Frank Snepp

Frank Snepp is one of the original CIA whistleblowers, a former highly decorated top spy whose revelations sparked a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision bearing on free speech and national security. His subsequent exploits as a Peabody Award-winning investigative journalist working for all three broadcast networks, including ABC’s 20/20, and in various print and online media, have helped rewrite the meaning of many headline events of the past thirty years, from the Iran Contra affair to the Monica Lewinsky scandal to the evacuation of Afghanistan and Putin’s “Plan B” for Ukraine.

A graduate of Columbia University’s school of International Affairs, he served as consultant to the Manuel Noriega legal defense team and has appeared in more than fifty documentaries on national security, the CIA and the Vietnam war. He has produced celebrated documentaries of is own, including an Emmy Award-winning report on drug-trafficking through Mexico. He has taught First Amendment law at two major universities and worked as a screen writer for a dramatic television series and as consultant to such legendary actors as Marlon Brando.

As a one-time lead strategy analyst at the CIA station in Saigon, who interrogated top prisoners and intelligence sources, personally delivered the President of South Vietnam to his own evacuation flight out of the country and who was among the last seventeen CIA officers to be lifted off the roof of the US embassy, Snepp’s first-hand knowledge of one of the most controversial wars in U.S. history has made him a go-to authority as the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon draws near.

His first memoir "Decent Interval" is widely viewed as a classic of the Vietnam war, His second memoir, Irreparable Harm, details his harrowing battle before the Supreme Court, in U.S. v Snepp, which set a precedent that governs free speech today. The Peabody award he received in 2005 while working for NBC -- one of scores of citations for his journalistic work -- honored him for exposing a lethal methane threat to 12,000 residents of coastal Los Angeles.

Snepp’s wide-ranging experiences have given him unique perspective on what it takes to speak truth to power, to blow the whistle on wrong-doing, and to know when and how to stand up for the right cause. His presentations combine motivational guidance applicable in any situation with unparalleled eyewitness historical context.