By Drew Jacobs

I recently spoke with Steve Brown, a recently retired Middlebury History alum from 1964. Steve worked as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Army from 1985-2008. Steve had top level security clearance and was primarily responsible for the U.S. Southern Command, an area including South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. At Middlebury, Steve particularly enjoyed European History and spoke highly of the knowledgeable professors. He wrote his thesis on U.S. Agricultural Foreign Policy. Steve felt that the valuable process of gathering information from a variety of sources, forming an argument, and coherently writing his findings to be especially helpful for his career with the Army.

In his work, Steve wrote studies on the prominent issues within his countries of expertise. Specifically, he spent a great deal of time studying Chile and Haiti. As a History major at Middlebury, Steve learned to identify patterns of conduct and development throughout time. With the Army, Steve looked for similar patterns of behavior by people in certain countries. He strove to identify what was important to these individuals, what were the chief issues in these nations, and any other significant information which the U.S. Government should be aware of. Steve worked collaboratively with Governments throughout South and Central America. When asked for any transformations in his work throughout his more than 20 years with the Army, Steve responded that the mission of the Army changed with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990. No longer did the Army employ this Cold War, anti-communist rhetoric.

As such, throughout the 1990’s Steve worked largely in drug reduction work throughout the Americas. He worked in unison with the DEA to cut down on the drug trade and related crime. Steve also worked as a civilian analyst on teams that went into Granada and the Bahamas to help strengthen the national police forces in these nations. Ultimately, Steve gained a greater interest and knowledge of foreign affairs and military work through his studies as a History Major at Middlebury. He continued this interest and his studies into foreign nations during his two decades as an analyst with the Army.