Larry M. Wortzel

Commissioner Larry M. Wortzel was appointed to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on November 9, 2001, and reappointed on May 6, 2003 by House Speaker Dennis Hastert for a term expiring December 31, 2004.

Commissioner Wortzel is the Vice President and Director of The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation, an influential think tank based in Washington, DC. He previously served as the Director of the Asian Studies Center at
the Foundation. Since 1983, the Center has addressed a broad range of policy issues affecting U.S.-Asia relations. Its policy recommendations—based on rigorous analyses of Asian political, military, and economic realities—seek to advance freedom and democracy throughout the Asian region while safeguarding American security.

A leading authority on China, Asia, intelligence, national security, and military strategy, Commissioner Wortzel joined Heritage in November 1999 upon completing a distinguished thirty-two-year career in the U.S. armed forces. His last military position was as director of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College.

Following three years in the Marine Corps and a stint in college, Commissioner Wortzel enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1970. His first assignment with the Army Security Agency took him to Thailand, where he focused on Chinese military communications in Vietnam and Laos. Within three years, he had graduated Infantry Officer Candidate School, as well as both Airborne and Ranger schools. After serving four years as an infantry officer in Korea and at Fort Benning, Georgia, he shifted to military intelligence. Wortzel traveled regularly to throughout Asia while serving the U.S. Pacific Command as a political-military affairs analyst from 1978 to 1982. The following year he attended the National University of Singapore, where he studied advanced Chinese and traveled in China and Southeast Asia. He next worked for the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, developing counterintelligence programs to protect emerging defense technologies from foreign espionage. In addition, for the Army Intelligence and Security Command, he managed programs to gather foreign intelligence.

From 1988 to 1990, Commissioner Wortzel was Assistant Army Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in China, where he witnessed and reported on the Tiananmen Massacre. After assignments as an Army strategist and managing worldwide assignments for Army intelligence officers, he returned to China in 1995 as the Army Attaché. In December 1997, he became a faculty member of the U.S. Army War College, serving as director of the Strategic Studies Institute. He retired from the Army as a colonel.

Commissioner Wortzel's books include Class in China: Stratification in a Classless Society (Greenwood Press, 1987), China's Military Modernization: International Implications (Greenwood, 1988), The Chinese Armed Forces in the 21st Century (Carlisle, PA, 1999), and Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese Military History (Greenwood, 1999). He regularly publishes articles and monographs on Asian security matters.

A graduate of the Armed Forces Staff College and the U.S. Army War College, Commissioner Wortzel earned his B.A. from Columbus College, Georgia, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii. He and his wife, Christine, have two married sons and one grandson.

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