Passive In the Face of Terror?: America’s First Efforts at Counterterrorism,1968-1993

Our past efforts to disrupt and contain terrorism have become a matter of controversy in the presidential election campaign. How well did the administrations of President Johnson through the first President Bush do? Did the US government consistently follow a law enforcement approach to this threat and what did that mean in practice? Did these administrations understand the nature of the threat we faced? Did we score any successes against terrorists that could serve as lessons for us today? This presentation will explore these questions and more.

November 10, 2004
7:00 - 9:00 pm
The Jefferson Theater
110 East Main Street (on the Downtown Mall)
Charlottesville, VA

Directions to the Jefferson Theater

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About the Speaker

Timothy Naftali is an associate professor at the UVa Miller Center for Public Affairs and director of the Presidential Recordings Program and Kremlin Decision-Making Project. His research focuses on: the Soviet Union in the Cold War, the history of intelligence in Europe and America, the presidency of John F. Kennedy, and World War II and Nazi war crimes.

As a historian and consultant to the 9/11 Commission, Timothy Naftali writes political histories on the Cold War, World War II, espionage, and US counterterrorism in the first period of international terrorism. Before coming to the Miller Center, he was a visiting assistant professor at Yale University, where he taught courses on intelligence, International relations, and the Cold War in the Third World.

Timothy Naftali directs the Miller Center Presidential Recordings Program. He oversees the team of scholars and staff responsible for transcribing thousands of hours of telephone conversations and meetings secretly recorded by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon in the White House.

He also directs the Kremlin Decision-Making Project. In partnership with the Federal Archival Service of Russia, Naftali and the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs are translating, editing and publishing the international edition of the most secret materials of the Khrushchev-era. In this project, Timothy Naftali employs recently released Soviet, Central European, and Middle Eastern documents to reconstruct Soviet policymaking after the death of Stalin.