John B Tidwell

I was born and raised in Washington, D.C. My father served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II, was a senior CIA official in the 1960s, and a brigadier general in the Army Reserve. My mother graduated from Cornell at the age of nineteen and worked on the Manhattan Project. After the war she was denied admittance to graduate school because she was a woman. Witness to prejudice became a lifelong theme for me.

As a youngster, I wanted to be in the military. As I got older my interests shifted to military history, then military strategy and espionage. I attended the U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidate School, which led to my studying human intelligence and behavior.

I first studied American history and literature at George Mason University. In the late 1980s I entered grad school at the University of Delaware and earned a PhD studying the impact of human intelligence on educational policy. Simultaneously, my youngest brother was diagnosed with HIV and my academic advisor encountered sexual harassment while seeking tenure. My awakening to the insidious nature of prejudice in its many forms was profound. I saw my brother denied medical care from the family physician; friends and extended family avoided contact. I watched my advisor defend against offers of support for sex from committee members. These life experiences, coupled with my background and family history, influenced my writing Inside the Trojan Horse.

I have spent most of my career as a researcher.  I have taught research methodology to graduate students, and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles. I have also written editorials on human rights. 

I am an accomplished martial artist with a black belt in American karate. In 2014 I started a chapter of the nonprofit Rock Steady Boxing to teach boxing to Parkinson's patients to mitigate their symptoms.