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Halperin Keynotes Poynter Dinner
We are very lucky to have noted civil libertarian Morton Halperin keynoting this year's Nelson Poynter Award Dinner. Author of several books as well as well as an expert on national security, Halperin served as director of the Washington Office of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1984 to 1992. He ably guided the ACLU National Legislative Office during the particularly trying time of the Reagan revolution, and his dedication to the Bill of Rights has won him both prestige and influence in the political arena.
"Mort Halperin is a hero to the Constitution," said Robyn Blumner, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. "He has held some of the most powerful and influential posts government offers, yet he has always stood for the principles of liberty and individual rights."
Morton H. Halperin is currently a Senior Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations based in its Washington Office. He served as a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy at the National Security Council (February 1994March 1996). In 1993 he was a consultant to the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and was nominated by the President for the position of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Democracy and Peacekeeping.
Dr. Halperin also served for three years in the federal government in the 1960s. In 1969, he was a Senior Staff member of the National Security Council with responsibility for National Security planning. From July 1966 to January 1969, he was in the Department of Defense where he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs), responsible for politicalmilitary planning and arms control. In that capacity Dr. Halperin had responsibility within DOD for the initial preparations for the strategic arms talks with the Soviet Union as well as for the NPT.
From November 1992 to February 1994, Dr. Halperin was a Senior Associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. From September 1969 to December 1973, Dr. Halperin was a Senior Fellow associated with the Foreign Policy Division of the Brookings Institution. In the early 1960s, he was on the faculty of Harvard University where he was an Assistant Professor of Government and a Research Associate of the Harvard University Center for International Affairs.
Dr. Halperin served from 19751992 as Director of the Center for National Security Studies, which deals with secrecy, surveillance, and other threats to civil liberties in the name of national security.
Dr. Halperin has also taught and conducted research on nuclear strategy and arms control issues at a number of other universities including Columbia, University of London, MIT, Yale, and The George Washington University.
He has authored, coauthored and edited more than a dozen books including Strategy and Arms Control (coauthored, 1961) and Nuclear Fallacy (1987). He has also contributed articles on arms control and nuclear strategy to a number of collected volumes, newspapers, magazines, and journals, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Harpers, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1938, Dr. Halperin received a BA from Columbia College in 1959 and in 1961 received a Ph.D. from Yale University in International Relations. Dr. Halperin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute of Strategic Studies. He is the recipient of numerous awards including a fiveyear MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
