Fear Less Part 7

At the end of the day, the American bomber who kills a hundred people in Iraq decides to use violence the same way as the Palestinian bomber who kills a hundred people in Israel. Both feel completely justified in doing so.

This idea may bother some readers, but a true understanding of violence requires that we not make value judgments. True understanding requires us to see past politics, past even the seductive concepts of right and wrong - and see straight to the center of our humanness. We must see every battle - at least for a moment - from the deck of the enemy wars.h.i.+p, because each person has his own perspective, his own reality, his own justification, no matter how much it may differ from ours. And that brings us back to the question of what kind of people did this to us.

Mohamed Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers were able to act on their personal hatred and desires by stealing justification from the usual suspects: ideology, justice, political belief, religious belief. Throughout history, these have been the most common reasons offered to explain violence - but they never really do explain it.

In recent months we have taken the enormous power of our collective pain and fear and have given it to a new bogeyman: the Muslim fundamentalist, the Middle Eastern terrorist. Oh, some will say, "They are evil, they are far more dangerous than anyone else, they are an adversary as we have never seen before, they are diabolical, brilliant, unstoppable. Sure, we have our own American brand of killer, but these Middle Eastern terrorists are fanatics. After all, they intended to die."

So did the two boys who shot thirty-six people at Columbine High School before committing suicide.

Could it be that the same kinds of motivation that lead to horrific acts by alienated Americans also motivate acts by extremists from the Middle East? Of course.

Yes, he was religious, yes, he was political, but it is also true that Mohamed Atta wanted attention. Not in life, which he couldn't take, but in death. He wanted to be important. He wanted to feel dominant and male. He wanted an ident.i.ty. He and some of his co-conspirators wanted to feel rich, just like the Americans and Saudis they hated. They hired limousines, drank alcohol, went to strip clubs. Ideology and religion are usually a distant second to the deep desire to right one's personal experience of injustice.

When Atta objected to a $48 bill at a restaurant, the manager asked if he was short of cash. Atta's reply reveals feelings of insignificance that existed long before he embraced someone else's ideology. "No, I have plenty of money," he boasted. "I'm an airline pilot." As he displayed fifty- and hundred-dollar bills, he may have felt important for a moment, but never important enough to the disappointed father who told him, "I need to hear the word 'doctor' in front of your name," the father who thought his son had earned a master's degree in engineering when he hadn't, the father who complained that his son was raised "like a girl" and referred to Atta and his two sisters by telling family members, "I have three girls."

Little surprise that this boy remained awkward with women his whole life. Little surprise that the man who had few or no intimate relations.h.i.+ps on earth was drawn to the promise that his heroism would bring him the affections of beautiful women in heaven. Emasculated Mohamed Atta sought to a.s.sert his una.s.serted maleness through taking on the world's greatest power. Insignificant Mohamed Atta became significant after all.

The same search for significance is part of the motivation for some young gang members who kill, because violence is the fastest way to get ident.i.ty. Murderer Jack Henry Abbott describes the "involuntary pride and exhilaration all convicts feel when they are chained up hand and foot like dangerous animals. The world has focused on us for a moment. We are somebody capable of threatening the world."

Recall another man who needed to feel capable of threatening the world. When the Unabomber was still at large, each time a new bomb exploded, he was called diabolical, brilliant, unstoppable. He was outsmarting everyone, it seemed - law enforcement could not find him, and we all felt powerless.

When he was finally identified, both Time and Newsweek pictured Ted Kaczynski on their covers using the word "genius." He was so praised, perhaps, because he flew under the radar for so long; but that's where he lived: under the radar. Once revealed, Ted Kaczynzki was hardly frightening. He was a pathetic man who lived in a shack; he was smelly and lonely, and except for his willingness to kill and maim people by remote control, he was not important to anyone. He a.s.sembled bombs, put them in parcels, and mailed them; the Postal Service delivered them, people opened them; some exploded, some didn't; some killed their targets, some didn't. I don't agree that this took genius.

Genius is not behind the acts of September 11, either. Pain is. Cultural pain, historical pain. Certainly, religious ideology, politics, and fanaticism are part of 9/11, and certainly the attacks were acts of war. They were not like more conventional terroristic expressions, designed to draw attention to some cause or plight. September 11 was the choice to pursue destruction that was an end in itself. But it was also about personal pain. I am certain that angry, tense, unhappy, judgmental, intolerant Mohamed Atta was no kinder to himself than he was to us. Just as he hid from everyone else, I am certain he hid from himself, from his own humanness. How do I know? Because as Carl Jung said, "When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate."

Atta may hold the top position on an awful list of ma.s.s killers, but he is not unique. He can be understood. Though it may be too early for most of us to think about forgiveness, even Mohamed Atta is not beyond the limits of our compa.s.sion. n.o.body is. Being compa.s.sionate is not something we do for Atta - he is out of this equation. It is something we do in our own interest because humanizing another person is the only route to real understanding. When it comes to an enemy, understanding is required whether we want to forgive him, befriend him, or defeat him.

The question of what kind of people would do hateful things to us begs another question: Who is us? And who is them?

We're a nation that has had it so good for so long that we nearly forgot there could be adversity on a grand scale. We worry about having enough money in the bank; many people around the world have no such worries, for they have no money and no banks. They hate us for our luxurious worries. We think about getting our kids through school with good grades. Many parents in conflict-torn parts of the Middle East think about getting their kids through childhood alive. Our money in the bank, our medical technology, our insurance, our well-maintained roads, our always-available police, our powerful military that doesn't push us around - these are things we demand. Resources we could not imagine living without are luxuries that most people on earth could not imagine living with.

Why would anyone hate us? Millions of people in the Middle East have spent their lives with the things we experienced for just a few minutes: smoke, rubble, fire, dust, instability, uncertainty, explosions. And the mangled metal a child in Iraq might find when playing in a bombed-out building often has on it something written in English; sometimes it even has our flag on it. As bombs rained down during the Gulf War, Americans went to the mall and out to dinner. Other than a few minutes of interesting video on the evening news, we barely experienced the deaths of tens of thousands of people. By most estimates, Iraq lost more sons and brothers and fathers in twelve weeks than we lost in Vietnam in twelve years, and Iraq is a country with one-tenth our population. We are still suffering from our experience in Vietnam; people are still writing books and songs and movies to work through their pain and bitterness. The people of Iraq are no less wounded or bitter, maybe more so, since they experienced a humiliating defeat by a nation that barely even paid attention.

In the Middle East, it is most often children who make up casualty lists. At the start of our war and subsequent boycott against Iraq, a few hundred children younger than five were killed each month by respiratory infections, malnutrition, and diarrheal illnesses. The shameful number is now more than five thousand - per month. In Sarajevo, almost one child in four has been wounded. A UNICEF survey found that more than half of the children in Bosnia have been shot at by snipers, and 66 percent have been in a situation where they thought they were about to die. Over the past decade, about 2 million children have been killed in armed conflicts around the world, more than double that number have been disabled, and more than 12 million have been made homeless - while we worried about tax cuts and interest rates, and who might win an Academy Award.

We have (myself included) been out of touch with most of the people on our small planet. Other people's wars are often little more than geography lessons to Americans.

None of what I am sharing is about right or wrong, or ideology, or politics. I know very well that America contributes enormously to millions of people around the world, and I am proud of much of what we do. In pointing out both sides of our international reputation, I have just one purpose: to answer the question of why we are hated by so many. Einstein said, "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." Like you, I want to understand.

America has its own troubles, of course, many of them very serious, but even on our worst days, most of our young people were not afraid of being killed - until September 11.

As our hardest times have shown us, people can get used to great strife, and as our easier times have demonstrated, people can get used to great prosperity as well. Americans came to believe that if we could just surround ourselves with the right walls and moats, just rely upon government, just spend money on the right things, our security would be ensured. But all we can get are brief periods of freedom from insecurity. True security is found only in the heart. When you long for it, as we all do, remember that many hearts around the world have been hardened by lives in which safety is a distant dream - and they see America as part of their suffering.

From time to time in our future, desperate, envious, angry, hate-filled men will try to work out their personal pain on the rest of us. A few will plan acts of enormous violence. Nearly all of them will fail, as they usually have. Today, they are even more likely to fail, because now we are more likely to recognize them before they act. We also have the makings of a precaution that, if applied early enough, has the power to make friends of people who might otherwise have become terrible enemies. That precaution is compa.s.sion.

There's another population that is ent.i.tled to our compa.s.sion: public officials. They, too, are in a totally new world, struggling with new risks, new expectations, new rules. The moment some official disappoints our outrageously elevated expectations, it seems we forget that we are the government. That concept isn't just a cliche from our school days - it is the truth. Today's senior official is yesterday's campaign manager. Don't expect superheroes.

We will feel safer when we abandon the notion that any government leader is Captain America. As you felt fear of terrorism, many people in government probably felt more. It's understandable that mayors and governors and federal officials were afraid in 2001 - afraid of terrorism, afraid of making mistakes, and afraid of you. One official we expected perfection from in 2001 was the attorney general, our top law-enforcement officer, the person who directs the Justice Department and the FBI. But Attorney General John Ashcroft, whatever we may feel about his politics, is a human being, a minister's son whose love of gospel music led him to become one of the best singers in the Senate. That's not the background that makes someone an expert on threats or terrorism or security. He isn't a Green Beret commando who rappels to work each morning; he is a man doing the best he can in a situation unlike any he has ever faced - and that will show from time to time.

The moment we expect humanness is the moment we have a chance to feel surprised and impressed by our leaders. Conversely, our expectations of perfection are merely preplanned resentments, and as long as we hold on to them, we shall continue to be disappointed.

For example, many were disappointed in the CIA and the FBI. They questioned the competence of several agencies after September 11: Where was the CIA? Where was the INS? Why were these hijackers allowed into the country? Isn't the fact that the 9/11 conspirators weren't stopped an enormous oversight on the part of the FBI?

No, it is not. That's the short answer. Though a.s.signing blame is a popular pastime for TV commentators, let's look at this issue with some perspective.

First, a.s.sume there is a major bank robbery in Los Angeles or New York City. The police departments in these cities have large intelligence divisions. Still, have you ever in your life heard anyone say, "How could the cops have let this robbery occur? Where were the police? Why didn't they know about it? I mean, the robbers bought the masks just two days before the robbery, right in downtown. They bought two of the guns they used just a week ago. And one of them has a police record! How could the police not have been watching these people?"

Understand that the Los Angeles Police Department is twelve thousand strong, with a jurisdiction covering about 3 million people. The FBI has twelve thousand special agents, and a jurisdiction covering a hundred times as many people as Los Angeles.

You have never heard people blaming the police after a bank robbery, because our expectations of local police is more reasonable than our expectations of the FBI. The FBI has been so effective at times that Americans expect it be flawless. Flawlessness is not part of humanness, and it certainly isn't part of our criminal-justice system -- with its bee's nest of investigative restrictions, civil-liberties issues, and other challenges one doesn't see in movies and TV dramas.

Many major criminal cases are solved as the result of coincidences and unrelated police inquiries. For example, though lots of effective investigative work paid off later, the Son of Sam killer got caught because of a parking ticket. The Unabomber got caught because a relative recognized his handwriting. (It was the FBI's idea to publish his handwriting.) These are cases where crimes had already occurred, but law enforcement's role in stopping crimes before they can occur is far less developed.

Something really hard for some people to absorb in the case of most of the 9/11 hijackers is that even had they been under surveillance in the days and weeks prior to the hijackings, even had they been under surveillance at the very moment they boarded the flight, even had they chanted anti-American slogans the whole way through the airport, law enforcement might not have had grounds to arrest them.

The nature of effective conspiracy is that its core construction is done out of view - and remains out of view until the moment a plan is executed. As with many conspiracies, unless a key insider becomes an informant and provides clear, well-supported information, there is often little reason to a.s.sume law enforcement will be able to act decisively.

Also, there is a difference between taking police action to make a case that sticks and police action intended solely to stop a crime. Historically, when crimes were stopped by police action in ways that impeded successful prosecution, there was all kinds of public outcry. We seem to want it both ways: Prevent crime, and get convictions - even though the two goals are often at odds.

Yes, some of the 9/11 hijackers had warrants or other legal grounds for which they could have been detained or even arrested. Mohamed Atta, for example, had a traffic warrant for driving without a license. Had he been arrested, he would also have been released soon after - just as you would be in the same situation. Yes, he had an immigration status that was questionable, and it was questioned at length by immigration officials, who determined that he met the criteria to be readmitted into the country. Had he been arrested on the traffic warrant, and had the questions about his immigration status been pursued again, the result would likely have been exactly the same.

Yes, some of the 9/11 terrorists were added to federal government's watch lists, but they had already entered the United States at that point.

Indeed, in retrospect, we can identify many pieces of information known to the government prior to 9/11 that mean a great deal today. Indeed, there was enough information available to theorize that someone might someday try to fly a jetliner into a building, but I have studied much of what was known to various agencies prior to 9/11, and in the world the way it was then, expecting someone to have put it together and stop all of the planes from being taken is unreasonable.

The United States has a system of criminal justice that intentionally limits the power of law-enforcement investigators. I am not judging it as good or bad, just stating the fact of it. For example, when we think to blame the FBI, recall the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the man agents arrested after they learned he wanted to learn to fly but not take off or land. Well, agents sought to search his home and conduct other investigative work in August 2001, but they were turned down because it was believed there was not sufficient probable cause for a search warrant. (We Americans care about details like that - a lot.) Much of what we now know about Moussaoui was developed because the second time agents submitted the request to conduct searches, it was granted. Why? Because it was after 9/11, and everyone knew what they knew.

Are there things many agencies could have done better? Could they have worked together more effectively? Absolutely - and we are learning a lot. Could they likely have prevented all the 9/11 conspirators from committing destructive acts? Absolutely not - not the way the world was then.

To put this most starkly, imagine that bin Laden himself had telephoned the New York Times on September 10 and said, "Tomorrow my people are going to hijack four commercial jetliners at the exact same time and crash them into both of the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, and the White House." We still wouldn't have prevented the events from occurring. We wouldn't have taken such a caller seriously. Even if we reacted by placing airline screeners on so-called high alert, it would not have prevented the hijackings. The way things were then, we would not have prevented all Arab-looking pa.s.sengers from boarding flights, placed federal agents on every plane, or grounded all aircraft in the nation - and that's what it would have taken to be completely a.s.sured of safety.

I am certain that law-enforcement officials can act more effectively today and tomorrow than in the past. Why? Because now, nothing is beyond our collective imagination; because now, regular citizens and those in various government agencies are starting to provide the kind of information to law enforcement that can be pieced together in a cohesive way; because now, millions more Americans than ever before are supporting the prevention of violence, which means the options of the FBI and other agencies are already far greater than they have ever been.

I don't advocate that we give blind support to the federal government, and I don't believe any dissent should be silenced. But I do suggest that a climate of cooperative exploration will produce far better results than we'll get with blame and misplaced outrage. In the days following 9/11, I recall a TV commentator angrily interviewing an FAA official: "How in the world did these hijackers get knives on board?" I thought to myself, "Order the steak, and a flight attendant will bring you one." At that time, there were hundreds of knives on board every flight anyway - and it's not as if government had been hiding that fact from us.

With regard to the FAA, most of the people who made decisions that disappoint us today have been gone from the agency for years. Blame doesn't increase safety, and as far as I'm concerned, the current administrators and senior officials of the FAA started with a clean slate on September 11, 2001. Let's work with them to make things better in future Septembers.

Since I've encouraged greater understanding and compa.s.sion for our enemies, and for our own leaders, I also want to extend some slack to TV news producers and newsreaders, including the interviewer who was outraged that knives could get on board. She was probably frightened by what had just happened, just like lots of people in the media. Remember, we have to see scary stuff only when we're watching TV news; they have to see it all day.

We've all been through a lot, and many things are different now. Let's keep them different, and not go back to the same divisive, attention-seeking, counterproductive attacks on one another that we'd all gotten so used to. We've got plenty of enemies around the world to think about, and if we take a break from chewing on one another, I think we'll find cooperation to be the most effective route to safety.

During my career, I've sat across the table and seen fear in the eyes of public figures, in the eyes of a.s.sa.s.sins, death-row inmates, soldiers, rape victims, battered women, and police officers. I've discussed fear with a president who was shot at, with another who was. .h.i.t, with the widow of one who was killed, with an athlete who was stabbed at a sporting event, and with children who grew up surrounded by violence. The fear I've seen has worn a thousand faces, but when unmasked it is the same as yours and mine - and since September 11, we've all seen it at some point in most of the people we've encountered.

Just as we can find compa.s.sion for those who hate us and for those who serve in government, so, too, can we find compa.s.sion for ourselves. It is just fine that we felt fear, just fine that we canceled some plans, just fine that we didn't know what to do or how to react to a terrible trauma that still seems unreal. Our nation has been terrorized. What we lost at the start of this war was our peace of mind, and it is time to take back; that beachhead.

Before we do, there may be some benefit in consciously feeling our fear for just one more moment, because fear can carry us closer to the truth of who we are. When we are frightened, our options multiply enormously Ideas we might never have entertained a^e suddenly considered. In that willingness to do things differently resides the opportunity - the privilege - to change our lives in ways we might not have in the absence of fear. Anyone who has beaten cancer or heart disease sees the world differently today than at the moment the debtor sat them down, drew a long breath, and spoke the words that started a new life. You may know such a person. You may be such a person.

For our country, at the exact moment we lost so many lives, we all began new ones. We are changed and changing still, and just as with a person, a nation can become more extraordinary or can slip back into its old ways.

I spoke in chapter 2 about the death of denial. Now I turn to the denial of death. Ernest Becker wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by that t.i.tle, and a copy of Denial of Death lay unopened at my bedside for two years. You could call this denial of denial of death. That I delayed reading that wonderful book was doubly ironic given that my work has always required me to look at the possibility of death, even the architecture of death. Millions of Americans have had to do the same thing since September 11, and many have accepted death and risk in ways they never had before.

This is the same as accepting life, for life is risk; life is a venture full of peril and full of promise. Politicians and the media encourage us to go to war with death, to live encamped in a thousand precautions, to be ever mindful of the newest frightening study and the latest life-extending health tip, ever alert to a thousand unlikely risks - as if all this makes any difference whatsoever to death. If death is the enemy, here's the most statistically correct answer to our fears: Drive carefully, eat a low-fat diet, don't smoke, and exercise regularly. But I think we are looking for something more profound to emerge from our experience.

At core, unwarranted fear is the fear of death. It frightened us that the 9/11 hijackers acted in spite of that natural fear, and there is great power in that ability. We, too, gain that power when we act in spite of our fear of death. All those who try to frighten us might benefit from recalling this truth: Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.

September 11 is our reminder to live - to live as fully as possible, and to live with less fear of one another than we used to.

September 11 is our reminder that we are nowhere near the limits of our compa.s.sion.

September 11 is our reminder to go to Disney World, to fly across the country on a surprise visit to loved ones, to go to New York and help "the city that never sleeps" sleep more soundly in the comfort of our support.

September 11 can be our annual reminder to do it now, whatever it is, say it now, whatever it is.

Oh for a way to wake the dead; So much undone, so much unsaid.

This pa.s.sage from a poem that was written by my father after the death of his father always makes me feel sadness about things I didn't express to some people in my life. At the same time, the poem gives me hope, for when I read "Oh for a way to wake the dead," I sometimes think, Oh for a way to wake the living!

That happened for many people on September 11, such that today it seems Americans are living more consciously than ever before, connected to one another more than at any time in our history. We have felt the sting of terrible violence, and the kindness it unleashed is ours for the keeping - if we stay awake. To do anything less than fully embrace the stunning opportunity we hold out to one another would be like waking up to a room full of smoke, opening the window to let it out, and then going back to sleep.

Those who hate us hope we do just that, for then pain and loss and fear would be the lasting results of our experience of terrorism. But thus far we've made another choice, a choice to see hazard only in those storm clouds where it exists, and to fly more freely in the clear skies between them. Our triumph over terror honors the thousands of people who died on September 11, and makes them heroes in a war we have already won.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

EVERY BOOK INVOLVES SOME STRESS, though few are written when everyone is under stress. The six weeks of writing that started in late September 2001 were made possible by many friends and a.s.sociates who provided encouragement and support - during a time when we all had plenty of things on our minds, just as you did. Kathy Robbins, my friend and agent through four books (so far), always said the right words while I struggled to find so many right words. Bill Phillips edited my first book, and his teachings are part of everything I've written. I'm grateful to you, Bill, for clearing your schedule to join me again.

Speaking of clearing schedules, that's what people all over Little, Brown must have done to get a book printed and distributed on a schedule that contained just one date: Immediate. Thank you to Michael Pietsch and Geoff Shandler. There were two people in America who could have done this, and you are the two.

To Sandi Mendleson: so smart, so effective, and such a great friend. I don't know how people get books out without you.

To Danelle Morton: Thank you for stopping so much to help me start so fast. Writing is lonely, and you made it less so.

To Garry Shandling: Thank you for a great lesson in friends.h.i.+p. Everything you did and said landed. To my dear friend and frustrating taskmaster, Andrew Jarecki: Thank you for what amounted to a mission statement. Eric Idle, you have no idea how much energy you gave me the day you visited, and the many other days I am blessed to get some time with you. Harry Shearer and Judith Owen: Your -wisdom is on these pages (though you've probably got enough left for a brief appendix - and yes, Harry, I can hear some joke about that). Scott Gordon: You'll get thanked twice in this book, but just once in the next, okay? Ed Begley, Jr: Thanks for the meals you cooked, and the many more you offered.

To Olivia: You are inspiring whether I am writing or not. George: I thought I was working the hardest, but it was you, my friend.

Lance Richard, Fabian Dominguez, and Ron Eastman: You guys really showed compa.s.sion, to me and my friends - and that always. .h.i.ts the spot.

Mich.e.l.le Pfeiffer and Oprah Winfrey: I'm sure you'll quickly recognize which chapters are in this book because of your encouragement.

To Michel LaFever: I have thanked you so many times in these twenty years that it may not mean much to you anymore. It means a lot to me, my friend. To the other friends I work with, thank you each for the extra support (and so many extra hours since 9/11): Robert Martin, Chuck Cogswell, Jeff Marquart, Ellen Prystajko, Dennis Kirvin, Caroline Murrey, Matt Slatoff, Ryan Martin, Gabrielle Thompson, David Falconer, Josh Dessalines, Raquel Matsubayas.h.i.+, Paul Wright, Geoff Towle, Heather Ragsdale, Rob Nightengale, and all the others whose jobs (and names) are nonpublic. KMC: You know who you are, and who you are makes a big difference in my life.

For specif insight and support: FDNY Captain Gerard Somerville, NYPD Sergeant John Egan, NYPD Lieutenant Jay f.a.gan, Stephanie and Peter S., Cliff Schuyler, Roman Pryjomko, Bankrobber, Mark Bryan, Heather Rizzo, Raymond Zilinskas, Red Thomas, Don Weisberg, MacKenzie P Tony Robbins, Ron Iden, Rex Rakow, Eric Fernald, Steve Lamont, EJ Devokaitis, Geena Davis, Robert Miller, Jeff Jacobs, David Boulet, Bruce Wagner, Dad Melissa, and Carrie Fisher (because what are acknowledgments without your name?).

Shaun Ca.s.sidy: You gave me a lot more than the t.i.tle, particularly if I count the thirty years of best friends.h.i.+p.

And dear Alanis, I invite you to write books or songs about how to best support writers, because you've got that down. Write about how to best support a friend, because you've got that down, too. I live, I learn - better with you, and I love you so much.

201.

THE ADVISORY BOARD FOR FEAR LESS.

IN WRITING THIS BOOK, I drew on experience, previous writings, new research, the work of my a.s.sociates, and exceptional advisors. Our nation is now facing great challenges, so I sought out guidance from great experts. The members of the advisory board for this book gave their time and insight to help others. That's the same motivation I've seen them apply to the important work they do every day. I am grateful to each of them, as I know readers will be.

Gavin de Becker Thomas A. Taylor Lieutenant Taylor was recently named the Anti-Terrorism Coordinator for all operations of the Missouri State Highway Patrol. He was President of the National Governor's Security a.s.sociation (NCSA) for four terms. During his twenty-nine years with the Patrol, he served in many senior positions, including Commander of the Governor's Security Division. Lieutenant Taylor is the Patrol's top expert in the MOSAIC threat-a.s.sessment system. He was among several leading threat-a.s.sessment experts chosen to serve on an advisory board to develop the new MOSAIC for a.s.sessment of Public Figure Pursuit (MAPP).

Charles Cogswell Chuck Cogswell served twenty-four years as a commissioned officer in the Military Police Corps of the U.S. Army, retiring at the rank of colonel. As the Chief of Security, Force Protection and Law Enforcement Division, he was responsible for the army's policies and programs for threat a.s.sessment, counter terrorism, physical security, and criminal investigation. He also commanded two of the largest districts in the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID).

While deployed on Operation Desert Storm, Chuck performed critical threat a.s.sessments on U.S. forces' vulnerability to terrorist attack.

Chuck is Director of Threat a.s.sessment and Management for Gavin de Becker and a.s.sociates.

Andrew L Vita Andy Vita is the former a.s.sistant Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, where he spent thirty-one years. Teams he created, equipped, and directed were successfully utilized at the sites of the World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, and the crash of TWA Flight 800.

Andy is now Executive Vice President at Armor Holdings, Inc.

Dr. James McGee Dr. James McGee is a Special Consultant to the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group and Chief Psychologist of the Baltimore County Police Department. He directs psychological services programs for both the Maryland and Delaware State Police. He served for nineteen years as Director of Psychology and Forensic Services at Sheppard Pratt Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Robert Martin During his twenty-eight-year career with the Los Angeles Police Department, Robert Martin directed several of the department's most important responsibilities. He served as Commanding Officer of specialized detective divisions, including Commanding Officer of Detective Headquarters Division. In 1990, he founded the LAPD's Threat Management Unit, the first of its kind in the nation. He is a founding member of the a.s.sociation of Threat a.s.sessment Professionals.

Currently vice president of Gavin de Becker and a.s.sociates, Bob was a lead developer on the MOSAIC system co-designed by Gavin de Becker and the U.S. Marshals Service, now used for evaluating threats to federal judges.

He led the development team on the MOSAIC used for a.s.sessing domestic-violence situations and the MOSAIC system used for screening threats to public officials.

Dave Grossman Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, U.S. Army (ret.) served as an Army Ranger, a West Point psychology professor, and a professor of military science. He is the author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, which is required reading in cla.s.ses at West Point, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and police academies worldwide. Dave served as an expert witness and consultant in the case of United States v. Timothy McVeigh, His research was cited by President Clinton in a national address after the Littleton, Colorado, school shootings.

Frederick S. Calhoun Frederick S. Calhoun was the lead researcher and princ.i.p.al developer of the threat-a.s.sessment process currently used by the U.S. Marshals Service for a.n.a.lyzing risks to federal judicial officials. Mr. Calhoun coordinated the curriculum and led a nationwide training program on contemporary threat management for local law-enforcement agencies. Mr. Calhoun earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and is the author of eight books, including Defusing the Risk to Judicial Officials: The Contemporary Threat Management Process and Hunters and Howlers: Threats and Violence Against Judicial Officials in the United States.

Scott Gordon Scott Gordon has worked in the criminal-justice system for nearly twenty-five years, as a police officer and detective for eight, and a prosecutor for the past sixteen. In 1997, he was selected as a legal advisor with the United Nations International War Crimes Tribunal, serving in Rwanda and at The Hague. He has been honored as Prosecuting Attorney of the Year, and is a nationally recognized expert in issues involving intimate violence. He served six terms as Chairman of the Domestic Violence Council.

He is a professor of law at Southwestern University.

Michael D. Carrington Mike has been U.S. Marshal for Northern Indiana since his appointment by President Clinton in 1994.

He was Director of Campus Security at Indiana University South Bend for fifteen years, and adjunct a.s.sociate professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, teaching criminal-justice courses.

He is a member of the a.s.sociation of Threat a.s.sessment Professionals.

Peter G. Herley During his thirty-four-year career in law enforcement, Peter Herley served with the Torrance Police Department, commanding various divisions. He has been President of the California Police Chiefs a.s.sociation (CPCA), and most recently, chief of police in the town of Tiburon, California. He is widely recognized for his involvement in programs that improve relations between the police and communities.

Chief Herley serves on the advisory board of the International Inst.i.tute of Criminal Justice Leaders.h.i.+p at the University of San Francisco and coordinates courses for new chiefs of police, taught by the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST).

He is president of Herley Consulting, located in San Rafael, California.