The Honorable Francis J. ‘Bing’ West

Director

Mr. West’s company, GAMA (Gaming and Analysis), in Newport RI specializes in crisis simulations.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Infantry Order of St. Crispin, Mr. West has served on the board of trustees of the Manlio Brosio Center in Rome and the Center for Naval Analyses in Virginia. He is the recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal, the 2004 and the 2012 Marine Corps Heritage Award, the Colby Military History Award, the Marine Corps Foundation Award for Leadership, the Goodpaster Prize for Military Scholarship, Tunisia’s Medaille de Liberté, the Father Clyde Leonard Award, the Free Press Award, the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Award and the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Media Medal.

Other posts he has held include: analyst at the Rand Corporation, visiting professor at Tufts University, Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense, Vice President of the Hudson Institute and Dean of Research at the Naval War College.

He served in Vietnam as an infantry captain and was a member of the Marine Force Reconnaissance team that initiated Operation Stingray – attacks deep behind enemy lines.

Mr. West served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan administration.

He has also served as an adviser to the commander of the US Central Command. He has embedded dozens of times with our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and written several best-selling military histories. Mr. West’s articles appear in The Wall St. Journal, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The National Review, Foreign Affairs Magazine and The Washington Post. He also appears on The News Hour and Fox News.

A graduate of Georgetown (’61) and Princeton (’67) Universities, Mr. West also studied in Switzerland and was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Princeton.