Thomas A. Brooks is a retired

Rear-Admiral Rear admiral is a flag officer rank used by English-speaking navies. In most European navies, the equivalent rank is called counter admiral. Rear admiral is usually immediately senior to commodore and immediately below vice admiral. It is ...

of the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

and past Director of Naval Intelligence, which office he led from 1988 to 1991.

Biography

Brooks obtained his bachelor's degree from

Fordham University Fordham University is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in New York City, United States. Established in 1841, it is named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its origina ...

and Masters degree from

Fairleigh Dickinson University Fairleigh Dickinson University () is a private university with its main campuses in New Jersey, located in Madison / Florham Park and in Teaneck / Hackensack. Founded in 1942, Fairleigh Dickinson University offers more than 100 degree prog ...

. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve and then came on active duty for the

in 1958. Admiral Brooks described what he considered to be a cover-up of the 1967 USS ''Liberty'' incident as a “national disgrace” and stated “The Navy was ordered to hush this up, say nothing, and allow the sailors to say nothing. The Navy rolled over and played dead.” On the 24th anniversary of the attack (in 1991), he presented approximately 50 ''Liberty'' survivors gathered at the

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with a Presidential Unit Citation that had been signed by President

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...

but never awarded. For a time he served as the Assistant Naval Attaché in

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. He was involved in the apprehension of the

MS Achille Lauro MS ''Achille Lauro'' was a cruise ship based in Naples, Italy. It was built between 1939 and 1947 as the ocean liner ''Willem Ruys'' for Royal Rotterdam Lloyd. In 1965 Achille Lauro bought the ship, had it converted into a cruise ship, and ren ...

terrorists, and in the

1986 United States bombing of Libya The United States Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps carried out air strikes, code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon, against Libya on 15 April 1986 in retaliation for the West Berlin discotheque bombing ten days earlier, which U.S. President Ro ...

, by which

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

taught

Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (20 October 2011) was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until Killing of Muammar Gaddafi, his assassination by Libyan Anti-Gaddafi ...

not to bomb European discos. Unfortunately the latter did not take well to the lesson and ordered the 21 December 1988 bombing of

Pan Am Flight 103 Pan Am Flight 103 (PA103/PAA103) was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988, the Boeing 747 "Clipper Maid of th ...

, which exploded in mid-air and crashed on the town of

Lockerbie Lockerbie (, ) is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, located in south-western Scotland. The 2001 Census recorded its population as 4,009. The town had an estimated population of in . The town came to international attention in December 1988 when ...

in Scotland after a bomb detonated, killing all 259 people aboard, and 11 people in

. Brooks spent 33 years as a Naval Intelligence officer, and retired in 1991 after a three-year posting as

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...

's Director of Naval Intelligence. Brooks then spent 10 years in private industry with

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

. In 1995, he was appointed to the Defense Policy Board. He is a co-author of the first English-language book on '' Admiral Gorshkov: The Man Who Challenged the U.S. Navy''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, Thomas A. United States Navy admirals Living people Fordham University alumni Fairleigh Dickinson University alumni Year of birth missing (living people)