Jamie Frederic Metzl (born July 1, 1968) is an American geopolitical commentator, author, and former Clinton administration official. He is the author of five books, including science fiction novels and non-fiction.

Early life and education

Metzl was born to Marilyn Metzl, a clinical psychologist, and Kurt Metzl, a pediatrician. He attended high school at The Barstow School in Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from Brown University. He holds a Ph.D. in Southeast Asian history from Oxford University (1994), and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He was a White House Fellow.

Career

From 1991 to 1993, Metzl was a human rights officer for the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), where he helped establish a human rights investigation and monitoring unit for Cambodia. Metzl served as deputy staff director and senior counselor of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, senior coordinator for international public information and senior advisor to the undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs at the Department of State, and director of multilateral and humanitarian affairs on the National Security Council. In the Clinton administration, he was the primary drafter of Presidential Decision Directive 68 on International Public Information and coordinated public information campaigns for Iraq and Kosovo. In 2003, Metzl directed a Council on Foreign Relations study led by Warren B. Rudman that concluded that the United States was not doing enough to prepare first responders to handle a catastrophic attack. In 2004, he ran unsuccessfully against former Kansas City Mayor Emanuel Cleaver for the Democratic nomination for Missouri's Fifth Congressional District. Metzl is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and a former partner at the global investment company Cranemere LLC. He was an executive vice president of the Asia Society. He authored a book on human rights in Southeast Asia and the novel The Depths of the Sea. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2019, Metzl was appointed to the WHO advisory committee on Developing Global Standards for Governance and Oversight of Human Genome Editing. Metzl has been a vocal proponent of the COVID-19 lab leak theory. In March 2023, he testified at the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic invited by US House Republicans.

Personal life

He is a marathon runner and triathlete. For the Brown Alumni Magazine, Metzl wrote a 2010 article describing the "narcissistic pleasure" he derived from having a Wikipedia page and how he asked an assistant to "occasionally add a link to the site".

Profiles

Works