Jeffrey Gedmin is President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc. and in that capacity directs Broadcasting and Internet operations in 28 languages to countries stretching from Belarus to Bosnia and from the Arctic Sea to the Persian Gulf. Dr. Gedmin is author of the book "The Hidden Hand: Gorbachev and the Collapse of East Germany" (1992) and editor of a collection of essays titled "European Integration and the American Interest" (1997). He was also executive editor and producer of the award-winning PBS television program, "The Germans, Portrait of a New Nation" (1995) and co-executive producer of the documentary film titled "Spain's 9/11 and the Challenge of Radical Islam in Europe," aired on PBS in the spring of 2007. Jeffrey Gedmin has taught at Georgetown University and is an honorary professor at the University of Konstanz in Germany. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the board of the Council for a Community of Democracies (Washington, D.C.) and the Program of Atlantic Security Studies (Prague, Czech Republic), Gedmin holds a PhD. in German Area Studies and Linguistics from Georgetown University.

Dr. Gedmin's piece "Reporting Among Gangsters" on human rights violations perpetrated against journalists in Central Asia, appeared in the July 2, 2008 edition of the Washington Post.

Abstract:  In 2003, General John Gordon, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and former Deputy Director of the CIA asked his staff to do an end-to-end evaluation of U.S. biodefense posture.  As a result, Homeland Security Staff, directed by Dr. Kenneth Bernard, Special Assistant to the President, did a government-wide review of national preparedness and response to a bioterrorist attack.   The resulting assessment led in 2004 to the combined Homeland Security Presidential Directive #10 and National Security Presidetial Directive #17:  "Biodefense for the 21st Century."  Dr. Bernard will discuss the process and outcome of this policy that remains the U.S. national strategy for preventing and responding to a bioterrorist event. Accomplishments, outcomes and remaining gaps will be detailed, along with budget and policy implications for the next administration. 

Admiral Kenneth Bernard was appointed by President Bush to be Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense on the Homeland Security Council (HSC) in November 2002. Dr. Bernard chaired the Whitehouse Biodefense Policy Coordinating committee and drafted Decision Directives for President Bush on both "Biodefense for the 21st Century" and Agricultural Bioterrorism, and he was the White House point person on Project Bioshield - a $5.6 billion congressional bill that is speeding development and procurement of new countermeasures against biological, chemical and radiological terrorist threats.

In January 2001, Dr. Bernard was assigned by the U.S. Surgeon General to the office of Senator Bill Frist to work on international health issues of priority concern to both the Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).   After September 11, however, he was called back to HHS to create the position of Special Adviser for National Security, Intelligence and Defense for the Department of Health and Human Services. From August 1998 to January 2001, he served on President Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) staff as Special Adviser to the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Prior to joining the NSC, Dr. Bernard served as the International Health Attaché and senior representative of the U.S. Secretary of Health at the U.S. Mission to the UN in Geneva, Switzerland (1994-1998). From 1984-1989, he held positions as the Associate Director for Medical and Scientific Affairs in the Office of International Health, HHS, and as International Health Policy Adviser to the Director of the U.S. Peace Corps. He retired from the USPHS as a Rear Admiral.

He received his AB degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1971, an M.D. from the University of California, Davis in 1975, and the DTM&H degree from the University of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1977.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ariel (Eli) Levite is a nonresident senior associate in the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment. He is a member of the Israeli Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee on Arms Control and Regional Security and a member of the board of directors of the Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies. Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment, Levite was the Principal Deputy Director General for Policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. Levite also served as the deputy national security advisor for defense policy and was head of the Bureau of International Security and Arms Control in the Israeli Ministry of Defense. In September 2000, Levite took a two year sabbatical from the Israeli civil service to work as a visiting fellow and project co-leader of the "Discriminate Force" Project as the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. Before his government service, Levite worked for five years as a senior research associate and head of the project on Israeli security at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. Levite has taught courses on security studies and political science at Tel Aviv University, Cornell University, and the University of California, Davis.

Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). He directs the PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll of the US public, plays a central role in the BBC World Service Poll of global opinion and the polls of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and is the principal investigator of a major study of social support of anti-American terrorist groups in Islamic countries. He regularly appears in the US and international media, providing analysis of public opinion, and gives briefings to the US Congress, the State Department, NATO, the United Nations and the European Commission. His articles have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, Foreign Policy, Public Opinion Quarterly, Harpers, The Washington Post and other publications. His most recent book, co-authored with I.M. Destler, is Misreading the Public: The Myth of a New Isolationism (Brookings). He is a faculty member of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Association of Public Opinion Research.