William Beecher

I am a Pulitzer Prize-winning former Washington ocrrespondent for the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.Also served as a top official of the Defense Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In retirement, I've been teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland since January of 2009.

Five novels have been published, thus far, focusing in part of spies, counter-spies and loose women (my wife cringes whenrver she hears the last part of the description, although readers seem to fancy that). The novels are "Mayday Man," "Submerged Rage," "The Acorn Dossier," "Nuclear Revenge," and "The KGB Hoax."

At the Pentagon, in addition to duties as spokesman, I served on senior bodies dealing with Mideast policy, arms control strategy, and an overhaul of the Defense Intelligence agency. When I retired after two years I was awarded the highest medal conferred by the Pentagon on a civilian official. Also won a medal from the White House for my work in government.

While based in Washington, I made annual reporting trips for more than 25 years to Eastern and Western Europe. the Mideast and the Far East, including five trips to Vietnam during that war. I'm a knight in the ancient order of St. John of Medina. Frequently appeared on Face the Nation, Meet the Press and other TV news shows. I'm written up in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.

We have four daughters and ten grandchildren.

I was recently interviewed at length by BBC World Service for a program called "Witness." They focused on my front page New York Times story revealing the US secret bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

My novels, while fictional, are fact-based. For example, during a reporting trip to China in 1979, shortly after its border war with Vietnam, top officials decided to allow me to visit a huge three-level underground bomb shelter under the heart of Beijing. To the best of my knowledge, no other Western correspondent has visited the site. I believe that was done in order to encourage me to tell Washington officials that Beijing was interested in senior military-to-military talks.I passed the word and talks were initiated. I made use of the underground shelter experience, briefly, on "The KGB Hoax."

During a lengthy career, I experienced all sorts of unique moments. At one time I was in a helicopter that was shot down over the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. In another, I was in a single engine Cessna whose engine was shot out over the Sinai Desert. In both cases, skillful pilots landed safely. I have not use either incident, thus far, in my novels.