Robert F. Turner


Robert F. Turner is a professor of international law and national security law at the University of Virginia and the co-founder of its Center for National Security Law.
He has testified before the United States Congress numerous times, served as a legal advisor to the Departments of State and Defense and as a White House Counsel during the Reagan administration, published articles in national newspapers, been interviewed on national television programs and been cited often by other legal scholars on national security law, international law and the separation of powers doctrine.

Education

Turner earned his BA in Government with honors from Indiana University in 1968. While attending the university, he became chairman of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists Conservative League. Later, he became the National Research Director for Student Committee for Victory in Vietnam and engaged in debates with national anti-war protestors and college professors who opposed the war. As National Research Director, he produced a series of pamphlets called Vietnam Cliches that documented facts about the war that were in opposition to antiwar views. He undertook graduate work in history and political science at Stanford University in 1972 and 1973 while in the employ of the Hoover Institution and resumed his graduate studies enrolling in Government and Foreign Affairs coursework in 1979-1981 while attending law school at the University of Virginia, where he earned his J.D degree. He earned a Doctor of Juridical Science degree from UVA in 1996.

Career

In 1968, Turner served briefly as a correspondent in Vietnam for the Indianapolis News. He then was commissioned as a Captain in the US Army through the ROTC program and assigned to the intelligence services. He served in Vietnam from 1968 through 1971, primarily assigned to MACV on detail to the US Embassy as Assistant Special Projects Officer, North Vietnam/Viet Cong Affairs Division. One of his duties was interviewing senior communist defectors and POWs. In that position, he accumulated first-hand knowledge of Vietnamese communism from those he interviewed, an experience that led to his book, Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Development. Another of his duties was briefing US and foreign media. In his capacity as Special Projects Officer, he also authored a top secret monograph on Viet Cong assassination policy.
In 1971 he became a Research Assistant/Associate at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, where "he contributed ten chapters on communist movements in Southeast Asia to the Yearbook on International Communist Affairs." While at Stanford, he attended graduate courses in History and Political Science. In 1972 he became a Public Affairs Fellow. He spent his first year researching at Stanford and completing his book on Vietnamese Communism and his second year on Capitol Hill. During that period, he also served as Associate Editor for the Yearbook on International Communist Affairs.
When his fellowship was complete, Turner became Special Assistant and Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Robert P. Griffin of Michigan for five years. He served as Senator Griffin's national security advisor and was responsible for Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence issues. While there, he helpded draft the language that created the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
In April 1981, Turner co-founded the Center for National Security Law with John Norton Moore. It was "the first organization focused expressly on national security law in the nation, and probably in the world." That same year he took a leave of absence to become the Special Assistant to the UnderSecretary of Defense for Policy as well as Counsel to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, where he served for two years. Then he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative and Governmental Affairs for the United States Department of State until 1985.
The following year, Turner became the first President and CEO of the United States Institute of Peace which was established by Congress in 1984, holding the position from 1986 to 1987.
Two years later, he became the Chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security. He held the post until 1992. He also served as editor of the ABA National Security Law Report.
in 1991, Turner co-edited and published National Security Law and Policy, now in its third edition. At the time of its creation, the field of national security law did not exist as a separate discipline in the legal profession. Turner went on to become a three-term chairman of the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security.
In 1994, he received a one-year appointment to the US Naval War College and became the Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law, "one of oldest and most prestigious academic chairs" at the college. That same year, he was described, in a Michigan Law Review article, as "two most distinguished and careful commentators" in the area of the law and the Vietnam War.
In 2000, Turner chaired an academic study investigating the paternity of Sally Hemings children. The year-long research project concluded that the most likely father of Hemings' children was the mentally-challenged younger brother of Thomas Jefferson, Randolph Jefferson. A book detailing the commission's findings was published in 2011. In his 2012 book "Master of the Mountain", Henry Wiencek described Turner as “Jefferson’s chief scholarly defender”.
Turner is often consulted on national security matters by news reporters and is a contributor to the Wall Street Journal on several issues; national security, surveillance laws, the Hemings controversy and the Vietnam War. He is a contributor to the Washington Post and USA Today as well. He has also spent a lifetime speaking and writing about the Vietnam war and has, for many years, taught graduate and undergraduate seminars on the Vietnam War at UVA. He has testified before "more than a dozen" committees in the House and Senate on national security matters, international law and the separation of powers doctrine, as well as other issues, and his books and articles have been cited hundreds of times by other legal scholars and are used in courses at Yale and other law schools.

Honors and recognition