Brian Michael Jenkins

About

Brian Michael Jenkins serves as the Senior Advisor to the President of the RAND Corporation.  He is also the Director of the National Transportation Security Center at the Mineta Transportation Institute.  From 1989 to 1998, Mr. Jenkins was the Deputy Chairman of Kroll Associates, an international investigative and consulting firm. Responsible for the firm’s crisis management practice, he directed the responses to kidnapping and extortion cases worldwide.  Before that, he was Chairman of RAND’s Political Science Department where, from 1972 to 1989, he also directed RAND’s research on political violence.

Mr. Jenkins has a B.A. in Fine Arts and a Masters Degree in History, both from UCLA.  He studied at the University of Guanajuato in Mexico and in the Department of Humanities at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala where he was a Fulbright Fellow and recipient of a second fellowship from the Organization of American States.

Commissioned in the infantry at the age of 19, Mr. Jenkins became a paratrooper and ultimately a captain in the Green Berets. He is a decorated combat veteran having served in the Seventh Special Forces Group in the Dominican Republic during the American intervention, and later as a member of the Fifth Special Forces Group in Vietnam (1966-1967).  He returned to Vietnam on a special assignment in 1968 to serve as a member of the Long Range Planning Task Group; he remained with the Group until the end of 1969 receiving the Department of the Army’s highest award for his service.  Mr. Jenkins returned to Vietnam on a third special assignment in 1971.

In 1984, Mr. Jenkins served as an advisor to the Long Commission, created to investigate the bombing of the U.S. Marines Barracks in Beirut.  In 1985, he served as an advisor to the Inman Panel.  In 1986, he served on the commission to establish new security specifications for the Embassy of the Future.  And in 1989-90, he was an advisor to the Presidential Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism created to investigate the PanAm 103 bombing.

Since the early 1970s, Jenkins has served as a consultant in a number of negotiations to bring about the release of hostages kidnapped for ransom or political reasons.  In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr. Jenkins served as a consultant to the Italian government and Italian corporations in dealing with terrorist attacks.  From 1985 to 1986, Mr. Jenkins served as an advisor to the Catholic Church and from 1986 to 1991 as an advisor to the Church of England in dealing with the kidnappings of Western hostages in Lebanon.

Following the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Mr. Jenkins, while at Kroll Associates, was part of the team that identified terrorist threats and developed new security measures for the World Trade Center.

In 1996, President Clinton appointed Mr. Jenkins to be a member of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security.  From 1999-2000, he served as an advisor to the National Commission on Terrorism and since 2000, he has served as a member of the U.S. Comptroller General’s Advisory Board.  Mr. Jenkins also is the Director of the National Transportation Security Center at the Mineta Transportation Institute, and since 1997 has directed the institute’s continuing research on protecting surface transportation against terrorist attacks.

Mr. Jenkins has served as a Special Advisor to the International Chamber of Commerce and a member of the board of advisors to the ICC’s investigative arm, the Commercial Crime Services.  Over the years, Mr. Jenkins also has served as a consultant to or carried out assignments for a number of government agencies.  As part of its international project to create a global strategy to combat terrorism, the Club of Madrid in 2004 appointed Mr. Jenkins to lead the international working group on the role of intelligence.  He currently is a member of the Aspen Institute’s Secretary of Homeland Security Advisory Group as well as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Terrorism.

Mr. Jenkins is the author of International Terrorism: A New Mode of Conflict (1974), the editor and co-author of Terrorism and Personal Protection, (1984) a textbook on kidnapping.  He is the co-editor and co-author of Aviation Terrorism and Security (1998), and a co-author of The Fall of South Vietnam (1976).  He is the author of Unconquerable Nation: Knowing Our Enemy, Strengthening Ourselves (2006), and Will Terrorists Go Nuclear? (2008). He is also the author of numerous articles, book chapters, and published research reports on conflict and crime.  His latest book is The Long Shadow of 9/11:  America’s Response to Terrorism (2011).

To arrange an interview, contact Brian at (310) 393-0411, x6288 or email Brian_Jenkins@rand.org