Kai Bird
Author & Columnist
Kai Bird is an author and columnist who has written on numerous topics and won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography on Robert Oppenheimer. His books have received critical acclaim and popular success, including The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames, which was a New York Times best-seller. His memoir, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
In January 2017 he was appointed Executive Director and Distinguished Lecturer of CUNY Graduate Center's Leon Levy Center for Biography. He is also the recipient of the McArthur Genius Grant for research and writing.
Kai Bird participated in The Spymasters: How The CIA Directors Shaped History & the Futureon December 17, 2020. Bird and Whipple discussed the CIA's innerworkings, successes and failures, role in American history, and ultimately its fundamental purpose.
