Remembering Chuck Cogan

Dr. Charles G. "Chuck" Cogan, an International Security Program (ISP) associate since 2006, died peacefully in his sleep on December 14, 2017 at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His ninetieth birthday would have been in January 2018.

Cogan was a frequent participant over the years in ISP seminars and other Center events, contributing his insights and anecdotes from his long career as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer and his subsequent career as a historian.

Professor Stephen Walt, ISP Faculty Chair, offers this remembrance: "Chuck Cogan was a wonderful colleague and a great asset for the International Security Program. He was a true patriot and distinguished public servant, as well as a genuine intellectual with a deep appreciation of other cultures. Most of all he was a man of great integrity, who did not trim his views to fit today’s fashions and always told you exactly what he thought. I will miss his sharp insights and warm good humor."

After graduating from Harvard College in 1949 with B.A. in History, Magna Cum Laude, Cogan worked as a journalist before serving as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the Korean War. In 1954, he joined the CIA where he had overseas tours in Asia, Africa, and Europe; his last overseas posting was as in Paris from 1984–1989, where he was station chief.

After retiring from the CIA in 1991, Cogan earned a Doctor of Public Administration degree from the Kennedy School. His doctoral dissertation was published as his first book, Oldest Allies, Guarded Friends: the United States and France Since 1940, (Praeger, 1994).

Cogan would publish seven more books, in English and French, in the subsequent years.