Political Science
James B. Bruce, Ph.D., is a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation, where he leads research projects for U.S. government clients. He retired from the CIA as a senior executive officer at the end of 2005 after nearly 24 years. In the National Intelligence Council, he served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Science and Technology and as Vice Chairman of the DCI (now DNI) Foreign Denial and Deception Committee. He has held analytic and management positions in the CIA’s Directorates of Analysis and Operations, including Chief of Counterintelligence Training. He also served as a senior staff member on the President’s Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction that examined the intelligence failure on Iraq. He authored numerous classified studies, including National Intelligence Estimates. His unclassified publications have appeared in professional journals and anthologies. He co-edited, with Roger George, “Analyzing Intelligence: National Security Practitioners’ Perspectives,” 2nd ed. (Georgetown University Press, 2014). A 25-year Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, he also taught courses previously at Columbia and American Universities and as a faculty member at the National War College. He received his Ph.D. from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. A member of the board of directors of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, he is also a U.S. Navy veteran.
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Trump, Russia, and the 2016 Election
What Happened Then and What Does It Mean for This Year’s Election?
This lecture will summarize what we know and what we don’t know about the controversial Russian covert intervention in the November 2016 elections and their implications for future U.S. elections. In the last three years, we’ve learned much through the Mueller-led Special Counsel’s investigation, separate Congressional investigations in both the Senate and the House, as well as non-governmental studies by investigative journalists and academic researchers. Drawing on the best publicly available information, this lecture will address the following questions:
- What did Russia do to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election?
- How much cyber hacking did Russians use to steal U.S. information and how extensively did they inject fake news and propaganda into U.S. social media?
- Did Russian officials and the Trump campaign organization collude to influence the election results? Was there any quid pro quo?
- Did Russian covert influence operations affect the results of the election?
- What is the Ukraine connection to Trump, Russia and the election?
With substantial information now available since the votes were counted three years ago, and, as we head into the 2020 presidential election cycle, we can take an evidence-based approach to understanding the controversies surrounding the integrity of the previous presidential election. The lecture will also explore remedies to prevent foreign countries from secretly manipulating future U.S. elections to serve their national interests instead of ours by subverting the will of American voters.
Register Early! There is a $5 charge for registering on the day of a one-time lecture or event.
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| Course # WPR1 — One Time Event
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| Place: | Auditorium, Lifelong Learning Complex, Jupiter Campus |
| Dates: | Thursday, January 9 2020 |
| Time: | 11 - 12:30 PM |
| Fee: | $30 / member; $35 / non-member |
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Wine and Wisdom: An Informal Conversation with a Former CIA Officer
Professor James Bruce will discuss his 24-year career at the CIA, where he served mainly as an analyst with both the National Intelligence Council and the CIA. He also served as Chief of Counter-intelligence Training in the Agency’s Directorate of Operations. Retiring in 2005 as a senior executive officer, his career spanned the final decade of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the pivot to post-cold war intelligence challenges. He wrote influential analyses, evaluated operations, worked as a colleague with a major U.S. spy before his discovery and dealt with sensitive defectors. He had a key leadership role in countering deception by foreign states, which entailed extensive engagement in all major forms of intelligence collection, both human and technical. He also served on the President’s Commission to investigate the failure of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Intended mainly as a candid conversation about U.S. intelligence conducted in a question-and-answer format, this limited attendance session will occur in a small and informal setting designed to foster interaction. Professor Bruce will make brief introductory remarks intended as a stage-setter, then solicit for questions that will structure the conversation.
Register early. Seating is limited to 40 registrants.
Register Early! There is a $5 charge for registering on the day of a one-time lecture or event.
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| Course # WNR8 — One Time Event
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| Place: | Room 151 (Annex), Lifelong Learning Complex, Jupiter Campus |
| Dates: | Thursday, February 27 2020 |
| Time: | 4 - 5:30 PM |
| Fee: | $40 / member; $55 / non-member |
| Class Closed |
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Presidents and their Intelligence Agencies
A Relationship that Matters
According to the former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, “more than any other government department, CIA’s influence and role are determined by its relationship to the President and the National Security Adviser, a relationship that finds expression almost exclusively in the CIA director’s personal relationship with those two individuals.” Examining the 13 post-World War II presidents — from Truman to Trump and those in between, Gates’ insight will reveal the U.S. government at its best and at its worst when making national security policy. But, like marriage, the relationship between presidents and their intelligence agencies is a two-way street. Just as presidents have performed both wisely and wrongly in managing their intelligence producers, so too have the agencies achieved brilliance and bumbling in supporting their presidents. Presidential-level policy has benefited and suffered because of this relationship — with U.S. national security hanging in the balance.
This lecture surveys post-war U.S. history to identify which presidents performed best and worst in using intelligence, including covert action to influence events abroad while hiding the hand of the U.S. government, and which DCIs were the most and least helpful in supporting national security. Major foreign policy events involving the Soviet Union, Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Syria, along with global terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, have all been influenced by this important dynamic between presidents and their intelligence agencies.
Register Early! There is a $5 charge for registering on the day of a one-time lecture or event.
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| Course # W1RB — One Time Event
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| Place: | Auditorium, Lifelong Learning Complex, Jupiter Campus |
| Dates: | Thursday, February 20 2020 |
| Time: | 12 - 1:30 PM |
| Fee: | $30 / member; $35 / non-member |
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