By Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker
From Pam P.
As I listened to Matthew Pottinger testify in yesterday’s hearing, I kept thinking I’d heard about him before but it was in the context of Covid. I was surprised that no one mentioned that his service to the country includes his pivotal and persistent role in raising an early alarm about Covid.
Lawrence Wright wrote about him in his New Yorker article and expanded book called The Plague Year.
It’s an incredible story, and Pottinger is one of the unsung heroes in the Covid saga. I’m singing about him here. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/the-plague-year
Here are some excerpts but you’ll have to read the article if you want the whole story:
Matthew Pottinger was getting nervous. He is one of the few survivors of Donald Trump’s White House, perhaps because he is hard to categorize. Fluent in Mandarin, he spent seven years in China, reporting for Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. He left journalism at the age of thirty-two and joined the Marines, a decision that confounded everyone who knew him. In Afghanistan, he co-wrote an influential paper with Lieutenant General Michael Flynn on improving military intelligence. When Trump named Flynn his national-security adviser, Flynn chose Pottinger as the Asia director. Scandal removed Flynn from his job almost overnight, but Pottinger stayed, serving five subsequent national-security chiefs. In September, 2019, Trump appointed him deputy national-security adviser. In a very noisy Administration, he had quietly become one of the most influential people shaping American foreign policy.