Frederick J. Chiaventone

......is a novelist, screenwriter, military historian, consultant, retired cavalry officer and Professor Emeritus for International Security Affairs at the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College. With his vast experience in the field he has become an internationally recognized expert on guerrilla warfare, counter-terrorism, peacekeeping operations, psychological operations, and broadcast media. He is the inventor of the Reserve Components Tank Commanders’ Course – his articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Foreign Service Journal, The Journal of the Army War College, Military Review, The Armed Forces Journal, The New York Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times, American Heritage, Cowboys & Indians, Armchair General, and many other professional publications.

He is Contributing Editor to both the Historical Dictionary of the United States Army (Greenwood Press, London) and The Oxford Companion to American Military History (Oxford University Press).

Chiaventone holds a Masters Degree in Film and Television Production from San Francisco State University and has written, produced, and directed documentaries and news programming for the Department of Defense. As an expert on guerrilla warfare, he and then President George Bush Sr. were interviewed by Gisela Duarte for the news program Frente a Frente for El Salvadoran television. He now serves frequently as historical consultant and advisor to film and television productions to include Ken Burns' PBS documentary The West and TNT's productions of The Rough Riders and Two For Texas (winner of the 1999 Western Heritage Award). He was also the Military/Historical Advisor and coach for principal actors for Ang Lee's Civil War film Ride With The Devil (Universal/USA Films).

Chiaventone's debut novel, A Road We Do Not Know: A Novel of Custer at the Little Bighorn (Simon & Schuster) was published to rave critical reviews, won the 1999 Ambassador William E. Colby Literary Award and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in literature. His next novel in the Lakota Trilogy, Moon of Bitter Cold (Forge/St. Martin's Press) was awarded the Western Heritage Award for Literature and also the William Rockhill Nelson Award for Literature.

Fred has been a featured speaker at, among other venues, the National Press Club in Washington, DC, The US Army’s Command & General Staff College, and numerous other venues. He has also appeared on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America, Fox Television’s The Big Story, PBS’ The American Experience, and on the History Channel. If you saw their “The Plot To Kill Jesse James” he was one of the featured experts. Recently he was asked to participate in the Combat Studies Institute's major conference; “Warfare in the Age of the Non-State Actor: Implications for the US Army.” A number of articles and essays for professional publicatons resulted from those meetings. 

In 1997 Chiaventone was inducted into the elite Colby Circle. Established by the late Ambassador William Colby, it is a small group of writers, journalists, and academics recognized for their contributions to public understanding of military and political affairs. Fellow members of the Colby Circle include best-selling authors; Ralph Peters, Tom Clancy, Stephen Coonts, Winston Groom, W.E.B. Griffin, James Webb, Phil Caputo, Harry Coyle, and Mark Bowden. Of his work writer Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down" has said; "...a fascinating recreation, amazingly imagined and written with the unpretentious command of a very skillful writer...a marvelous accomplishment."

Fred's next novel "Gone to Kingdom" is an examination of youth curtailed by America's brutal Civil War as two young men come of age as guerrilla fighters.  In the meantime he has stayed very busy with productions for PBS and the History Channel on programs detailing Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence, Kansas and the short history of the vaunted Pony Express.

Chiavetone lives in Weston, Missouri with his wife Sharon, a professor of art at Benedictine College, and their two sons. Fred's father Alfredo Chiaventone was the 17th Count of Castel Vecchia and an officer of Italian cavalry in World War I.  After the war Chiaventone found himself at odds with a rapidly rising Mussolini and moved to the United States and a new career.  In New York he and his partner Billy Rose opened the reknowned nightclub The Copacabana.  Fred's mother worked at NBC studios during World War II and met her future husband at the Brown Derby in Los Angeles.