Timothy Naftali | |
|---|---|
 Naftali in 2012 | |
| Born | (1962-01-31)January 31, 1962 (age 63) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Yale University (BA) Johns Hopkins University (MA) Harvard University (PhD) |
| Doctoral advisor | Akira Iriye Ernest R. May |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | University of Virginia New America Foundation New York University |
Timothy Naftali (born January 31, 1962) is a Canadian American historian who is clinical associate professor of public service atNew York University.[1]
He has written four books, two of them co-authored with Alexander Fursenko on theCuban Missile Crisis andNikita Khrushchev.[2]
He is a regularCNN contributor as a CNN presidential historian.[3]
Naftali was born in Montreal and at one point worked as an aide toRobert Bourassa. In 2007, he told theToronto Star that he left Canada for the US in response toQuebec's language laws:
It seemed to me that the deck was stacked against civil liberties and I preferred to be in a country where I didn't have to worry about what language I spoke.[4]
He earned his undergraduate degree from Yale, and later obtained graduate degrees from Johns Hopkins and Harvard.[2]
Naftali's area of focus was the history ofcounterterrorism and theCold War.[5][6] Before becoming director of the Nixon Library in 2007, Naftali had been an associate professor at theUniversity of Virginia, where he directed theMiller Center of Public Affairs' Presidential Recordings Program.[7] In the 1990s, he taught at the University of Hawaii and Yale University.[8]
He served as a consultant to the9/11 Commission, which commissioned him to write an unclassified history of American counterterrorism policy. This was later expanded into his 2005 bookBlind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism.[9][10][11]
From 2007 to 2011, he directed theRichard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. He was appointed when control of the Library was transferred from theRichard Nixon Foundation to theNational Archives and Records Administration.[12][13] His biggest task at the library was to present a more objective and unbiased picture of the Watergate scandal—a task completed in March 2011, when the Library's new Watergate gallery opened and received extensive news coverage.[13] Naftali left the Nixon Library later that year.[14]
Naftali is gay.[15] He has said that he has faced discrimination for his sexual orientation in the past.[16]
