She serves on the board of directors of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS) and the Capital Group. She is a native of Louisville, Kentucky.
Eric Rosenbach is Co-Director of the Belfer Center and a Harvard Kennedy School Public Policy Lecturer. He also heads the Center's Defending Digital Democracy project.
As the Chief of Staff to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter from 2015-2017, Eric Rosenbach was one of the senior-most leaders of an organization with 2.8 million personnel, a $585 billion annual budget and ongoing military operations in multiple locations around the world.
Rosenbach was charged with managing some of the Department’s most sensitive decisions and ensuring implementation of transformative changes in the Department’s technology, budget, and talent management. He served as the Secretary’s closest strategic advisor on the war strategy and global coalition to defeat ISIS, the “rebalance” to Asia, and the effort to check Russian aggression. Rosenbach also led the Department’s efforts to improve innovation by forging and managing key initiatives such as the Defense Digital Service, the Silicon Valley-based Defense Innovation Unit and the Defense Innovation Board.
Before serving as Chief of Staff, Rosenbach was the Assistant Secretary of Defense, confirmed by the U.S. Senate, responsible for leading all aspects of the Department’s cyber strategy, policy, and operations. His diverse portfolio as Assistant Secretary also included countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, space operations, antiterrorism, continuity of government and defense support to civil authorities. Rosenbach led the Department’s efforts to counter cyberattacks by Iran and North Korea on US critical infrastructure and deter Chinese theft of American firms’ intellectual property.
Earlier, Rosenbach worked at the Harvard Kennedy School as the Executive Director for Research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. In addition to running the Center, Rosenbach taught graduate-level classes on cyber and counterterrorism. Prior to his work at Harvard, he served as national security advisor for then Senator Chuck Hagel and as a professional staff member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence where he led oversight of Intelligence Community counterterrorism programs.
Rosenbach also has significant experience in the private sector, where he led the cybersecurity practice of a global management consulting firm, advising the executives of Fortune 500 companies on strategic risk mitigation strategies. Earlier in his career, he worked as the Chief Security Officer for Tiscali, the largest pan-European internet service provider, where he was responsible for all aspects of the firm’s cybersecurity.
A former Army intelligence officer and Commander of a telecommunications intelligence unit, Rosenbach led a team that worked closely with the NSA to provide strategic intelligence in direct support of commanders in Bosnia and Kosovo. The Director of Central Intelligence named Rosenbach's unit as the top intelligence organization in the U.S. military for two consecutive years.
Rosenbach has authored many books and contributed articles on national security issues to the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe. The LA Times called his book Find, Fix, Finish, co-authored with Aki Peritz, “an important volume in the secret history of a nasty war.” He was a Fulbright Scholar and holds a Juris Doctor from Georgetown, Masters of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, and Bachelor of Arts from Davidson College.
Robert Eatinger is a Partner heading the national security law practice at Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig, a business and litigation law firm with offices across the United States and in Toronto, London, and Beijing; and the founding Principal of SpyLaw Consulting, LLC, a consulting service for U.S. businesses seeking to make better informed business and risk management decisions with respect to commercial or other interactions with U.S. intelligence agencies.
Prior to establishing SpyLaw Consulting, LLC, Bob was the Senior Deputy General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency. As Senior Deputy General Counsel, he was the senior career lawyer in the CIA Office of General Counsel and Acting General Counsel in the absence of the General Counsel. He served as CIA’s Acting General Counsel from October 2013 to March 2014. Bob oversaw the more than 150 OGC attorneys, and was responsible for the timely and accurate provision of all legal advice and services to the leadership and personnel of the CIA.
Prior to being named the Senior Deputy General Counsel, he served as CIA’s Deputy General Counsel for Operations from September 2009 to June 2013, where he was responsible for the timely and accurate provision of legal advice on all CIA operational law matters. Bob also has been the Chief Legal Adviser for Counterterrorism (2004 to 2009), Chief, OGC Litigation Division (1999 to 2004), Deputy Chief, OGC Litigation Division (1997 to 1999), Legal Advisor, Latin America Division, Directorate of Operations (1995 to 1997), and litigation attorney, OGC Litigation Division (1991 to 1995).
From 1983 to 1991, Bob served on active duty in the United States Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps where he specialized in intelligence law and national security litigation, including espionage prosecutions. He affiliated with the Navy Reserve Law Program after leaving active duty and retired in 2013 as a Captain with 30 years of service.
Bob has presented on intelligence law and classified litigation at the University of Virginia School of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School, Columbia University Law School, University of Mary Washington, the Department of Justice National Advocacy Center, and the Naval Justice School. Bob is a member of the Lawyers of Distinction and a lifetime charter member of Best Attorneys of America. He is also a Council Member for the Gerson Lehrman Group, an Expert for Duco, a member of the Network of Experts for The Cipher Brief, and on the Board of Advisors for the Third Option Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization for CIA paramilitary officers and their families.
Bob received his JD in 1982 from the University of San Diego School of Law and his BS in Political Science in 1979 from California State University San Bernardino. Bob is admitted to the Bars of the State of California and the District of Columbia. Bob is not admitted to the Virginia State Bar and therefore may not and does not provide advice on matters of Virginia law or on federal matters that are either impacted by Virginia law or in which Virginia legal issues are involved.
Bernard Hudson is the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorism Center where he directed all aspects of the CIA’s global war on terrorism. He is a 28-year veteran of the CIA with extensive experience regarding the Middle East, terrorism and drones. He served multiple assignments abroad, including three in key leadership positions. He is a recognized expert on international negotiation, strategic development, crisis management, and risk assessment in the Middle East.
Mr. Hudson is currently a non-resident Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School where he focuses on Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, and drone issues. He is currently the CEO of Looking Glass Limited which specializes in drone technology, business applications and equity investing in the same. He is also the President of Crest International, which seeks out global investment opportunities.
During his career in the CIA he received the National Intelligence Medal of Valor, the Director of CIA’s Award for Excellence, the Intelligence Medal of Merit and the Intelligence Collector of the Year. Mr. Hudson is a US Army veteran.
Paul Kolbe is the Director of Intelligence and Deputy Head of Group Intelligence, Security, and Crisis Management at BP where leads BP’s Global Intelligence and Analysis team supporting threat warning, risk mitigation, and crisis response. His team provides geo-political threat intelligence, strategic cyber intelligence and business intelligence for BP leadership, security networks, and global business units.
Prior to joining BP, Mr. Kolbe served 25 years as an operations officer in the CIA. He was a member of the Senior Intelligence Service, and is a recipient of the Intelligence Medal of Merit and the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal. Mr. Kolbe served in Russia, the Balkans, Indonesia, East Germany, Zimbabwe, and Austria. In course of his career, he served as station chief and in a variety of senior operational leadership and training roles.
Andrei Soldatov is a Russian investigative journalist and cofounder and editor of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of the Russian secret service’s activities. He has been covering security services and terrorism issues since 1999. He has co-written, with Irina Borogan, The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB and The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries. Soldatov's and Borogan's next book, The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia's Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad, is coming out in October 2019, by PublicAffairs.
Soldatov regularly comments for Russian and International media on topics related terrorism, the intelligence services, and government surveillance in Russia. His work has appeared in Vedomosti, Radio Free Europe, the BBC, Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs. He lives in Moscow.
Elsa B. Kania is an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and a Research Fellow with the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on Chinese military innovation and technological development. At CNAS, she contributes to the Artificial Intelligence and Global Security Initiative, while also acting as a member of the research team for the Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and National Security.
Elsa was a 2018 Fulbright Specialist and is a Non-Resident Fellow with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre. She works in support of the U.S. Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute through its Associates Program, serves as a Policy Advisor for the non-profit Technology for Global Security, and contributes to the Party Watch Initiative of the Center for Advanced China Research.
Elsa has been invited to testify before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. She was named an official “Mad Scientist” by the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. Currently, Elsa is a PhD student in Harvard University's Department of Government, and she is also a graduate of Harvard College. She has professional proficiency in Mandarin Chinese.
Dr. Michael Sulmeyer is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas at Austin's Law school, where he teaches on the legal issues surrounding conflict in cyberspace. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where he writes about the intersection of cyber conflict, national security, and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.
Previously, he was the Director of the Cyber Security Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a Contributing Editor for the national security blog Lawfare.
Before Harvard, he served as the Director for Plans and Operations for Cyber Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Previously, he worked on arms control and the maintenance of strategic stability between the United States, Russia, and China. In the mid-1990s, he was the System Operator (SysOp) of The Summit BBS in Santa Barbara, California.
Michael received his PhD (DPhil) from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar, his M.A. in War Studies from King's College London, and his B.A. and J.D. from Stanford University.
Dr. Calder Walton is an Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Belfer Center's International Security Program. He also helps to run the Belfer Center's Applied History Project. Calder's research is broadly concerned with intelligence history, grand strategy, and international relations. His research has a particular focus on policy-relevant historical lessons for governments and intelligence communities today.
Calder is currently undertaking two major research projects: he is general editor of the multi-volume Cambridge History of Espionage and Intelligence to be published by Cambridge University Press. Over three volumes, with 90 chapters by leading scholars, this project will be a landmark study of intelligence, exploring its use and abuse in statecraft and warfare from the ancient world to the present day. In addition, Calder is writing a book about British and U.S. intelligence during the Cold War. This book informs current intelligence and national security issues by understanding their past. Calder's research builds on his first (award-winning) book, Empire of Secrets. British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire (Harper-Press 2013). While pursuing a Ph.D. in History at Trinity College, Cambridge (UK), and then a Junior Research Fellowship also at Cambridge University, Calder was a lead researcher on Professor Christopher Andrew's unprecedented official history of the British Security Service (MI5), Defend the Realm (2009). This research position gave Calder, for six years, privileged access to the archives of MI5, the world's longest-running security intelligence agency.
As well as his research on intelligence history, Calder is also an English-qualified Barrister (attorney), and, among other matters, has worked on high-profile litigation and international arbitration cases involving government and national security issues and also regulatory investigations.
Dr. Asaf Lubin is a Cybersecurity Postdoctoral Policy Fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a Lecturer at Yale University. He is further a Visiting Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and a Visiting Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Federmann Cyber Security Research Center. His research centers around the intersection of law and technology, particularly as it relates to cybersecurity and cyber risk management, internet governance, and surveillance, privacy and data protection regulation. His work draws on his experiences as a former intelligence analyst, Sergeant Major (Res.) with the Israeli IDF Intelligence Branch, as well as his vast practical training and expertise in national security law and foreign policy. Asaf’s work additionally reflects his time spent serving as a Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow with Privacy International, a London-based non-for-profit devoted to advancing the right to privacy in the digital age and curtailing unfettered forms of governmental and corporate surveillance. His dissertation “The Law on Espionage: From Unilateral Agencies to Multilateral Mechanisms Governing the International Law of Intelligence” proposes a new legal framework for articulating the normative relationships between spy and spied in peacetime interstate operations.
Prior to his postdoctoral research, Asaf completed a dual degree in Law and International Relations (LL.B./B.A, magna cum laude) at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) and Doctor of the Science of Law (J.S.D.) degrees at Yale Law School. He additionally attended The Hague Academy of International Law, and interned for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Asaf also worked for the Turkel Public Commission of Inquiry into the Maritime Incident of May 31st 2010, and served as an articled clerk for the International Law Division of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Office of the Legal Advisor. Asaf has previously taught seminars in public and private international law, torts and insurance law, international human rights and humanitarian law, and criminal procedure and counterterrorism. He has published with the Harvard International Law Journal, the Yale Journal of International Law, the Chicago Journal of International Law, and the Journal of National Security Law and Policy and written for Just Security and Lawfare.
Christopher Bing is a journalist with Reuters in Washington, D.C. where he reports on how cybersecurity impacts on national security, policy, business, and foreign affairs. His areas of interest are on cyber espionage, warfare, crime and disinformation.
Mr. Bing grew up split between Caracas, Venezuela, and Montgomery County, Michigan. He is a graduate of St. Marys College in Southern Maryland.
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is the current Director of the Intelligence Project at the Belfer Center. Previously, he was the Director of the Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy and former head of the Central Intelligence Agency's WMD and terrorism efforts.
As Director of Intelligence and counterintelligence with the U.S. Department of Energy, Mowatt-Larssen and his 600-person organization were responsible for the areas of nuclear terrorism, nuclear proliferation, science and technology, energy security, and counterintelligence. His office also provided support to policymakers and conducts collection and analysis, with a special focus on harnessing U.S. scientific and technological expertise to solve intractable problems. His primary focus was to prevent a nuclear terrorism attack on the United States by working to keep nuclear weapons and weapons materials out of the hands of terrorists.
When he joined the Belfer Center, Professor Graham Allison said, "Since 9/11, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen has led the government's efforts to find and track potential nuclear terrorists and to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. Over a career of almost three decades in the intelligence community and at the Department of Energy, Rolf has likely learned more about the plans and potentials of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups seeking to mount catastrophic terrorist attacks on the U.S. than anyone I know. He is deeply committed to preventing nuclear attacks and restoring a global order that will make that possible. We are extremely pleased to have him join our nuclear team."
In testimony presented to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee of the U.S. Senate in April 2008, Mowatt-Larssen said he believed the world would be tested during the early years of the 21st century "in our ability to prevent non-state efforts to develop and detonate a nuclear weapon." He added: "...we must get nuclear materials off the black market and take every possible step to stop global trafficking in these materials. It must be a global effort incorporating police, intelligence services, militaries, government agencies and ministries, and dedicated citizens across the world. In addition, we need broad information sharing across every front -- between government and private sector, and among foreign partners, including those who previously were our adversaries. Al-Qa'ida thinks and plans dynamically and they rarely follow straight-forward, linear paths to their targets. We need to be just as flexible and dynamic in our efforts to stop them."
Prior to his appointment to the top intelligence position in the Department of Energy, Mowatt-Larssen served for 23 years as a CIA intelligence officer in various domestic and international posts. These included deputy associate director of Central Intelligence for Military Support, chief of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Department, Counterterrorism Center, and most recently chief of the Europe Division in the Directorate of Operations. His overseas assignments included service in Moscow, Stockholm, Athens, Zurich, and Oslo, among others. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Mowatt-Larssen is the recipient of a number of awards including the CIA Director's Award, Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, Commendation Medal, and Secretary of Defense Civilian Distinguished Service Medal.
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote in October 2007 (in "Portents of a Nuclear Al-Qaeda"), "He [Rolf Mowatt-Larssen] is convinced that al-Qaeda is trying to acquire a nuclear bomb that will leave the ultimate terrorist signature -- a mushroom cloud.....[I]t's worth listening to his warnings -- not because they induce more numbing paralysis but because they might stir sensible people to take actions that could detect and stop an attack."
Mowatt-Larssen's work to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. also is highlighted in Ron Suskind's recent book The Way of the World.
