News Release

CHAPEL HILL - Retired CIA analyst Raymond L. McGovern, a critic of intelligence on which the decision to attack Iraq was based, will speak Wednesday (Oct. 20) in UNC’s Hanes Art Center Auditorium.

The free, public talk will be sponsored by the Campaign to End the Cycle of Violence -- a student, faculty, staff and community group -- and co-sponsored by the UNC political science department.

In 27 years, McGovern served presidents from John F. Kennedy to George H.W. Bush. He prepared President’s Daily Briefs and, in the mid-1980s, conducted briefings with the vice president, secretaries of state and defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top officials.

McGovern is on the steering group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, formed in 2003, which has published papers about pre-war intelligence.

The approximately 40 group members opposed the invasion of Iraq and use of what they consider flawed intelligence to justify the war. The members have worked for the CIA, FBI, Army Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence & Research.

McGovern’s opinion pieces over the past year have appeared in newspapers including The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Miami Herald and The International Herald Tribune. He has appeared on TV news shows including PBS’s "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," and "The Charlie Rose Show."

For more information, call Dr. Tim McKeown at 962-0399.

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News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 962-8589