Kathleen Troia “KT “McFarland has a reputation for taking complex national security issues and explaining them in plain English.  National radio talk show hosts and television news anchors seek out her ‘take’ on issues because, as one major news producer said, McFarland doesn’t have an axe to grind, she tells it like it is.

Ms. McFarland, (maiden name Kathleen Troia) served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan Administrations.  Her government career began while a freshman at George Washington University, working part-time in the White House Situation Room typing the President’s Daily Brief. She spent seven years at the White House,  working her way up to become a key member of Dr. Henry Kissinger’s National Security Council Staff.  After the Ford Administration, Ms. McFarland studied at Oxford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with concentrations on nuclear weapons, China and the Soviet Union.  After President Reagan’s election, she returned to Washington as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee staff.  In 1982 Ms. McFarland became the speechwriter to Secretary of Defense Cap Weinberger, and the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.

In 1985 Ms. McFarland left government, married, moved to New York, and became a stay at home mother.  After raising five children, Ms. McFarland returned to public life in 2004, and New York Republican politics.  She ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in 2006.  Ms. McFarland is now a national security commentator and columnist and appears frequently on television and radio news shows.

Defense Department Press Conference    1985