Biography

Douglas Waller

Douglas Waller

Douglas Waller is a veteran correspondent, author and lecturer. In almost two decades as a Washington journalist, he covered the Pentagon, Congress, the State Department, the White House and the CIA. From 1994 to 2007, Waller served in TIME magazine’s Washington Bureau, first as a correspondent and then as a senior correspondent. At TIME, Waller covered foreign affairs extensively as a diplomatic correspondent, traveling throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East as well as in the Persian Gulf region. He has reported extensively in the past on Middle East peace negotiations and the wars in Iraq. He came to TIME in 1994 from Newsweek, where he reported on major military conflicts from the Gulf War to Somalia to Haiti. Before joining Newsweek in 1988, he served as a legislative assistant on the staffs of Senator William Proxmire and Representative Edward J. Markey.

Lincoln’s Spies is the tenth book Waller has authored or coauthored. His previous book was the critically acclaimed biography Disciples: The World War II Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought for Wild Bill Donovan, which was published by Simon & Schuster in 2015. In 2011, Free Press published Waller’s biography, Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage, which became a New York Times bestseller, a Washington Post Best Book for 2011 and a Wall Street Journal Notable Book for 2011.

Waller’s other books include the national bestseller, The Commandos:  The Inside Story of America’s Secret Soldiers, which was published by Simon & Schuster in 1994, and Air Warriors: The Inside Story of the Making of a Navy Pilot, which was published by Simon & Schuster in 1998. His sixth book, BIG RED: The Three-Month Voyage Of A Trident Nuclear Submarine, was also a national bestseller published by HarperCollins in 2001. In 2004 HarperCollins also published Waller’s critically acclaimed biography, A Question of Loyalty: Gen. Billy Mitchell and the Court-Martial that Gripped the Nation.

Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Waller holds a B.A. in English from Wake Forest University and an M.A. in Urban Administration from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. A former captain in the U.S. Army Reserve, he now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.