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National Security expert seeks directorship of Public Policy Institute

In the midst of advising President Bush on the best ways to fight terrorism, Thomas M. Newcomb began his interviews Wednesday for the directorship of the Public Policy Institute.

Newcomb is one of four finalists seeking the position. The institute has been without a permanent director since the December death of former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, who founded the bipartisan think tank in 1997.

Newcomb's meetings with the search committee are scheduled to conclude on Friday.

Mike Lawrence, associate director at the time of the Institute's founding, became interim director after Simon's death. Lawrence is also one of the four finalists.

In an email interview, Newcomb said he hopes to continue the Institute's bipartisan effort to address issues of local, national and international importance and to achieve concrete results.

"To continue its role as a 'do' rather than a 'think' tank, as Sen. Simon intended, the Institute must find those issues susceptible not just to discussion, but to action," Newcomb said. "Ideally, the work of the Institute may not end with a paper but with testimony to a legislature or an amicus brief to a court."

The Institute needs to search for issues where it can work with larger institutions to make a contribution, Newcomb said.

"The Institute is...making a contribution on the issues that matter to the people of the community and beyond," Newcomb said. "I wish to continue, and, if possible, improve upon those efforts."

The effects of the federal government's decisions on the communities in the Illinois region are of interest to Newcomb.

"Over the years I've gathered a bag full of questions," Newcomb said.

Included in the bag are questions about sentencing guidelines and their effects on Illinois prisons and the economics of their support, the effect on the region of the Pentagon's reliance on reserve troops, effects of the new port security standards in Illinois and the state's progress 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education

"But these are only questions," Newcomb said. "My ideas for the Institute must be informed...by the needs and interests of those who contribute to and follow the work of the Institute."

Newcomb recognizes the need to attract policy expertise to the Institute and is familiar with the challenges involved.

"Over the years, I have organized interagency and inter-branch [forums] on [Capitol] Hill, in the agencies and currently at the White House," Newcomb said. "In every case, to attract participation by those senior and enthusiastic enough to make a difference, I have had to present both an issue of immediate concern to them and the promise of a result."

Asked if he plans to re-locate to Southern Illinois if selected as director, Newcomb said he would come "as fast as Interstate 64 can get me there."

Newcomb runs a counterterrorism policy shop staffed by academics and employees selected from various national security agencies under the direction of the deputy assistant to President Bush.

"The Office of Combating Terrorism develops, coordinates and implements policy of an international nature on the myriad aspects of how this nation prosecutes the global war on terrorism and protects its citizens and interests from future attacks," Newcomb said.

Prior to working in the White House, Newcomb served as staff director and legal counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select committee on Intelligence, worked as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review and variously served as a case officer and chief of station for the Central Intelligence Agency. Newcomb also served as assistant general counsel for the CIA.

Newcomb also served as a legal affairs adviser for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is a panel of 11 federal judges who approve or deny applications made by the government to conduct electronic surveillance or physical searches related to the gathering of foreign intelligence.

Applications for surveillance could involve First and Fourth Amendment issues, Newcomb said.

"[The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978] is a complicated statute that straddles the constitutional prerogatives of all three branches of government," Newcomb said. "My task as legal adviser to the FISC was to advise its judges on the statutory and constitutional issues presented by applications made to the court."

While serving in Vietnam with the Army's 101st Airborne Division, Newcomb earned a bronze star and combat infantry badge.

He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota and a juris doctorate from the University of Minnesota Law School.

Newcomb said in a press release that national security issues are "of immediate concern to national and local policymakers."