Calder Walton Keynote Speaker

Dr. Calder Walton is teaches at Harvard Kennedy School of Government where he is Assistant Director of the Belfer Center’s Applied History Project and Intelligence Project. His research is broadly concerned with intelligence, history, grand strategy, and international relations. His research has a particular focus on policy-relevant historical lessons for governments and intelligence communities today.

He is the author of ‘Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West’ – he has also written, edited, and contributed to, several other works on intelligence and global affairs.

Calder is also general editor of the multi-volume ‘Cambridge History of Espionage and Intelligence’ to be published by Cambridge University Press. This major project will be a landmark study of intelligence, exploring its use and abuse in statecraft and warfare from the ancient world to the present day.

Calder’s research builds on his first (award-winning) book, Empire of Secrets. British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire (Harper-Press 2013). While pursuing a Ph.D. in History at Trinity College, Cambridge, England, and then a Junior Research Fellowship also at Cambridge University, Calder was a lead researcher on Professor Christopher Andrew’s unprecedented official history of the British Security Service (MI5), Defend the Realm (2009). This  work gave Calder, for six years, privileged access to the archives of MI5, the world’s longest-running security intelligence agency. As well as his research on intelligence history, Calder is also an English-qualified Barrister (attorney).

His research has been featured on the BBC, Washington Post, POLITICO, Foreign Policy, and other outlets, and has provided interviews to various TV and radio shows and podcasts.

He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but feels the greatest affinity for the “real Cambridge”, where he earned a doctorate in History at Trinity College, Cambridge.