James (Jim)  Lawler served for 25 years as a CIA operations officer in various international posts and as Chief of the Counterproliferation Division’s Special Activities Unit. He was a member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service from 1998 to 2005.

Lawler was a specialist in the recruitment of foreign spies, and he spent over half of his CIA career battling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He is currently a renowned speaker on insider threats in government, industry and academics. Jim is the author of three espionage novels: Living Lies, an espionage story of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, In the Twinkling of an Eye, which is about recruiting a spy at the heart of a devastating covert Russian-North Korean genetic bioweapons program, and The Traitor’s Tale, which deals  about treachery and treason deep within the CIA.