Timothy N. Castle

Timothy “Tim” Castle served his country as an enlisted security policeman for nearly eight years including two tours in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam war. Flying as an illumination operator with the 21st Special Operations helicopter squadron, “Dust Devils,” he participated in 38 combat missions over Laos. He was commissioned in 1980 and served the next fourteen years as an AF intelligence officer and educator. Selected to teach at the USAF Academy, then-Captain Castle was sent to the University of Hawaii where he earned his PhD in history and U.S. foreign policy. Retiring from the AF as a Major, he joined the Department of Defense and then the Central Intelligence Agency for a combined Federal civilian service of seventeen years. Working as a staff historian at CIA, Dr. Castle was assigned to the Center for the Study of Intelligence. His Vietnam-era familiarity with guerilla warfare and tribal peoples was soon applied to the Middle East. Dr. Castle became a frequent visitor to Iraq and Afghanistan and is the author of numerous studies related to counterterrorism operations.

Dr. Castle’s unclassified publications include One Day Too Long: Top Secret Site 85 and the Bombing of North Vietnam, Columbia University Press, 1999, and At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: United States Military Assistance to Royal Lao Government, 1955-1975, Columbia University Press, 1993.