Evan Welling Thomas III (born April 25, 1951) is an American journalist, historian, and author. He is the author of nine books, including two New York Times bestsellers.
Thomas was born in Huntington, New York, and raised in nearby Cold Spring Harbor. A graduate of Phillips Academy, Harvard University (B.A.), and the University of Virginia School of Law (J.D.), from 1991 he was a reporter, writer, and editor at Newsweek for 24 years. Prior to that, he was at Time. Thomas began his reporting career at The Bergen Record in northeastern New Jersey.
In 1992, DCI Robert Gates granted Thomas historical access to view classified Central Intelligence Agency files. The fundamental authority for this policy is Executive Order 12356 (April 1982), as implemented in HR 10–24(c)4. Under these provisions, CIA may grant individual researchers and former presidential appointees access to classified files, once the recipient of this access signs a secrecy agreement and agrees to allow the agency to review his manuscript to ensure that it contains no classified information. Former DCI Robert Gates directed that the CIA history staff locate and provide records that would satisfy Thomas's research request. Thomas's manuscript was subsequently reviewed in accordance with his secrecy agreement and approved on March 2, 1995, by the information review officer of the Directorate of Operations, with the concurrence of the Office of General Counsel. In 1996, Thomas penned an article for the Central Intelligence Agency's journal, Studies in Intelligence, describing his experience having been granted the rare privilege of historical access to CIA's classified files.

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