Kathleen Cordelia Bailey

In 1976, Bailey was the first social scientist ever hired by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and was a founding member of the proliferation intelligence analysis program, which she directed from 1978-81. She specialized in analyses of foreign nuclear weapons programs. She undertook a controversial effort (ultimately squelched) to publicize a conclusion she had reached during her research in Tehran: that Iran was ripe for revolution and that it was likely to be led by the Islamic clergy.

In 1981, she resigned from LLNL and founded a consultancy, International Ventures Consultants, which provided political and economic analyses on Africa to multinational companies. She produced a bi-weekly publication, Insight Africa, from 1981-83.

In 1983, she accepted a political appointment from the Reagan Administration as Deputy Director for the Bureau for Research in the US Information Agency, with responsibilities for foreign public opinion polling and analysis. She was acting director from late 1983-1985. She initiated a program to highlight key reporting from leading foreign newspapers.

From 1985-87, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the US Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), where she headed the Office of Disinformation, Analysis, and Response,[1] was responsible for long-range assessments, was INR liaison with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and chaired the Interagency Active Measures Working Group.[2] In the latter capacity, she revived the moribund group and edited/co-authored Active Measures: A Report on the Substance and Process of Anti-US Disinformation and Propaganda Campaigns,[3] (US Department of State, 1986), and Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986-87,[4] (US Department of State, 1987), the latter of which revealed the Soviet role behind the accusation that the US was responsible for creating the AIDS virus as a weapon.[5]

In 1987, she was confirmed by the US Senate as Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency responsible for nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile nonproliferation policies. She initiated efforts to expand arms control dialog with China, including a bilateral meeting held in Beijing. She led the US delegation to Preparatory Committee meetings for the 1990 Review Conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. She tried unsuccessfully internationalize the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, and to undertake initiatives to address Iran's budding nuclear weapons program. Following the election of President George H. W. Bush, she left the Arms Control Agency.

In 1990, she taught international relations for a semester at George Mason University, where she wrote Doomsday Weapons in the Hands of Many (University of Illinois Press, 1991). Thereafter, she became a senior analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy, where she headed two major projects: one to assess the verifiability of the Chemical Weapons Convention; the other, to examine the implications of US nuclear forces moving from a triad to a dyad.

In 1992, she left Washington DC to return to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to serve on the Director's Staff and was founding editor of the Director’s Series on Proliferation. She regularly testified before the US Congress on arms control issues, including the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Also, she was a guest lecturer at the NATO War College in Rome as well as at universities throughout the United States.

In 1997, Bailey spoke publicly against ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. C. Bruce Tarter, then LLNL Director, ordered her to refrain from all public discussion of that treaty and other policy issues. Citing freedom of expression guidelines of the University of California (LLNL's institutional oversight body), she testified on her views before Congress and, at the request of Senator Jon Kyl (AZ), briefed several senators on the problems with the CTBT. Following retaliation measures against her at the Laboratory, Bailey retired from LLNL in 1999.

She served on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board (2006–2008).

Beginning in 1999, Bailey became a full-time artist, a profession for which she goes by her middle name, Cordelia. Although she is an oil-on-canvas painter, she is best known for her fine-art photography, which has been exhibited in galleries throughout the United States and is held in private collections. She authored and produced a feature-length film, Revenge in Kind,[6] released in 2017.

Bailey married Aman F. Amiri in 1974. They were divorced in 1981. Bailey married Robert B. Barker in 1983. She has no children.