Milton Bearden (born April,1940) is a retired Central Intelligence Agency officer, author and film consultant. As of 2003, Bearden lives in Reston, Virginia with his French-born wife, Marie-Catherine.

Bearden was born in Oklahoma and spent his early years in the Washington state, where his father worked on the Manhattan Project, and later moved with his family to Houston, Texas. After serving in the United States Air Force, he joined the CIA in 1964.

During his 30-year career with the CIA Bearden was a station chief in Pakistan, Nigeria, Sudan and Germany. In Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, he became a CIA Field Officer in Afghanistan. He played a role in funding and training the mujahedeen to fight occupying Soviet forces.

Bearden appeared several times in the BBC Documentary by Adam Curtis called The Power of Nightmares where he talked of his involvement with the Mujahadeen, the Afghan Arabs and how he was assigned to the role by William Casey the then current Director of Central Intelligence. According to Bearden, Casey told him that Afghanistan seemed to be possibly one of the keys to winning. Casey said "'I want you to go to Afghanstian, I want you to go next month and I will give you what ever you need to win... He gave me the Stinger missiles and a billion dollars!"

Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an African-American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage.

Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. His family moved him to New York City as a toddler, and their household soon became a meeting place for major figures of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1929 he graduated from Peabody High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He completed his studies at New York University (NYU), graduating with a degree in science and education in 1935.

After he started to focus more on his art and less on athletics, he took courses in art that led to him being a lead cartoonist and art editor for the Eucleian Society's (a secretive student society at NYU) monthly journal, The Medley.

Bearden grew as an artist not by learning how to create new techniques and mediums, but by his life experiences, and the different decades he created art and the different events that took place completely reshaped his vision of art. He studied under German artist George Grosz at the Art Students League in 1936 and 1937. At this time his paintings were often of scenes in the American South, and his style was strongly influenced by the Mexican muralists, especially Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. Shortly thereafter he began the first of his stints as a case worker for the New York Department of Social Services. During World War II, Bearden joined the United States Army, serving from 1942 until 1945. He would return to Europe in 1950 to study philosophy at the Sorbonne under the auspices of the GI Bill.

Daniel W. Drezner (born August 28, 1968 in Syracuse, New York) is currently a professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, the author of several books, the author of many Op-Ed pieces in major publications, a blogger, and a commentator.

Drezner graduated from Williams College with a B.A. in 1990. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degree from Stanford University.

Drezner has contributed to many media outlets, including being a monthly contributor to The New Republic Online, and has also published essays and Op-Eds in Foreign Affairs,Foreign Policy, the New York Times, Slate,Tech Central Station, the Wall Street Journal, among others. In addition, he has been a frequent guest on Bloggingheads.tv and various other video and radio mediums. Drezner got his blogging start at his own site, named DanielDrezner.com. On Monday, January 5, 2009, however, he became a contributing blogger to the site ForeignPolicy.com. Daniel Drezner notably contributed an analysis of a New, New World Order in an article published in the March/April 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs to especially comment the dynamic of the balance of power in the New Great Game in the context of both the unravelling 2007 financial crisis and the growing power of the so-called BRIC emerging economies in International Politics, in particular The People's Republic of China and India

Richard Norman Perle (born 16 September 1941) is an American political advisor, consultant, and lobbyist who began his career in government as a senior staff member to Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970s. Later he was heavily involved with the Reagan administration and served as the assistant Secretary of Defense and also worked on the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004. He was Chairman of the Board in 2001 under the Bush Administration but eventually resigned in 2003 due to conflict of interests.

He is a member of several think-tanks including the Hudson Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) Board of Advisors, the Center for Security Policy (CSP), the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (as a resident fellow), the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC), and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). He is also a patron of the Henry Jackson Society. Perle has written extensively on a number of issues; his cited research interests including defense, national security, and the Middle East. Aside from these engagements, Perle is the former co-chairman and director of Hollinger, Inc., a partner of Trireme Partners and a non-executive director of Autonomy Corporation.

Husain Haqqani or Hussain Haqqani (Urdu: حسین حقّانی) (born July 1, 1956) is the formerPakistan Ambassador to the United States, appointed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani in April 2008 and was resigned on November 22, 2011. Previously, he has held numerous high-ranking positions in and out of government, including as adviser to three former Pakistani prime ministers and as envoy to Sri Lanka, and has been a prominent journalist, scholar and educator. His appointment in 2008 marked a return to government service after being exiled in 1999 following criticisms against the government of then-President Pervez Musharraf.

Haqqani was born in Karachi and was raised in a conservative but educated middle-class family in Malir outside Karachi.

He began his interest in journalism while in high school. Year 1972 in Government National Science College (Shaheed-e-Millat Road, Karachi), he became president of the student union of Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami). In 1973 he joined Karachi University. He would frequently visit the library at the U.S. consulate, reading volumes of American history. Later, when students wanted to attack the consulate as part of a protest against the United States, Haqqani refused.