Monthly Meeting

Bios: Co-authors of “Counterstrike:The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda”

Eric Schmitt is a senior writer who covers terrorism and national security issues for The New York Times. Since 2007, he has reported on terrorism issues, including assignments to Pakistan, Afghanistan, North Africa and Southeast Asia. He was first appointed as a Pentagon correspondent for The Times in May 1990. Mr. Schmitt served this position until February 1996, and then again from Sept. 11, 2001 until 2006, covering issues of national security. Between 1996 and 2001, he worked as a domestic correspondent covering, among other subjects, the Congress and immigration. From 1983 until 1984, prior to being appointed at the Pentagon, Mr. Schmitt was the clerk for James Reston, then the senior columnist. He joined The Times in 1983 and has had a number of assignments, including those in financial and business news, commercial aviation and the travel industry, and a position as a Long Island correspondent. Some of Mr. Schmitt's special projects at The Times include the HUD investigation in Puerto Rico the spring of 1990, the Persian Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait from January until March 1991, the war in Somalia in December 1992, and the conflicts in Haiti in September 1994.

Prior to joining The Times, Mr. Schmitt was an education reporter at The Tri-City Herald in Kennewick, Washington, from September 1982 until September 1983. Mr. Schmitt has shared two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1999, he was part of a team of New York Times reporters awarded the Pulitzer for coverage of the transfer of sensitive military technology to China. In 2009, he was a part of a team of New York Times reporters awarded the Pulitzer for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations

Thom Shanker is a correspondent covering the Pentagon, the military and national security for The New York Times. He joined The Times in 1997, and was assistant Washington editor, responsible for managing the newspaper’s coverage of foreign policy, national security and economics from the Washington bureau. He was named Pentagon correspondent in May of 2001 and has covered military affairs and national security strategy, including efforts at transformation within the Pentagon and the global campaign against terrorism. For the war in Afghanistan, he embedded with Army Special Forces at Kandahar. He has conducted numerous reporting trips to Iraq, and has embedded in the field with units from the company level through battalion, brigade, division and corps. Prior to joining The Times, Shanker was foreign editor of The Chicago Tribune. During his lengthy career as a foreign and national security correspondent, Mr. Shanker was The Tribune's senior European correspondent, based in Berlin, from 1992-1995. Most of that time was spent covering the wars in former Yugoslavia, where Mr. Shanker was the first reporter to uncover and write about the Serb campaign of systematic mass rape of Muslim women. He also wrote about European integration, NATO policy, nuclear smuggling and the withdrawal of American, British, French and Russian troops from Berlin following the reunification of the German capital. Shanker was The Tribune's Moscow bureau chief from 1985-1988, covering the first years of the Gorbachev era as well as issues of superpower arms control. From 1988-1990, he was The Tribune's Pentagon correspondent. Mr. Shanker returned to Moscow from 1990-1992 to cover the death of the USSR and the collapse of the communist empire in Eastern Europe. He also spent one year as the foreign and military affairs writer on The Tribune's editorial board. Mr. Shanker spent two years in the master's degree program at The Fletcher School of Law, specializing in strategic nuclear policy and international law, passing his master’s orals with Highest Honors. He graduated Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Colorado College, and was awarded an HonoraryDoctor of Laws by the college in 2004.  Shanker has been published in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The American Journalism Review and Military Review. He is a contributor to “Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know,” an anthology published by Norton. He also is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.