Called to Service: A Life Adventure in Foreign Policy

Called to Service: A Life Adventure in Foreign Policy is the memoirs of Gregory F. Treverton, former Chair of the US National Intelligence Council (NIC). Greg’s career, described in eight chapters, starts with his transition from a scholar at Harvard to the ground breaking Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, known as the Church Committee. Next he recounts his time in the Carter Administration, his academic and policy career’s journey with stints at the RAND Corporation and various increasingly influential posts within the intelligence community culminating with the Chair role at the NIC. The progress of his career parallels the development of the modern national security infrastructure and its challenges from the late Vietnam era, through Watergate, the Balkans, and the post-9/11 security challenges of bridging domestic and foreign intelligence, homeland security and broader national and global security.; and much more…

“A rich, thoughtful and deeply informed account of a private person who has dedicated himself to public responsibilities. Called to Service is a vivid and compelling account of the life of an “in-and-outer,” moving between bureaucratic and academic life, that will inspire by its honesty, rigor and consistent insight. There is a reason why Treverton is among our most admired public servants.”
Professor Sir Philip Bobbitt, Herbert Wechsler Chair in Federal Jurisprudence, Columbia Law School

“I have known many iconic figures during my half century or so of service in the Intelligence Community. One of a handful of
those is Greg Treverton, who has singularly distinguished himself in retirement with his rare ability to chronicle his own vast and varied experience in this noble profession. Greg has written a unique memoir which synthesizes diarist factual reporting, a perceptive travelogue’s local color, and an analyst’s disciplined rigor. All the while, Greg thoughtfully injects the human
dimension to explain the actions that he witnessed others take. A great read, well worth the time and attention of the veteran
practitioner or non-expert alike.”
James Robert Clapper Jr., is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Air Force and former Director of National
Intelligence. Earlier, he was undersecretary of defense for Intelligence, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and
Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

“Drawing on decades of contemporaneous diaries, Greg Treverton offers an account of US intelligence and foreign policy
—and the ups and downs of American life that shape it – that is analytically sharp, emotionally honest, and deeply compelling as an account of how American foreign policy used to be made. A rare memoir from someone who was genuinely there.”
Sir David Omand, is Professor, King’s College London, and former Director of GCHQ—Britain’s counterpart to the US
National Security Agency—and British Security and Intelligence Coordinator for the Prime Minister.

“A masterful memoir by one of the wisest American voices in intelligence and international affairs. Greg Treverton combines the scholar’s insight, the practitioner’s experience, and the diarist’s honesty to illuminate both the making of American foreign policy and the people behind it. Rich in wisdom, humanity, and perspective, this is an extraordinary contribution to the literature on intelligence, statecraft, and the human dimension of foreign policy.”
General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.); former Commander of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan; former Director of the CIA; co-author of the bestselling Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Gaza.

Gregory F. Treverton stepped down as Chair of the National Intelligence Council in January

2017. He is Chair, Global TechnoPolitics Forum and senior adviser to the Transnational Threats

Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and professor emeritus

of the practice of International Relations and Spatial Sciences at the University of Southern

California. Earlier, he directed the RAND Corporation’s Center for Global Risk and Security and

before that its Intelligence Policy Center and its International Security and Defense Policy

Center. He has served in government for the first Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the

National Security Council and Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council. He has taught at

Harvard and Columbia Universities.

Table of Contents

Foreword: By Loch Kingsford Johnson

Introduction

Chapter 1: From Harvard to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Chapter 2: Presidential Highs…And Lows: A Year in the Life of an NSC Staffer

Chapter 3: Influencing from the Outside…Or Trying To

Chapter 4: The Dominance of Race: A Sabbatical in South Africa

Chapter 5: Inside Intelligence

Chapter 6: Seeking Sense in the Nonsense of the Balkans

Chapter 7: Inside Yet Once More: Reshaping Intelligence?

Chapter 8: Gridlock…And Beyond

Appendix: Select Publication by Treverton

Index