Obituaries

As America's intelligence agencies suffer a series of reputational hits, the passing of former CIA officer and counterterrorism adviser Bruce Tefft presents an opportunity to spotlight the contrasting people of character who, unbowed by political and ideological currents, serve faithfully and courageously behind the scenes.

Tefft was a CIA station chief in clandestine services, a founder of the CIA's counterterrorism center and an adviser to the New York Police Department's intelligence and counterterrorism divisions who trained thousands of law-enforcement and intelligence officers. He died July 11, 2025 at the age of 73 after suffering a prolonged illness.

He was a go-to contact on homeland security matters for WorldNetDaily, particularly when unvarnished analysis was conspicuously lacking in the wake of an attack bearing "the hallmarks" of Islamic terrorism.

Tefft, who is survived by his wife, was a true servant who put others above himself in his personal as well as professional life, said J. Michael Epstein, who partnered with Tefft in humanitarian and security-oriented operations in the Balkans, Africa and the Middle East. Together they formed a charitable organization to assist and mentor the surviving children of military and law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty.

"He was doing things you could not imagine in service of our nation," Epstein said. "As kind and compassionate as he was, there was another side to him. When I think of Bruce, I think of that quote, 'People sleep peaceably in their beds at night,' because people like Bruce were willing to do hard things, 'rough' things, on their behalf."

Epstein has set up a GoFundMe page to help Tefft's family with medical and other expenses.

A native of Colorado, Tefft earned an M.A. in history and a juris doctorate in international law from the University of Denver. From 1975 to 1995, he served as a CIA field chief and operations manager in Africa, stationed in hotspots such as Mogadishu and Angola. Seventeen of those years overseas were in clandestine services. In the following decades, Tefft distinguished himself as a foreign affairs, counterterrorism and intelligence analyst, training officials in local and federal agencies in major Allied intelligence organizations and U.S. government departments, including the Departments of Defense, Justice and State, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency, Defense Humint Service, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the U.S. Marine Corps. Tefft also developed graduate level curricula for homeland security and terrorism studies and lectured at the U.S. Marine Corps University, Defense Intelligence Agency and George Mason University.

In all, Bruce Tefft trained more than 20,000 law-enforcement and intelligence officers as well as diplomats, judicial and government officials.