Robert Harward: Everything you need to know about possible national security adviser
Harward under consideration to replace Michael Flynn: WH official.
— -- President Trump is searching for a new national security adviser after retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn resigned from the post late Monday night. Among those under consideration to replace Flynn is Robert Harward, a retired vice admiral and former Navy SEAL, according to a senior White House official.
Harward served as the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command under Gen. James Mattis, now the secretary of defense. Harward is an ABC News contributor.
Here’s everything you need to know about the man who could serve as Trump’s chief White House adviser on national security issues.
Name: Robert S. Harward
Birthplace: Newport, Rhode Island
What he used to do:
Harward was appointed in 2011 as the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, serving until his retirement from the military in 2013.
Before that assignment, he was the deputy commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command and the commander of Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435 in Afghanistan. After Sept. 11, 2001, he led troops in Afghanistan and Iraq for six years.
Harward, 60, is now the chief executive officer for Lockheed Martin United Arab Emirates.
Career track:
Harward enlisted in the Navy and was later awarded a fleet appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, from which he graduated in 1979. He qualified as a surface warfare officer aboard the destroyer USS Scott before joining the naval special warfare community. Harward was the honor man of his basic underwater demolition/SEAL class — an award given to the most outstanding member of the training course.
Throughout his distinguished career, Harward has been stationed around the world as well as for the executive branch in the nation’s capital. He has served on the National Security Council as the director of strategy and policy for the office of combating terrorism and was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s representative to the National Counterterrorism Center as a member of the senior interagency strategy team, according to his Navy biography.
He holds a master’s degree in international relations and strategic security affairs, served as a federal executive fellow at the Rand Corp. and completed the Center for International Studies’ foreign policy program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to the biography.
Harward was awarded the Distinguished Graduate Leadership Award in 2013 by the U.S. Naval War College for his prominence in the field of national security. In 2012 he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for individuals “whose accomplishments in their field and inspired service to our nation are cause for celebration,” according to the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, which sponsors the award.
Things you might not know about him:
Harward grew up the son of a Navy officer and spent much of his teenage years in Iran. He graduated from Tehran American High School in 1974 and speaks Farsi.
For his retirement ceremony in Coronado, California, in 2013, Harward jumped out of a plane and parachuted in, landing on the beach where the ceremony would take place. Adm. William McRaven, then-commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, and Mattis, then-commander of Centcom, spoke at the occasion.
Harward’s parachute had the SEAL trident flag and his three-star flag above it, according to The Coronado Times.
Related Topics
Related Stories
ABC News Live