Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Colonel, US Army (Retired)
Lawrence Wilkerson is the Visiting Pamela C. Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William Mary, as well as Professorial Lecturer in the Honors Program at the George Washington University. 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 an advisor to General Powell. Since leaving the State Department, 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, and other newspapers across the country, as well as appeared on television with Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell, Wolf Blitzer, the BBC's Hardtalk and Newsnight, and others. He has appeared in several recent documentaries also, including Alex Gibney's Oscar-winning "Taxi to the Dark Side" and Charles Ferguson's "No End in Sight". He is also chairman of the U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC. Lawrence and his wife, Barbara, live in Falls Church, Virginia.