Richard Clarke Bio

Richard A. Clarke was a U.S. government employee for 30 years, 1973-2003. In 1973, he began work in the federal government as a management intern in the U.S. Department of Defense. Starting in 1985, Clarke served in the Reagan Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence. During the Presidential Administration of George H.W. Bush, as the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, he coordinated diplomatic efforts to support the 1990-1991 Gulf War and the subsequent security arrangements.

During the Clinton Administration, Clarke became the counter-terrorism coordinator for the National Security Council. He also advised Madeleine Albright during the Genocide in Rwanda, and directed the authoring of PDD-25 which outlined a reduced military and economic role for the United States in Rwanda as well as future peacekeeping operations.

He remained Counter-terrorism Coordinator during the first year of the George W. Bush Administration, and later was the Special Advisor to the President on cybersecurity and cyberterrorism. He resigned from the Bush Administration in 2003. Clarke’s positions inside the government have included:

• Special Advisor, 2001-2003
• United States National Security Council, 1992-2003
• Chair of the Counter-terrorism Security Group, 1992-2003
• National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism, 1998-2001
• United States Department of State, 1985-1992
• Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs, 1989-1992
• Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence, 1985-1988

• On-air Consultant, ABC News
• Chairman of Good Harbor Consulting and a Contributor to GoodHarborReport.net
• Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Faculty Affiliate of its Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

• M.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1978
• B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1972 

• Cyber War, 2010 Your Government Failed You: Breaking the cycle of national security disasters, 2008
• The Forgotten Homeland: Century Foundation Task Force Report
• Breakpoint (Fiction), 2007
• The Scorpions’s Gate (Fiction), 2005
• Against All Enemies: Inside America’s war on terror, 2004