John Gans

Guest Author

John Gans (@johngansjr) is the Director of Communications and Research at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House global policy center. Until 2017, he served at the Pentagon as chief speechwriter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. In the wake of 9/11, Gans served as a press liaison at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, an experience that drove his interest in public service and national security. Since then, Gans worked at the U.S. Defense Department, the U.S. Treasury Department, in the office of Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and for U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Gans is the author of White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War (W.W. Norton’s Liveright), which combined extensive archival research with 100 interviews to reveal the rise and fall of the National Security Council. Gans earned his MA and PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a BS from Northwestern University.