David Aikman, is a former Senior Correspondent of Time Magazine who currently is a contributor to the American Spectator, the Weekly Standard, and the Reader's Digest in Washington, and is a regular monthly columnist for Charisma Magazine. A Senior Fellow at Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, he is also a frequent commentator on Voice of America's Issues in the News and has been host of National Empowerment Television's Headlines and Deadlines. He was a consultant and on-camera commentator for MSNBC's coverage of Britain's return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997. Aikman joined Time in 1971 in the New York Bureau, then reported from Washington before becoming correspondent in Hong Kong (1972-1976), bureau chief in Eastern Europe (1977-1978), staff writer in New York (1978-1980), bureau chief in Jerusalem (1980-1982), in Beijing (1982-1985), then State Department Correspondent and Senior Correspondent in Washington during 1985-1994. Before he left Time in July 1994 to pursue full-time writing, speaking, television, and other activities, he had reported from five continents and nearly 60 countries. He has made additional television appearances to discuss current affairs on CNN, C-Span, CBN News, and CBC.
Aikman is a specialist in the Middle East, Russia, and China. While in Jerusalem in 1980-1982 he was elected Chairman of the Foreign Press Association and reported firsthand on events in the West Bank and Gaza, and on the war in Lebanon. He was a frequent visitor to Israel, Egypt and Syria during the Middle East shuttle visits of Secretary of State Warren Christopher during 1993-1994. He covered the war in Indochina, dissent in Communist Eastern Europe, and was an eyewitness to the Tienanmen Massacre in China in 1989. He has interviewed numerous leaders and Nobel laureates, from Manuel Noriega to Mother Teresa, from Boris Yeltsin to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, from Billy Graham to Pham Van Dong.
Aikman's books, as author or co-author, include PACIFIC RIM. AREA OF CHANGE, AREA OF OPPORTUNITY (Little, Brown 1986), GORBACHEV. AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY (Time Books, 1988), MASSACRE IN BEIJING (Warner Books, 1989), WHEN THE ALMOND TREE BLOSSOMS (Word Publishing, 1993), a novel that predicted the rise of Russian ultranationalism, and most recently HOPE: THE HEART'S GREAT QUEST (Vine Books, 1995), a non-fiction study of the virtue of hope. Aikman is currently completing a biographical and character-profile book called GREAT SOULS: SIX WHO CHANGED THE CENTURY
Aikman was born in England and educated at Oxford University in England (B.A. with honors in Russian and French). He later came to the U.S. and earned an M.A. in Central Asian languages and a Ph.D. in Russian and Chinese- history from the University of Washington in Seattle. He is a U.S. citizen, and married with two teenage daughters.
