Fall 2004

Alums make homeland security their business

Edited by Jeanne Nagle

Unraveling the backgrounds of Hobart and William Smith alumni and alumnae involved in the defense of the United States is a difficult task. Reviewing their careers during interviews, there may be gaps in the timeline—years protectively unaccounted for—and polite replies that “some things cannot be discussed.”

The truth is that the defense of our nation is hard business, where decisions impact lives and world politics. Just words on a page, the following profiles cannot do justice to the grave responsibility each of the following alums shoulders every day. No matter what your political predilection, you cannot deny that the lives these people lead are extraordinary.

Proper I.D.
In the course of his career as a federal officer, Walter Deering ’69 has investigated and put away pedophiles, murderers, gun runners, mobsters and drug dealers. As horrid as those people are, they don’t come close to terrorists. “[They] are a different enemy,” says Deering. “They have all the time in the world, and they strike in the time and the place of their choosing.”

As head of all United States Diplomatic Security Service offices, Deering wages war on terrorism by chiefly investigating the integrity of passports and visas. “One of the best ways to defend our borders in the war on terrorism is to enforce the laws of issuance,” he declares. “When you forge a passport or visa you are dramatically defrauding the American public and potentially placing them in danger.”
DSS also conducts personnel security investigations and protects the Secretary of State, as well as high-ranking foreign dignitaries and officials visiting the U.S.

Deering has 33 years of experience as a security and terrorism expert, first for the U.S. Army, where he served in intelligence operations, and then for the DSS, beginning in 1978. He helped debrief American hostages held in Lebanon in the 1980s and was instrumental in the arrest of the alleged “godfather” of the Cuban mob. His participation on the protective detail that prevented the assassination of family members of Iran’s shah earned him the State Department’s Award for Valor.

While it is Deering’s job to ferret out those who would do America harm, he believes every citizen has it in his or her power to thwart evil intentions. We can do our part merely by standing strong and not panicking.

“Terrorists engender fear,” says Deering. “Success is not to succumb to the propaganda.”

Granting Asylum
Discrimination. Harassment. Jail. Death. Each year, thousands of individuals from all over the world seek asylum in the United States to shield themselves and their families from harm. Each goes through a rigorous process of interviews and security checks to assess their claim and determine if asylum is appropriate. That’s where Christine Davidson ’75 comes in.

Branch chief of quality assurance and training for the asylum division of the Department of Homeland Security, Davidson oversees the training of approximately 400 asylum officers. She is responsible for maintaining the consistency of decisions while also reviewing asylum adjudications, especially on high-profile cases.

“It’s immensely satisfying to help those seeking protection, to make a difference in people’s lives,” she says.

In 1991, Davidson helped set up the Asylum Corps, now known as the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS). With a backlog of more than 200,000 cases, the corps was in danger of being crushed by overwhelming demand. Davidson and her team persevered, however. “That was probably the most rewarding and challenging time of my career,” she says.

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 brought about a reorganization of various governmental departments, splitting the INS into three groups. Davidson’s sector, Citizenship and Immigration Services, functions for the most part as it did prior to Sept. 11, just with a heightened sense of caution.

“We’ve always done security checks,” she says, “but now we do even more. We have to make sure that we are not granting asylum to terrorists.”

On Guard
On Sept. 11, 2001, Stephen Foreback ’89 had been assigned the afternoon shift of the Secret Service detail that protects Vice President Dick Cheney. Needless to say, he and his colleagues started work early that day.

“A bunch of us live in the same town in Maryland, so we all suited up as soon as possible and went in,” says Foreback. He worked for six weeks without a day off, dividing his time among several locations in the Washington, D.C., area.

While the event was extraordinary, such a schedule is not abnormal for Foreback. In 2000, he spent 200 nights away from home protecting the vice president on the campaign trail. “The hard part was just the sustained nature of the assignment,” he says. “It never lets up.”
Foreback was hired by the Secret Service in 1993 after three years in the U.S. Air Force and another in the Air Force Reserve. He has worked on both the investigative and protective sides of the Service. Currently, he is an instructor at a facility in D.C., where he is responsible for training new recruits to protect the leaders of tomorrow.

“These young men and women will be entrusted with many things people don’t see and shouldn’t hear about,” he says. “They have to do the right thing even when no one is looking.”

Traffic Stop
Think of Charles Bradner ’63, P'97 as an anti-drug kingpin. As a member of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the intelligence combat support arm of the United States Department of Defense, Bradner deals with some pretty dicey characters and situations, “what most people think of as shady—the drug cartels and such,” he says.
Chief of the DIA’s Office of Latin America and Narcotics, Bradner is responsible for producing and managing military intelligence for policymakers and U.S. military personnel in the field. He is an expert on the role illegal drugs play in mitigating U.S. foreign policy.

The DIA also works closely with the Department of Homeland Security. Drugs are “an essential element of insurgent activities,” he explains. “If you take a look at many of the hot spots around the world, you could find a connection between illegal drugs and support of terrorism.”
After graduation from Hobart, Bradner joined the Navy, serving three tours of duty in Vietnam. After intense training in intelligence, guerrilla warfare and languages, he found himself as a liaison between the Vietnam Navy and U.S. forces, performing naval intelligence during the TET Offensive in 1968. “It was the most tactically challenging moment in my professional career and, of course, in my personal life as well,” he says. “It caused a quantum leap in my understanding of self and all those other things one learns under fire.”

Bradner retired from the service in 1985 to join the DIA. His group currently provides intelligence analysis for South America, Mexico and the Caribbean, in addition to worldwide coverage of heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine trafficking. “We also support the Office of National Drug Control as they develop policies, and we work within the law enforcement community in a multifaceted way,” he notes.
Three years after he joined the DIA, Bradner was assigned to a border control force that recommended security measures toward strengthening U.S. borders against the trafficking of immigrants, narcotics and weapons. The group set up recommendations and policies that “were not run-of-the-mill solutions,” he says. After the events of Sept. 11, Bradner starting getting requests for the recommendations from government sources.

“What we proposed, especially measures to secure the borders, is still relevant,” he says. “Drugs are a threat to the United States. If drugs can be smuggled in, then so can weapons and illegal arms – anything that terrorists might need.”

In the Know
A typical day for Heather Byrne Vieira ’95 involves weeding through thousands of communications in her intelligence folder, an electronic data base managed by the White House Situation Room that includes incoming cables from embassies, CIA reports and the like. If there is an important development, she writes up a short briefing paper for Vice President Dick Cheney and his national security adviser.

Vieira, on loan from the Central Intelligence Agency, is in charge of keeping Cheney informed of important developments and political and economic trends in the Western Hemisphere. From trade disputes with Canada to narco-guerrilla activities in Colombia, she is responsible for outlining a range of policy options for his consideration.

Vieira never thought she would end up in the CIA, let alone in the Vice President’s office. After graduating from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University with a master’s degree in Latin American studies, she found herself without a job and undecided about the future. When she heard HWS alumnus and former State Department spokesman Bob Funseth ’48 was speaking at the Colleges, she was intrigued enough to attend.

That decision changed her life. “Bob really took me under his wing,” she says. In fact, it was Funseth who convinced her to interview with the CIA. At the agency, she found herself briefing advisers in Cheney’s office and, subsequently, she was asked to join the staff on loan.
Her biggest adjustment has been transitioning from being strictly a policy analyst to making policy recommendations. “I quickly found that while it's easy to point out problem areas where our policy is falling short, it’s quite another thing to craft a solution to that problem," says Vieira.

“At the end of the day, it's an honor to be in this position.”

Rebuilding in Times of Trouble
Henry Jackson ’82 is always on the go. Lately he’s spent a lot of time traveling to various colleges his teenage son may attend. “I keep wanting to ask, ‘When was the last time you did an evacuation, and how good was it?’” Jackson says. “My wife tells me to keep quiet because we will look like freaks.”

His inquiry is more than just parental concern—it’s his job.
“Every building I enter, I look around and think, ‘Is this building secure? Where are the vulnerabilities?’” says Jackson, who works for the United States Department of Technology in New York City. Since the events of Sept. 11, the department has focused on facilities and the rebuilding of the office of emergency management.

Before joining the department, Jackson, who received his master’s in public administration from New York University, worked in former mayor Edward Koch’s administration as assistant director for fiscal and operating systems. He then worked for Mayor Giuliani in management analysis.

These days, Jackson and his colleagues combine the powers of innovative and sophisticated technology with professional expertise to create a timely and efficient response system for catastrophes or attacks. “We handled the blackout in the summer of 2003 extremely well,” he notes. “There was lower crime during the blackout than on a normal night in the city.”

The agency also is responsible for the introduction of “Go Bags,” packed with a few days’ emergency rations and essentials, in New York City.

As someone who witnessed the events of Sept. 11 first hand, Jackson knows just how imperative timely response systems can be. After evacuating their office in 7 World Trade Center, the Department of Technology was forced to reassemble itself in a matter of hours in a nearby police academy building.

“The tragedy of Sept. 11 is the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced in my career,” Jackson says. “At least I hope it will be the biggest challenge, but if I’m proven wrong, we’re prepared.”

This story was compiled from reports by Catherine Williams, Lauren Shallish ’05 and Jacob Boak ’06.