Lawrence Wilkerson

Biography of Professor Wilkerson: Lawrence Wilkerson has been the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William Mary since 2006. He also taught in the Honors Program at the George Washington University for six years, from 2006-12. His last positions in government were as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff (2002-05), Associate Director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff under the directorship of Ambassador Richard N. Haass, and member of that staff responsible for East Asia and the Pacific, political-military and legislative affairs (2001-02). Before serving at the State Department, Wilkerson served 31 years in the U.S. Army, including as Deputy Executive Officer to then-General Colin Powell when he commanded the U.S. Army Forces Command (1989), Special Assistant to General Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-93), and as Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia (1993-97). Wilkerson retired from active service in 1997 and then worked as a private consultant for General Powell from 1997-2000. Since leaving the State Department in 2005, Wilkerson has spoken to groups all over America—World Affairs Councils, university and war college audiences, and members of local and state governments and the U.S. Congress and their staffs. In addition, he has been published in the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Miami Herald, the New York Daily News, The American Conservative, The Washingtonian, the Cairo Review, Torture, and other newspapers and magazines across the country and the globe, as well as appeared on television with Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, Rachel Maddow, Wolf Blitzer, Chris Hayes and others, and on the BBC's Hardtalk and Newsnight, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, and others. He has appeared in several documentaries also, including Alex Gibney's "Taxi to the Dark Side", Charles Ferguson's "No End in Sight", Sherry Jones' "Torturing Democracy" and Rachel Maddow’s “Hubris”. With Steve Clemons, he headed the U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation from 2007-2010. He has also testified before several committees of the U.S. Congress on issues ranging from Iraq to Cuba. Lawrence and his wife, Barbara, live in Falls Church, Virginia.