The Future of Intelligence: Meeting the Challenges

Speakers

Dr. Richard Betts is currently the Director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Dr. Betts has played a vital role in the Intelligence Community; he has served on the National Security Council and on the staffs of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and was a member of the National Commission on Terrorism. He has taught at Harvard University and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, was on the staff of the Brookings Institution and is the author of four books. He is currently the Director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, and is the author of four books.

George Fidas is currently on the faculty at the Joint Military Intelligence College. He is retired after thirty-one years of service at the CIA, where he held the position of Director for Outreach of the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production. Previously he had served as Intelligence Officer-in-Residence at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where he taught seminars on intelligence and national security, transnational security issues, and the Mediterranean region. He continues to teach there as a professorial lecturer. He has written extensively about European and global issues, including Balkan politics, health and environmental security, and international migration. He received his B.A. and M.A. in political science from the University of Rhode Island.

John C. Gannon, a former Naval Officer and Vietnam veteran, served for twenty-four years at the CIA, attaining the senior-most analytic positions. He later worked in key homeland security assignments in the White House and the Congress. President Bush recently awarded him the National Security Medal, the country’s highest intelligence award.

The Honorable Alcee L. Hastings is Congressman for Florida’s 23rd District. In 1979 he became the first African-American Federal Judge to be elected in the state of Florida. He is a member of the House Rules Committee and a senior Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). On the HPSCI, he is the Ranking Democratic Member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security. A Senior Democratic Whip, the Congressman also serves as one of only four House Democrats on the U.S. Helsinki Commission. He was chosen to represent the U.S. Congress in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly, where he serves as Vice President. More recently, he served as Vice Chairman of the Democratic Select Committee on Election Reform.

Dr. Harold A. Scott, Jr. is the Deputy Director of the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center at Howard University. He has also served as an Assistant Professor of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. His major research interests are in U.S. national security policy, particularly on how institutions use intelligence, information and advice to make decisions. He previously taught at Carnegie Mellon and Chatham College and worked as a summer intern for the Rand Corporation.

Caryn Wagner is Executive Director of Intelligence Community Affairs.