Milt Bearden

Milton A. Bearden is the director at Eclipse Solutions and Bearden is the author of "The Black Tulip", a novel of war in Afghanistan.

During a career that tracked the Cold War from the overthrow of Nikita Khrushchev and the detonation of the first Chinese atomic bomb in the mid-1960s, through the hauling down of the hammer and sickle over the Kremlin and the reunification of Germany in the 1990s, Bearden rose through the ranks to become one of CIA's most senior officers. He left the agency as one of the most highly decorated operations officers in its Senior Service.

Bearden's early career was split between German-speaking Europe and Hong Kong where he conducted classic Cold War intelligence operations. During the early 1980's he moved to Africa to serve as CIA Chief in Nigeria and later in Khartoum, where he covered Sudan's civil war and the ultimate overthrow of the regime of Jaafar Nimeiri. It was in Sudan in 1985, that Bearden organized a secret airlift from the Sudanese desert to Israel of the stranded remnants of the Ethiopian Falasha Jews. For his work in Sudan Bearden was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit, the Agency's second-highest decoration.

In the Spring of 1986, Bearden was selected by Bill Casey to take charge of the CIA Covert Action supporting a flagging Afghan Resistance. Bearden's assignment to the Afghan Resistance heralded a shift in American policy from minimalist support to the Afghan rebels-just enough to tie down the Soviet Army-to a policy of trying to win. For his service in Afghanistan Bearden was awarded the agency's highest decoration, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. In 1989, Bearden left Pakistan and Afghanistan to take command of the Soviet-East European Division of the CIA's Operations Directorate. During the next three years, he directed the CIA's clandestine operations against a decaying Soviet Empire.

Bearden wound up his CIA career as the CIA Chief in Bonn where he worked with a newly reunified Germany in dealing with its Cold War legacy. Among his last official acts in Germany was his participation in the final departure ceremony of the Russian Western Group of Forces from Berlin on August 31, 1994, three years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For his service in Germany, Bearden was honored by the German President with the Federal Cross of Merit, the only such decoration ever given to a CIA Chief in the Federal Republic. He is a frequent contributor to the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and has contributed to Foreign Affairs.