JUDITH MILLER

Biological Weapons and National Security

Thursday, March 6 at 7:30pm · Mountainlair Ballroom

Judith Miller is an author and Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent at The New York Times who writes about national security issues, with special emphasis on the Middle East and weapons of mass destruction.

Miller was part of a small team that won the Pulitzer Prize for “explanatory journalism” for a series on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Most recently, she broke the story on Iraq’s attempt to buy nerve gas antidote.

In 1977, she joined the paper’s Washington Bureau, where she covered the securities industry, Congress, politics, foreign affairs, particularly the Middle East and nuclear proliferation issues. In 1983, she became the first woman to be named chief of The New York Times’ bureau in Cairo, Egypt, responsible for covering the Arab world. In 1986, she became the correspondent in Paris, traveling throughout Europe and North Africa. In 1987 and 1988, she returned to Washington as the Washington Bureau’s news editor and deputy bureau chief.

In May 1989, she became co-coordinator of a newly created department to enhance the paper’s coverage of radio, television, advertising, and publishing. In October 1990 she was named special correspondent to the Persian Gulf crisis, and after that, The New York Times’ Sunday Magazine’s special correspondent.

Before joining The New York Times, Miller was the Washington Bureau chief of The Progressive, was a regular contributor to National Public Radio, and wrote articles for publications.

Born in New York City, Miller grew up in Miami and Los Angeles, where she graduated from Hollywood High School. She attended Ohio State University, Barnard College, and the Institute of European Studies at the University of Brussels. She has a bachelor’s degree from Barnard and a master’s from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School.

Miller has written four books and contributed chapters to several others. Her most recent book is Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War. Written with two colleagues, from The New York Times, this book has topped the bestseller’s list. Her previous book, God Has Ninety-Nine Names, published in 1996, explores the spread of Islamic extremism in ten Middle Eastern countries, including Israel and Iran. She is also the author of One, By One, By One, a highly praised account of how people in six nations have distorted the memory of the Holocaust. In 1990, she also co-authored Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, the first comprehensive account of the Gulf crisis and biography of the man behind it. That too, was a bestseller, topping The New York Times Bestseller list during the 1991 Gulf War.

Miller appears as an expert on Middle Eastern and national security on such national news and public affairs shows as 60 Minutes, CNN, ABC’s Nightline, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Charlie Rose Show, David Letterman, and Oprah Winfrey. She lectures on the Middle East, Islam, national security, and terrorism.