Tom Blanton

Non-Fiction Author

Birth Year 1955

Birthplace Georgia

#305,721 Most Popular

About

Nonfiction author, writer, and former journalist known for the books The Chronology (1987), White House E-mail (1995), Master Pieces of History (2010), and Afghanistan 20/20 (2024) and for being the director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Before Fame

He attended Harvard University, but he dropped out in his junior year. He worked as a journalist in Minnesota for a couple of years. He moved to Washington D.C. in the mid-1980s to find a new career path. He became the director of the National Security Archive in 1992. 

Trivia

His work and leadership helped the National Security Archive win Emmy, Peabody, and Polk awards for its investigative work. The National Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame elected him a member in 2006, and Tufts University presented him the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award in 2011 for "decades of demystifying and exposing the underworld of global diplomacy."

Family Life

He was born in Greensboro, Georgia. He was raised all over the Southern United States.

Associated With

His archive work helped Samantha Power write her book A Problem From Hell. He met Fidel Castro and convinced him to share documents from the Cuban Missile Crisis.