Contemporary Issues Forum

Washington’s Spies: Espionage in the Revolutionary War

SPEAKER:

Dennis Wilder
Former senior American intelligence official and policymaker, Professor, Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and Visiting Professor, George HW Bush School of Government and Public Policy, Texas A&M University.

TOPIC:

The Continental Army, under General Washington’s command, was formed on June 14, 1775, by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia. The Continental Army had about 25,000 men under its command, whereas the far better-equipped British forces and their mercenaries numbered 120,000 men at the high point of the war. There are many reasons for this battlefield miracle, and one of them was General Washington’s remarkable spy network. Indeed, the case can be made that without espionage, America may never have become a nation.

Speaker Bio:

Dennis Wilder is a former senior American intelligence official and policymaker. He currently serves as a professor of practice at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a senior fellow of Georgetown’s Initiative for US-China Dialogue on Global Issues. From 2004 to 2009, he served on the National Security Council as special assistant to the president and senior director for East Asia. From 2009 to 2015, he was the senior editor of the President’s Daily Brief, the intelligence publication of the Director of National Intelligence delivered daily. He served as CIA deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific from 2015 to 2016. Last Fall, the Government of Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun for services to US-Japan relations.

Venue located on Chautauqua Institution grounds; a gate pass is required.