Robert S. Leiken

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Robert S. Leiken is currently the Director of Immigration and National Security Programs at The Nixon Center in Washington, D.C.. He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Leiken holds a B.A. degree from Harvard College (he graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and wrote a Summa Cum Laude honors thesis on Henry James) and a doctorate in Political Science from St Antony's College, Oxford University.[1]

Leiken's October 1984 article in The New Republic entitled "Nicaragua's Untold Stories" attacked the Sandinistas for their mismanagement, corruption, human rights abuses, political manipulation and allegiance to Moscow. A 1986 profile in The National Journal described Leiken's decision to criticize the Sandinistas thusly:

"The turning point came in the fall of 1984, when, after an intense 10 day trip to Nicaragua, Leiken returned "appalled and angry" over conditions there. He wrote an article criticizing the Sandinistas in terms that were, for a liberal Democrat, unmistakably powerful and all the more striking because they appeared in the traditionally liberal The New Republic, which itself was undergoing something of a political reorientation to a more centrist line."^[1]

According to a Time Magazine profile the article caused controversy among both Democrats and Republicans:

"The idea that a well respected liberal analyst would launch such a strong attack on the Sandinistas caused considerable stir in Washington. Leiken's apparent conversion was seen by the entrenched left as a betrayal and by Reaganites as a vindication of their long held views. Most important, many Democrats who had relied on Leiken's analyses began to reconsider their Sandinista sympathies. Senator Edward Kennedy had the article read into the Congressional Record. Suddenly, Leiken became as controversial as Nicaragua itself."^[2]

Leiken has written on issues of Immigration, Soviet Strategy, and Central and South America, but much of his recent work has focused on terrorism and European Islam. His article in the July/August 2005 Foreign Affairs "Europe's Angry Muslims" was published shortly before the 7 July 2005 London bombings.^[3]

[edit] Selected works

• Bearers of Global Jihad: Immigration and National Security after 9/11 (2004)^[4]
• Why Nicaragua Vanished: A Story of Reporters and Revolutionaries (2003)
• Enchilada Lite: A Post 9-11 Mexican Migration Agreement (2002) ^[5]
• The Melting Border: Mexico and Mexican Communities in the United States (2000) ^[6]
• A New Moment in the Americas (1994) (Editor)
• The Central American Crisis Reader (1987) (Co- Editor, with Barry Rubin)
• Central America: Anatomy of Conflict (1984) (Editor)
• Soviet Strategy in Latin America (1982)

[edit] References