Tom Gjelten
Tom Gjelten reports on religion, faith, and belief for NPR News, a beat that encompasses such areas as the changing religious landscape in America, the formation of personal identity, the role of religion in politics, and conflict arising from religious differences. His reporting draws on his many years covering national and international news from posts in Washington and around the world.
In 1986, Gjelten became one of NPR's pioneer foreign correspondents, posted first in Latin America and then in Central Europe. Over the next decade, he covered social and political strife in Central and South America, the first Gulf War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the transitions to democracy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
His reporting from Sarajevo from 1992 to 1994 was the basis for his book Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege (HarperCollins), praised by the New York Times as "a chilling portrayal of a city's slow murder." He is also the author of Professionalism in War Reporting: A Correspondent's View (Carnegie Corporation) and a contributor to Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (W. W. Norton).
After returning from his overseas assignments, Gjelten covered U.S. diplomacy and military affairs, first from the State Department and then from the Pentagon. He was reporting live from the Pentagon at the moment it was hit on September 11, 2001, and he was NPR's lead Pentagon reporter during the early war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. Gjelten has also reported extensively from Cuba in recent years. His 2008 book, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause (Viking), is a unique history of modern Cuba, told through the life and times of the Bacardi rum family. The New York Times selected it as a "Notable Nonfiction Book," and the Washington Post, Kansas City Star, and San Francisco Chronicle all listed it among their "Best Books of 2008." His latest book, A Nation of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story (Simon & Schuster), published in 2015, recounts the impact on America of the 1965 Immigration Act, which officially opened the country's doors to immigrants of color. He has also contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other outlets.
Since joining NPR in 1982 as labor and education reporter, Gjelten has won numerous awards for his work, including two Overseas Press Club Awards, a George Polk Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, he began his professional career as a public school teacher and freelance writer.
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NPR's Tom Gjelten reports on some of the problems that might emerge when a United States Embassy is established in Iraq after the country regains sovereignty. One problem: how to coordinate with the huge, ongoing U.S. military operation. The U.S. Embassy in Saigon during the war in Vietnam offers some lessons.
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The recent attacks on the Jordanian embassy and the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad revive calls for an increase in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. But the Pentagon says it has no plans to send in reinforcements, arguing that more Iraqis need to be pressed into policing and security roles. Hear NPR's Tom Gjelten.
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Arab television stations air a new tape, allegedly from Saddam Hussein, in which the speaker mourns the killing last week of Saddam's two eldest sons. Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, senators grill Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on the Bush administration's failure to provide clear guidance on the costs of the U.S. mission in Iraq. Hear NPR's Tom Gjelten.
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Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defends the U.S. decision to release post-mortem photographs of Uday and Qusay Hussein, saying the images will help convince Iraqis that Saddam Hussein's sons are dead. But many Iraqis call for further proof. Meanwhile, three more U.S. soldiers die when their convoy is ambushed. Hear NPR's Tom Gjelten and Eric Westervelt.
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Three U.S. soldiers are killed in northern Iraq when their convoy is hit by gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades. In Washington, military officials acknowledge open-ended deployments cause stress for soldiers and announce a long-awaited plan for replacing forces in Iraq with new troops. Hear NPR's Tom Gjelten.
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President Bush hails the deaths of Saddam Hussein's two sons, who were killed in a gun battle with U.S. forces Tuesday. Bush says their deaths are a sign that the former Iraqi leader's regime "is gone and will not be coming back." Hear NPR's Tom Gjelten.
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A senior Defense Department official tells NPR that Saddam Hussein's former security chief and bodyguard has positively identified two men killed in Iraq as Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay. The men were shot during a raid by U.S. forces in the town of Mosul. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports.
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The White House releases an eight-page section of a larger document outlining the basis for a now-discredited claim that Saddam Hussein's regime sought to purchase uranium from Africa in an effort to develop nuclear weapons. Hear NPR's Scott Simon and NPR's Tom Gjelten.
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U.S. troops in Iraq are facing increasingly sophisticated "guerrilla-type" resistance from remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime, Gen. John Abizaid says. The U.S. military's new commander in Iraq also warns that U.S. troops should be prepared to remain in the country for at least the next 90 days. Hear NPR's Tom Gjelten.
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A U.S. soldier is killed when a bomb explodes near a convoy outside Baghdad. The Pentagon says continuing attacks in Iraq require that current troops remain in the country until at least September if U.S. or international replacement troops cannot be found. Along the Iraqi-Syrian border, anti-American sentiment grows. Hear NPR's Tom Gjelten and Dexter Filkins of The New York Times.