Garrett Graff

Garrett Graff is executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Cybersecurity and Technology Program. A magazine journalist and historian, he covered politics, technology, and national security for a dozen years. Graff has written for publications from WIRED to The New York Times and served as the editor of two of Washington’s most prestigious magazines, Washingtonian and POLITICO Magazine, which he helped lead to its first National Magazine Award, the industry’s highest honor.

He is also the author of multiple books, including The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House, about the role of technology in the 2008 presidential race; The Threat Matrix: The FBI At War, which traces the history of the FBI’s counterterrorism efforts; and Raven Rock*, about the US government’s Cold War doomsday plans. His e-book, “Angel is Airborne: JFK’s Final Flight From Dallas,” tells the dramatic story of the Air Force One flight back from Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, following the assassination of President Kennedy, and was a finalist for the Livingston Award for National Reporting, the highest award given to journalists under 35.

His online career began with his time as Governor Howard Dean’s first webmaster, and in 2005, he was the first blogger accredited to cover a White House press briefing. His notebook from that first White House briefing is on view at the Newseum. For seven years, he also taught social media, digital campaigns and digital journalism at Georgetown University’s journalism and communications programs.

He regularly speaks on technology, politics, and national security at places like the Harvard Business School, the Pacific Council on International Policy, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, and the National Press Club, as well as at various universities, companies, trade groups, and also to international audiences including Germany’s Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, the BBC’s NewsXChange, and Israel’s IDC Herzliya.

Graff has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox News, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, CBC, the BBC, National Geographic TV, Al Jazeera English, and various public radio programs, including “This American Life.”

He is the board chair of the National Conference on Citizenship—a Congressionally-chartered nonprofit focused on civic engagement that was founded by Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower—and in his home state of Vermont, he sits on the board of Vermont Public Radio (VPR) and the board of commissioners for the Burlington Housing Authority, and is a member of the Vermont Community Foundation.