Brian Latell

Brian Latell has been a Latin America and Caribbean specialist for the last four decades. During his 35 years of service in the CIA and the National Intelligence Council he advised White House and other ranking American officials and members of Congress on Latin American developments. He teaches, lectures, and writes, especially on Cuba, and has frequently consulted for US and foreign government organizations.

He is most recently the author of After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro’s Regime and Cuba’s Next Leader (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and of numerous other publications on Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, and foreign intelligence topics. He is currently researching a book on Fidel Castro and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Dr. Latell is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami. He is on leave as a Senior Associate in the Americas Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, where he will return in August, 2006.

From 1990-94 he was the National Intelligence Officer for Latin America, the highest ranking position for the region in all of the US intelligence agencies. Before retiring from government service in 1998, he was the Director of the Center for the Study of Intelligence.

Dr. Latell taught at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University for 26 years as an adjunct professor, and in 2006 at the University of Miami. He was a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is the recipient of numerous academic and professional awards.