Timothy Naftali

Timothy Naftali is an associate clinical professor of history and public service at NYU. He is a CNN presidential historian and a graduate of Yale with a doctorate in history from Harvard.

Naftali and Russian academic Aleksandr Fursenko authored the influential books "One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958-1964" and "Khrushchev’s Cold War." The latter received the Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature in 2007 and was featured on Foreign Affairs’ 2014 list of the ten best books on the Cold War. As a consultant to the 9/11 Commission, Naftali wrote a history of U.S. counterterrorism, later published as "Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism." He is also the author of "George H. W. Bush," a study of the nation's 41st president.

Naftali joined NYU after his tenure as the founding director of the federal Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California. There, he gained recognition for curating its Watergate Gallery. His writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, and Foreign Affairs. Naftali's expertise has also made him a sought-after figure in television documentaries, including CNN’s "The Seventies," "The Eighties," and "Race for the White House," as well as PBS documentaries "Dick Cavett’s Watergate," "Dick Cavett’s Vietnam," and "The Bomb."