Spotlight: Rolf Mowatt-Larssen

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is departing as Director of the Belfer Center’s Intelligence Project. In that capacity, he has run the Recanati-Kaplan Foundation Fellowship, which educates rising thought leaders in national and international intelligence. He previously served for a quarter century in intelligence, both in the CIA, where he became station chief in Moscow, and the U.S. Department of Energy, where he was Director of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. After 9/11, he led Washington’s efforts to determine whether al Qaeda had WMD capabilities and to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack.

In the popular imagination, joining the CIA begins with a clandestine recruitment process. For Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, it started with an advertisement in The Washington Post. After graduating from West Point, he was serving in the Army when he spotted the ad while home on break. “I applied to the CIA out of curiosity,” he recalls. “My application process was cryptic and long, which only whetted my appetite to see it through. I wasn’t sure I wanted to end my Army career until I got the job offer from CIA. The excitement I felt was not very thoughtful, but it clinched my decision to become an intelligence officer. I wanted to go to Moscow and battle the KGB. I was lucky enough to get to do that."
    
 Today, he feels fortunate to guide a growing class of Recanati-Kaplan Fellows. These fellows, nominated by their countries’ intelligence services and approved by the Belfer Center, hail from the United States, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. They have spent a year of intensive study at Harvard Kennedy School where they conducted independent research projects. “Being a mentor to students and staff concerning their career interests in serving intelligence, defense, and diplomacy has been the highlight of my time at the Belfer Center,” says Mowatt-Larssen. “I feel like a proud father every time a student opts to enter into public service, whether that be in national security fields, non-governmental organizations, or finding other ways to serve a higher interest than self. Never has there been a greater need for selfless service and activism in the world.”

 From conferences on drones and ethics to conversations with senior officers, the Intelligence Project hosts dozens of events each year that demystify this arena. One thing the Project emphatically does not do is serve as a conduit for espionage on campus. “It would be unacceptable for any intelligence officer to spy on students or undertake intelligence activity on campus,” Mowatt-Larssen confirms. “Like all students, intelligence-affiliated students are at Harvard strictly to study and learn.”

Mowatt-Larssen’s interests range well beyond intelligence. Using the handle “@AmericanMystic,” he tweets frequently on faith, science, and climate change. “My first intellectual love was philosophy and science,” he says. “I never abandoned my love affair, despite the distractions imposed by more practical matters. In recent years, I’ve been examining my faith through theology and the wisdom of the mystics. I have learned that the mystics of the great faiths have much in common with scientific discovery, and more broadly, in the unrelenting search for truth that scientists and mystics share.”

As he prepares for his next professional chapter—he will continue to research and write as a Belfer Center Senior Fellow—Mowatt-Larssen reflects on the career advice that served him well: “Surround yourself with people smarter than yourself,” he says. “Take a seat somewhere where you learn something new and your views are challenged every day. Break bread with people of integrity, people whose purpose in life is to make the world a better place. That personifies Harvard.”