Robert Zelnick
Research Fellow

Expertise: Affirmative action; race preferences; U.S. politics; Israeli-Palestinian dispute; media issues, especially military-media relations

Robert Zelnick is the Professor of National and International Affairs at Boston University and a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He has been with Boston University since September, 1998. Mr. Zelnick's courses at Boston University have included Covering International Terrorism, Covering National Security, Foreign Reporting, Media Law and Ethics, and The Presidency and the Media.

Before joining Boston University, Zelnick spent 21 years with ABC News. From 1978–81 he served as News Director and, from 1981–82, as Deputy Bureau Chief of the Washington Bureau. He was Moscow Correspondent and Bureau Chief from 1982–84, producing significant pieces on the struggling Soviet economy and the treatment of dissidents.

From 1984–86, Zelnick was posted to Israel, covering the Israeli withdrawal from most of Lebanon and the build-up of tensions in the pre-Intifada I period, and breaking significant stories about the affair involving convicted espionage agent Jonathan Pollard. He then returned to Washington, where he served as Pentagon Correspondent from 1986–94, covering the end of the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War and many other critical stories. Zelnick was the first to report that Mikhail Gorbachev had agreed to letting a re-unified Germany join NATO and the first to report President Clinton's secret commitment to supply 25,00 peace-keeping forces to Bosnia. Perhaps his most noteworthy work at the Pentagon involved investigation of the Navy's case against Clayton Hartwig, the deceased Battleship Iowa seaman accused by the Navy of deliberately detonating the blast in Turret Two that killed 47 sailors, including Hartwig himself. Zelnick's reporting eventually led the Navy to withdraw its assignment of guilt.

From 1994–98, Zelnick covered Congress and politics.

Before joining ABC News, Zelnick served as executive editor of the highly successful Nixon-Frost Interviews, the first post-resignation media access provided by the former president.

From 1972–74, he served as correspondent and, from 1975–76, national bureau chief for National Public Radio, where his major assignments included Watergate, the Supreme Court, and a highly acclaimed 15-part series on inflation.

Zelnick began his career in journalism as a freelance writer from Vietnam in 1967. The following year, he joined the staff of the Anchorage Daily News, working in Anchorage as a reporter from 1968–69, and writing a Washington column for the paper through 1976.

From 1973–77, Zelnick served as a special correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, covering the U.S. Supreme Court. During the period 1971–72, he also served as associate editor of the Environmental Law Reporter and as a legislative assistant to the late Rep. Henry S. Reuss, D-Wis.

Between 1965 and 1967, Zelnick practiced law in New York City and Washington, D.C.

Zelnick has won numerous awards, including two Emmys, and two "Gavel" Awards from the American Bar Association.

Over the years Zelnick has contributed numerous columns and articles to newspapers and scholarly journals, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, and the Hoover Digest. He is the author of four books: Backfire, A Reporter Looks at Affirmative Action, Gore, A Political Life, Winning Florida, How the Bush Team Fought the Battle, and, most recently, Swing Dance: Justice O'Connor and the Michigan Muddle. He is currently completing a book on the Israeli-Palestinian situation.

Zelnick is a frequent guest on local and national news and interview programs including Greater Boston on WGBH, News Night on NECN, Fox News, Hardball, and Scarborough Country on MSNBC and Reliable Sources on CNN.

A native of New York City, Mr. Zelnick graduated from Cornell University, Class of '61, and the University of Virginia Law School, Class of '64.

A Marine Corps veteran, Zelnick currently resides in Brookline, Massachusetts with his wife of 37 years, Pamela S. Zelnick. The couple has three daughters, Eva, 31, Dara, 29, and Marni, 26.