David Barrett, PhD

Professor of Political Science | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences | Villanova University

Villanova, PA, UNITED STATES

David Barrett, PhD, is a presidential historian and leading expert on the CIA’s relationship with presidents and Congress.

Media

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Areas of Expertise (9)

Political Science

Presidential Decision Making

Lyndon Baines Johnson

The Central Intelligence Agency

United States Presidents

United States Congress

National Security and Intelligence Issues

The Vietnam War

Politics

Biography

Dr. Barrett is one of the country's leading experts on the critical relationship between the United States Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Current hot topic issues such as national security and the United States presidency are other areas of specialty for Barrett. He is also a good source for stories on President Lyndon Baines Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War. Coming from a background in radio and television news, Barrett is adept at giving media interviews on his area of academic expertise.

Education (3)

University of Notre Dame: PhD

University of Essex (England): MA

University of Notre Dame: BA

Select Media Appearances (6)

Thanks Anyway, Bobby: Kennedy Family Endorses Biden for 2024 Over One of Their Own

WHYY

2024-04-18

The support from the Kennedys is an apparent effort to blunt the impact of Robert Kennedy Jr.’s third-party candidacy... Dr. David Barrett, professor of political science at Villanova University, says that [Kennedy's] numbers may not last as people pay closer attention to the election.

Adam Schiff wants ‘comity’ for the House Intelligence Committee. It won't be easy.

Los Angeles Times print

2018-11-14

Democrats and Republicans sit on both panels, but they were envisioned as operating in a nonpartisan fashion. "It seems sort of quaint now,” said David Barrett, a Villanova University professor who studies the relationship between Congress and the intelligence community.

Answers About the Secret Memo on the Trump-Russia Inquiry

The New York Times print

2018-01-30

When the Intelligence Committees become political, oversight of the intelligence agencies becomes “just about impossible,” said David M. Barrett, a professor of political science at Villanova University who has written a book on the C.I.A. and Congress. “Intelligence becomes just another political football.”

Unveiled CIA report reveals internal warfare over blame for Bay of Pigs failure

The Miami Herald online

2016-11-09

The long-secret Volume V of the Central Intelligence Agency’s documentation of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion contains no bombshells, no earth-shaking details of the 1961 assault on the island by a CIA-trained Cuban exile force. Instead, it delves into “the war at the CIA in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs over who was to blame” for the invasion’s failure, according to the professor who filed suit to shake loose the recently released document. “Essentially, it is a critical history of the [CIA] inspector general’s critical report, which mainly blamed CIA incompetence for the failure of the Bay of Pigs,” said David Barrett, a political science professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

Honesty, RIP: Facts take a beating across US

The Associated Press

2017-11-05

Is this when it ends for that ancient ideal, the truth? Is this where it has come to die, victim of campaigns and conspiracies, politicians and internet trolls and the masses who swallow their rhetoric? Rest in peace, honesty? "The value of facts in a democracy has taken a beating," said David Barrett, a political science professor at Villanova University.

Op-ed: NSA secrets revealed — in 1960

The Washington Post

2013-06-21

The young man was employed by the National Security Agency for only a couple of years before feeling shocked at its intrusions into other countries’ affairs and even private mail addressed to U.S. citizens. He was also disgusted at the contrast between the idealistic language of the president, serving his second term, and the behavior of the government he headed.

Select Academic Articles (2)

JFK, FBI, and CIA: playing hardball over an intelligence leak to the New York Times

Intelligence and National Security

Barrett, David M.

2017

A New Intelligence Director's Diary: President Truman, a Young JFK, Ho Chi Minh's 'Beheading' and Other Challenges