J.D. Gordon Biography
J. D. Gordon is the former Defense Department spokesman for the Western Hemisphere in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, serving under both Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary Robert Gates from 2005 to 2009, and is a retired Navy Commander.
Gordon also served as the Vice President, Communications as well as Foreign Policy & National Security Advisor to former Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain's 2012 campaign.
While in the Pentagon, he served as the Press Team Leader for Operations, Policy & Intelligence and was responsible for Western Hemisphere Affairs and U.S. Southern Command; Asia-Pacific Security Affairs and U.S. Pacific Command; and Detainee Affairs. In this capacity, he was DoD's principal spokesman for all facets of Guantanamo detention operations and detainee-related litigation, to include lead media escort and on-scene spokesman for military commissions, the war crime trials for alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban combatants and supporters.
Since leaving the Defense Department, Gordon has been a Senior Fellow and Communications Consultant to several Washington-DC based think tanks, including Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Americas Forum, Atlantic Bridge, Center for Security Policy and the Liberty & Freedom Foundation.
Gordon, a contributing columnist and commentator to Fox News, The Washington Times, Human Events, Capital Insider and other media outlets has often been quoted in dozens of major U.S. and overseas newspapers including the Wall St. Journal, USA Today, New York Times, New York Post, New York Daily News, Star Ledger, Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, while appearing on Fox News, CNN, CNN Español, PBS, Univision, Telemundo, Televisa, Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera, Al Hurra, BBC, RCN, NTN-24, RAI and NHK; and wire services the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Press, Deutsche Press Agency, Efe, Kyodo, Xinhua, Saudi Press Agency and more.
A career public affairs officer with 20 years of active duty service, he has been the on-scene spokesman for numerous internationally newsworthy events.
This includes the Haitian and Cuban refugee crises at Guantanamo of 1994; Operation Restore Democracy, the subsequent multi-national force deployment to Haiti also in 1994; US dual-carrier operations in the East China Sea during the China-Taiwan missile crisis of 1996; NATO's Stabilization Force (SFOR) in the former Republic of Yugoslavia in 1997; the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998; the Navy's efforts to maintain the Atlantic Fleet's primary training range, located on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico from 1999-2001; Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines, the Special Operations Command Pacific deployment to the southern Philippines in 2002; and the first USN ship visit to Vietnam since the Vietnam War onboard Frigate USS Vandegrift in 2003.
Born in New York City, and raised in central New Jersey, Gordon was commissioned as an Ensign through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program at Pennsylvania State University where he graduated with a B.A. in Communications. Gordon also holds an M.A. in Diplomacy from Norwich University, a certificate from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force's Air Command and Staff College. Having served 10 years overseas to include in Latin America, Europe and Asia, Gordon is fluent in Spanish and Italian, while conversant in Japanese. Gordon is a member of the Public Relations Society of America and the National Press Club.
