Robert S. Mueller III – Bob Mueller – is an American hero. Though best known as the sixth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and as the Special Counsel that led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the story of Bob’s public service starts half a century earlier. As recounted in the first episode, Bob was born in Manhattan and raised in Princeton, New Jersey. The oldest of five children, and the only boy, he was a star three sport athlete in high school a...
Feb 03, 2021•55 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Dr. Carla Hayden is the 14th Librarian of Congress, and the first woman and the first African-American ever to hold that prestigious pose. Born in Tallahassee, Florida, Carla grew up in Queens and in Chicago. Her parents were both talented musicians – her father taught music at Florida A&M University – but Carla, by her own admission, did not have the music gene. What she did have was a love of knowledge and of reading. After graduating from Roosevelt University in Chicago, and while looking...
Jan 27, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Carrie Hessler-Radelet – a native of Michigan and the former Director of the Peace Corps – and her extended family have a remarkable and unique relationship with that storied organization. They hold the distinction of being the only Peace Corps family to have four generations serve as volunteers, including both of her grandparents, her aunt and her nephew. In fact, Carrie’s aunt, Virginia Kirkwood – who served in Turkey and was the 10,000th volunteer – inspired Carrie to join the Peace Corps. Af...
Jan 20, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Frank Figliuzzi grew up in southern Connecticut, but with his eyes and ears tuned to the nearby New York City media market and to enthralling stories of mob busting FBI agents. Those amazing tales made a big impression on a young Frank. As an 11-year-old, he wrote a letter to a senior FBI special agent, asking how he could one day join their ranks. To this day, he still has the personal reply that he received, encouraging him to pursue that dream. Back then, the FBI primarily hired attorneys and...
Jan 15, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Matt Olsen held so many important and difficult jobs in federal law enforcement and national security that it is hard to know where to begin. A son of North Dakota and a graduate of the University of Virginia and Harvard Law School, Matt worked as a civil rights prosecutor, an Assistant United States Attorney, on the staff of FBI Director Bob Mueller, as the Executive Director of the Guantanamo Review Task Force, as the General Counsel of the National Security Agency, and as the Director of the ...
Jan 15, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Mike Bush, the former Commissioner of the New Zealand Police, served for more than four decades in law enforcement – starting as an 18-year-old constable, serving as a detective, and promoting up through the ranks of this highly professional and respected organization. The population of New Zealand is roughly five million people. About one in six New Zealanders are of Maori descent – an indigenous Polynesian community – and that community has historically been underserved. Building ties to the M...
Dec 30, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Heather Penney was born in Tucson, Arizona, the daughter of a fighter pilot. Flying was in her blood, and Heather earned her own pilot’s license while studying as an English major at Purdue University. Heather harbored a dream of being a fighter pilot, like her dad, except that there was one problem: back then, women were not allowed to fly in combat. Fortunately for Heather and for the nation, Congress removed the combat exclusion for aviation while she was in graduate school. Heather immediate...
Dec 23, 2020•1 hr 22 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Jon Jarvis grew up in rural Virginia, in the magnificent Shenandoah Valley. With national forest land in his backyard he learned to love the outdoors, roaming, hunting, and fishing with his father and brother. Shortly after graduating with a degree in biology from the College of William and Mary, Jon began a four-decade career with the National Park Service that culminated in an eight-year tour of duty – from 2009 until 2017 – as its Director. The great American author and Pulitzer Prize winner,...
Dec 16, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Anne Milgram grew up in East Brunswick, New Jersey, the daughter of a college professor and an engineer. But other relatives – including her grandfather who was a New Jersey police chief – were in law enforcement, and so Anne thought of law enforcement as the family business. Though she was to spend much of her adult life in that family business, she was not particularly interested in it growing up. After attending Rutgers University and New York University Law School, a clerkship with a promine...
Dec 09, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Robert S. Mueller III – Bob Mueller – is an American hero. Though best known as the sixth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and as the Special Counsel that led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the story of Bob’s public service starts half a century earlier. Bob was born in Manhattan and raised in Princeton, New Jersey. The oldest of five children, and the only boy, he was a star three sport athlete in high school and excelled in the classroom and on...
Dec 02, 2020•57 min•Season 4Ep. 1
In the Fourth Season of The Oath, Chuck Rosenberg speaks with thoughtful and inspirational men and women from the highest levels of public service – men and women who took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. At a time when our most cherished institutions are being tested, these selfless leaders light the way. This season: FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram, National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, New Zealand Police Com...
Nov 25, 2020•5 min
Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger, III (Sully) was born in Denison – a small North Texas town on the Oklahoma border. There, as a teenager, he learned to fly a single engine prop plane off a grass strip. A serious and talented - but shy and introverted - high school student, Sully was admitted to the highly competitive United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. When he graduated in 1973, he received the Academy’s prestigious Airmanship award as its top flyer. Sully flew th...
Aug 06, 2020•1 hr 34 min
Mike Leiter grew up in Englewood, New Jersey, where his extraordinary public service career began early – in high school – when he worked as an Emergency Medical Technician. After graduating from Columbia University, Mike served as a Naval Flight Officer before attending Harvard Law School, where he was one of only four military veterans in his class of more than 500 students. At Harvard, Mike was elected President of the prestigious Harvard Law Review – a job once held by Barack Obama. After cl...
Jul 29, 2020•1 hr 16 min
Amy Hess dreamed – as a child – of being an astronaut. A star student and athlete in high school, she studied aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Purdue – though poor eyesight dashed her NASA dreams. Instead, Amy got her start in the FBI as a special agent in Kansas City, working violent crime. She rose quickly through FBI ranks to run the Memphis and Louisville field offices, and to run two large FBI divisions at headquarters, where she oversaw FBI technology in one job and the FBI’s ...
Jul 22, 2020•1 hr 19 min
Fiona Hill is the former Senior Director for Russia and Eurasia on the National Security Council. A highly respected scholar on Russian history and culture, Fiona was born and raised in the industrial northeast of England. She comes from a long line of coal miners – uncles, cousins – families, like hers, that persistently struggled with poverty. Fiona’s father, Alfred, joined his own brother in the coal mines at the age of 14. Her mother, June, who still lives in Bishop Auckland – was a midwife....
Jul 15, 2020•1 hr 21 min
Jim Miller is the former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. In that vital role – the number three position in DOD – Jim was at the forefront of some of the nation’s most important and most difficult national security issues. As a key adviser to three Secretaries of Defense – Bob Gates, Leon Panetta, and Chuck Hagel – Jim guided reviews of nuclear weapons policy and ballistic missile defense policy, and led the formulation of national defense strategies for space and cyberspace. Jim’s path to ...
Jul 08, 2020•1 hr
Carol Lam grew up in New Jersey, and was educated at Yale and Stanford Law School. Soon after law school, she found a job she loved in the Justice Department – as a federal prosecutor in San Diego – where she handled complex health care fraud cases. Though she enjoyed the work, she accepted an appointment to the California Superior Court bench from Governor Gray Davis. Carol envisioned a long tenure as a judge – a difficult and vital job – but that changed when she became the presidentially appo...
Jul 01, 2020•1 hr 17 min
Kathy Sullivan is an explorer and a pioneer, an oceanographer and a scientist, an astronaut and an American hero. Selected as one of the first female astronauts in NASA history, Kathy flew three missions on the space shuttle and became – in 1984 – the first American woman to walk in space. Kathy also flew on the space shuttle mission in 1990 that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope – one of the most advanced and important scientific achievements in the history of NASA. After leaving NASA, Kathy ...
Jun 24, 2020•1 hr 9 min
Vivek Murthy is a doctor and an author - a deeply thoughtful, interesting, kind, caring, and reflective medical professional - who served as the Surgeon General of the United States. As Surgeon General, Vivek was also a Vice-Admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. In that role, and after an exhaustive listening tour throughout the country at the beginning of his tenure as the “Nation’s Doctor,” Vivek realized that loneliness is a pervasive medical issue in the United States, and...
Jun 17, 2020•1 hr 27 min
Maya Wiley is a brilliant and powerful woman who has spent her professional life at the intersection of law, education, and policy. Born into both privilege and poverty – the child of two prominent civil rights activists, Maya grew up in a loving and intact home and, yet, in a broken educational system. And if that seems contradictory, Maya explains why it is not. Educated at Dartmouth and Columbia, Maya served in city government and in the federal government, at the United States Department of ...
Jun 10, 2020•1 hr 16 min
Leon Panetta is one of the most distinguished and most accomplished public servants in American history. Leon was born and raised in Monterey, California, the place where his father – an Italian immigrant and the youngest of 13 children – ultimately settled. Carmelo Panetta could not have dreamed that his son, Leon, would serve eight terms in the Congress of the United States, as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, as the White House Chief of Staff, as the Director of the CIA, a...
Jun 03, 2020•1 hr 18 min
An oath is a solemn promise to serve a purpose greater than oneself. Now, that promise is more important than ever. In the third season of The Oath, Chuck Rosenberg speaks with people from many walks of life who served at the highest levels of public service. This season: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, NASA astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, and former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Listen to season 3 of The Oath starting on June 3.
May 27, 2020•3 min
A brief message from Chuck Rosenberg about the upcoming third season of The Oath, and a heartfelt thank you to our listeners.
Apr 23, 2020•3 min
Roberta Jacobson was the United States Ambassador to Mexico from 2016 through 2018. A graduate of Brown University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Roberta became an expert on the Americas and particularly on Mexico during her more than three decades of public service at the State Department. She enjoyed postings in Argentina and Peru, served as the Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, and led the US delegation that reestablished formal diplom...
Nov 13, 2019•1 hr 22 min
John Pistole’s remarkable life has come full circle. A career FBI special agent who rose through the ranks to become the Deputy Director (the second highest official in the Bureau), John held that crucial and sensitive position longer than anyone in the history of the FBI and, in his case, under iconic Director Robert Mueller. Though John imagined that would be his last job in public service, President Obama tapped him in 2010 to serve as the head of the Transportation Security Administration - ...
Nov 06, 2019•1 hr 8 min
MSNBC national security analyst, Jeremy Bash has an extensive background in intelligence and national security affairs at the highest levels of the United States Government. After graduating from Georgetown University and Harvard Law School, he clerked for a federal judge before serving on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He then served as Chief-of-Staff to Leon Panetta, both at the Central Intelligence Agency (where Panetta served as the Director) and at the Department of D...
Oct 30, 2019•1 hr 2 min
After a remarkable career in law enforcement, Bob Paulson retired as the 23rd Commissioner of the iconic Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Bob explains the RCMP, also known as The Mounties, and its unique mandate as national, provincial, and municipal law enforcement in Canada. It's also responsible for three territories, eight provinces, more than 150 municipalities, and more than 600 Indigenous communities. On The Oath, Bob discusses his stalled career as a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot and his ...
Oct 23, 2019•1 hr 11 min
James Stavridis retired from the United States Navy as a four-star admiral and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, the only Navy Admiral ever to serve in that crucial role. His retelling of his work in NATO, including its special design, challenges, and impact, is essential for anyone interested in global affairs. Jim also tells host Chuck Rosenberg some fascinating tales of his time in the Navy. During his service, Jim rotated through some of the most difficult and sensitive jobs in the military....
Oct 16, 2019•1 hr 13 min
Anthony Williams's path to becoming the fifth mayor of Washington, D.C. was circuitous. During the Vietnam years, Williams left college to join the Air Force, ultimately leaving the service as a conscientious objector. He was given an honorable discharge in 1974 and went on to graduate magna cum laude with a BA in Political Science from Yale College. Williams then earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Master’s in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Univer...
Oct 09, 2019•1 hr 3 min
Joyce Vance was an Assistant United States Attorney in Alabama for many years. Rising through the ranks in Birmingham, she was confirmed by the Senate as United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. She handled a wide variety of fascinating cases, including one in which the police preyed on vulnerable immigrants in a small Alabama town. Her path to public service was borne partly of tragedy. In 1989, her father-in-law and federal appellate judge Robert Vance, was murdered by a ma...
Oct 02, 2019•1 hr
