Michael R. Gordon is one of the nation's preeminent correspondents on national security. The chief military correspondent for The New York Times, Gordon has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, the Balkans, the horn of Africa and other trouble spots.

He also is the co-author of the national bestseller, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. The Economist described the book as "magisterial," and it has profoundly shaped the debate about Donald Rumsfeld’s stewardship of the Pentagon and the Bush Administration’s decision-making.
 
Gordon's exclusive reports and trenchant analysis are often front-page news in The New York Times. He was at Tora Bora when Osama bin Laden made his escape. He was in Chechnya when the Russian Army leveled Grozny. During the Iraq war, he was the only newspaper correspondent embedded with the allied land war command, a position that gave him an unparalleled view of the planning and execution of the war plan.

Gordon has written extensively about the problems of weapons proliferation and foreign policy. In 1989, he won the coveted George Polk Award for his articles on Libya's chemical weapons program. He has also covered numerous military operations.

In 1994, he co-authored The Generals' War, which Foreign Affairs magazine dubbed the best single volume on the 1991 Persian Gulf War. After finishing his tour as the Times' Moscow Bureau Chief, he produced and hosted the award-winning documentary, Deadlock: Russia’s Forgotten War, for CNN Presents. Narrated by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, the film chronicled Gordon’s risky trip into dangerous and highly restricted areas of Chechnya to capture horrific scenes of war and the inhumanity it engenders.
 

... an exceedingly engaging speaker. He won the audience over, lending a you-are-there atmosphere to the White House and intelligence agency deliberations.

World Affairs Council of Dallas

In 2002 Gordon did a series of reports for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on U.S. military training efforts in the horn of Africa. In 2003 The Learning Channel aired the documentary, A Show of Force, Gordon’s report on how the military buildup in the Gulf in preparation for a possible war with Iraq was part of the Bush administration’s larger, controversial policy of pre-emption or ‘first strike.’

Born in New York, Gordon received a master's degree in Philosophy from Columbia University before plunging into the world of journalism. In his thirty-year career, he has been posted in Moscow and London and currently is based in Washington. He joined The New York Times in 1985.

Gordon has been a frequent guest on CNN during the Iraq conflict. He also has appeared on numerous nationally-televised interview shows, including Meet the Press, the Charlie Rose Show, The NewsHour, This Week, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Anderson Cooper 360° and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.