Professor

Edward J. Buthusiem Family Distinguished Faculty Fellow in History

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rimmerma@temple.edu 918 Gladfelter Hall 1115 Polett Walk Philadelphia PA 19122 Expertise U.S. Foreign Relations, Cold War, Central Intelligence Agency

Professor and Edward J. Buthusiem Distinguished Faculty Fellow in History and Marvin Wachman Director of Temple’s Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy, I am a historian of U.S. foreign relations and intelligence who concentrates on the post-World War II era. A former President of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, from 2007-2009 I served as an Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence. I currently hold the Francis W. DeSerio Chair in Strategic Intelligence at the Army War College and chair the Historical Advisory Committee to the Department of State. My interests and experiences shape both my research and my teaching. My books range from The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention to Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy and John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy, to Empire for Liberty: A History of U.S. Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz, to, most recently, The Hidden Hand: A Brief History of the CIA. My next project will examine the rocky relationship between Richard Nixon and national intelligence. With my colleague, Petra Goedde, I also edited the Oxford Handbook of the Cold War. My teaching draws extensively on my research. Among the undergraduate courses I have taught are “The American Empire,” “Rise to Globalism,” the Vietnam War, “Superpower America,” and Grand Strategy. My graduate courses focus primarily on the historiography of U.S. foreign relations, normally alternating between a readings seminar that covers the Revolutionary Era through World War and one that focuses on the Cold War and its aftermath."

Selected Publications

• The Hidden Hand: A Brief History of the CIA
• Empire for Liberty: A History of U.S. Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz
• John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy
• “Intelligence and Strategy”: Historicizing Psychology, Politics, and Policy, Diplomatic History 32 (January 2008).
• “What Did Eisenhower Tell Kennedy about Indochina: The Politics of Misperception (co-authored with Fred Greenstein), Journal of American History 79 (September 1992).

Courses Taught

• Superpower America
• Grand Strategy
• The Vietnam War
• U.S. Diplomatic History
• U.S. Foreign Policy in the Cold War