Tom Gjelten
Tom Gjelten reports on religion, faith, and belief for NPR News, a beat that encompasses such areas as the changing religious landscape in America, the formation of personal identity, the role of religion in politics, and conflict arising from religious differences. His reporting draws on his many years covering national and international news from posts in Washington and around the world.
In 1986, Gjelten became one of NPR's pioneer foreign correspondents, posted first in Latin America and then in Central Europe. Over the next decade, he covered social and political strife in Central and South America, the first Gulf War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the transitions to democracy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
His reporting from Sarajevo from 1992 to 1994 was the basis for his book Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege (HarperCollins), praised by the New York Times as "a chilling portrayal of a city's slow murder." He is also the author of Professionalism in War Reporting: A Correspondent's View (Carnegie Corporation) and a contributor to Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (W. W. Norton).
After returning from his overseas assignments, Gjelten covered U.S. diplomacy and military affairs, first from the State Department and then from the Pentagon. He was reporting live from the Pentagon at the moment it was hit on September 11, 2001, and he was NPR's lead Pentagon reporter during the early war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. Gjelten has also reported extensively from Cuba in recent years. His 2008 book, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause (Viking), is a unique history of modern Cuba, told through the life and times of the Bacardi rum family. The New York Times selected it as a "Notable Nonfiction Book," and the Washington Post, Kansas City Star, and San Francisco Chronicle all listed it among their "Best Books of 2008." His latest book, A Nation of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story (Simon & Schuster), published in 2015, recounts the impact on America of the 1965 Immigration Act, which officially opened the country's doors to immigrants of color. He has also contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other outlets.
Since joining NPR in 1982 as labor and education reporter, Gjelten has won numerous awards for his work, including two Overseas Press Club Awards, a George Polk Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, he began his professional career as a public school teacher and freelance writer.
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Since the leak of the National Security Agency's data-gathering program, U.S. officials have been defending their strategies. But they've been arguing for years that intelligence gathering has to keep up with the new ways America's enemies are planning and communicating. -
President Obama banned enhanced interrogation techniques, but he's largely avoided discussing whether the tactic ever produced valuable information. He might not be able to avoid it forever: The CIA is preparing an official response to a report that concluded the techniques were worthless. -
U.S. official displeasure has grown over the problem of Chinese cyber-espionage. The Obama administration has signaled that it will step up the investigation and prosecution of trade-secret theft and has not ruled out punitive measures. -
Investigators are trying to determine if the bombing suspects acted alone. The bombs that exploded at the marathon were simple and similar to ones law enforcement officials come across on a regular basis. -
During his presidency, Hugo Chavez gave Venezuelan consumers cheap gasoline. He propped up the Cuban regime, and he offered oil on preferential terms to 18 regional countries. But Chavez died before he had to confront the economic and political problems certain to plague his successor. -
When it comes to North Korea's latest belligerence, U.S. officials can sound more like an exasperated parent responding to a child's tantrum. That's just their first warning, though. -
U.S. officials and security experts regularly highlight the cyberthreat, but they also note that the prospects of a major cyberattack are remote. Cyberespionage and "nuisance" cyberattacks may be a problem now, but all-out cyberwar is not. -
In his annual assessment of threats, the director of national intelligence also cited Iran and North Korea. He warned the spending cuts mandated under the sequestration jeopardized the nation's safety. -
A new round of talks on Iran's nuclear program is under way. But international sanctions haven't led to the type of concessions the West hoped for, and prospects for a breakthrough are limited. -
Some affected private companies are so frustrated by their inability to defend against attacks that they have opted to go on the offense themselves. Some cybersecurity firms are now marketing cyberweapons and attack strategies to companies that want to go after their adversaries.
