Bipartisan Policy Center

John E. McLaughlin is Distinguished Practitioner in Residence in the Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University.

Mr. McLaughlin, a 1966 graduate of SAIS, served as Acting Director of Central Intelligence from July to September of 2004 and as the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence from 2000 to 2004. Prior to that, he was the Deputy Director for Intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, Vice Chairman for Estimates and Acting Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

Earlier in his career with the CIA, which spanned three decades, Mr. McLaughlin focused on European, Russian, and Eurasian Issues in the Directorate of Intelligence. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he served as Director of the Office of European Analysis during the period marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Then, four months after the break-up of the Soviet Union, he became Director of the CIA office – Slavic and Eurasian Analysis – that was responsible for CIA’s analysis of the fifteen independent states that emerged from the USSR. During this time, he frequently represented the Intelligence Community on the US diplomatic missions that established initial relations with these newly-independent countries.

While Deputy Director for Intelligence from 1997 to 2000, he created the Senior Analytic Service, a CIA career track that enables analysts to rise to very senior rank without branching out into management. He also founded the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis, an institution dedicated to teaching the history, mission, and essential skills of the analytic profession to new CIA employees.

In the mid-1980s, Mr. McLaughlin served a rotational assignment in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Soviet Affairs.

Over the course of his career, Mr. McLaughlin has worked on nearly every part of the world, supervised clandestine operations, analysis, and scientific and technical work. He has frequently briefed the President and the Congress, represented the intelligence community in meetings of the National Security Council, and traveled widely to strengthen U.S. relations with national security counterparts in numerous countries.

In his position at SAIS, Mr. McLaughlin teaches a graduate level course on American Intelligence, organizes conferences and seminars, and conducts research on national security issues. He continues to testify before congressional committees and to participate in public policy debates through articles in major newspapers and commentary on television and radio. Between 2007 and 2009, he participated in and published research for the initiative organized by former Secretary of State Shultz and former Secretary of Defense Perry to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons. From 2005 – 2008, he served as National Security Advisor to the Cable News Network (CNN).

In addition to earning his master’s degree in international relations from SAIS/Johns Hopkins, he received a bachelor’s degree from Wittenberg University and completed graduate work in comparative politics at the University of Pennsylvania. He served as a US Army Officer in the 1960s, completing a tour in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969.

Mr. McLaughlin is the recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Community Service Award and the National Security Medal. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Diplomacy, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Board member of the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation, the Board of the OSS Society, the Board of Advisors at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, the Board of Directors of the Project on National Security Reform, and a Board of Trustees member at the Aerospace Corporation and the Noblis Corporation.