Kenneth Michael Absher
Fellow
Mr. Kenneth Michael Absher was born in Wichita, Kansas, and raised in San Antonio, Texas. He attended Alamo Heights and Texas Military Institute before graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1953. He received a BA in Philosophy from Princeton University in 1957.
After serving on active duty in the US Army for two years, Mr. Absher returned to San Antonio where he worked as a city manager trainee, and the city's public information officer. He also served with the 36th Division, Texas National Guard, and was honorably discharged from the US Army in 1963.
In December 1961, Mr. Absher moved to Washington D.C., to begin his career with the Central Intelligence Agency. He retired from CIA on July 31, 1993, as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service. He served over 31 years in the Directorate of Operations, now known as the National Clandestine Service. Mr. Absher was Chief of Station in two different field assignments, and chief of base in two others. He had four tours in CIA headquarters managing foreign intelligence operations.
During his career, Mr. Absher served in Western Europe, the Caribbean and Indochina. He provided direct intelligence support to the US handling of major Cold War events such as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis; the Vietnam War; the 1983 military and rescue operation in Grenada (Operation "URGENT FURY"); and the break-up of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Mr. Absher holds the Medal for Civilian Service in Vietnam; a certificate for Exceptional Service Under Conditions of Hazard or Hardship; four Meritorious Unit Citations; three Superior Performance Awards; letters of appreciation from several US ambassadors, FBI, DEA, and staff consultants to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was twice awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit.
Since his retirement from the CIA, Mr. Absher has taught at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and from 1997 to 2002 at the National Defense Intelligence College in Washington, D.C. He was a consultant to the President's Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community (the Aspin/Brown Commission) which published its appraisal of US Intelligence in March 1996. He was a consultant to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and contributed to its staff study "IC 21: Intelligence Community in the 21st Century" published in April 1996. In 1999, Mr. Absher published an article in CIA's "Studies in Intelligence" on the Agency's role in Operation URGENT FURY. His article won an award from CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence.
From January 2003 to February 2005, Mr. Absher served on the Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Antonio. During 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appointed him to three accountability review boards to investigate terrorist attacks in Iraq which killed eleven US mission personnel. For seven weeks in the summer of 2006, Mr. Absher worked in the Office of the Director of CIA and the DNI representative at the headquarters of the US Pacific Command Assessing the North Korean Missile launches.
Mr. Absher currently serves on the Board of Directors of the World Affairs Council of San Antonio; and on the board of the National Defense Intelligence College Foundation in Washington, D.C.
