Samuel Francis was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on April 29, 1947. He was educated at the John Hopkins University (B.A., 1969) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which he received an M.A.(1971) and a Ph.D. in modern history in 1979. From 1977 to 1981, he was a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C., specializing in foreign affairs, terrorism, and intelligence and internal security issues. From 1981 to 1986, he was legislative assistant for national security affairs to Senator John P. East (Republican, North Carolina) and worked closely with the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, of which Senator East was a member.
Mr. Francis joined the editorial staff of The Washington Times as an editorial writer in 1986. He served as Deputy Editorial Page Editor of The Washington Times from 1987 to 1991, Acting Editorial Page Editor from February to May, 1991, and a staff columnist from 1991 to 1995. Mr. Francis currently is editor and publisher of The Samuel Francis Letter and Samuel Francis Online.
Mr. Francis is the author of several articles and studies of international and domestic terrorism, including The Soviet Strategy of Terror (1981; rev. ed., 1985). He has published articles or reviews in a number of newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, U.S.A. Today, National Review, and Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, of which he is a Contributing Editor and for which he writes a monthly column, "Principalities and Powers." He is also a member of the Board of Editorial Advisors for Modern Age: A Quarterly Review. Mr. Francis is the author of Power and History: The Political Thought of James Burnham (1984) and Beautiful Losers: Essays on the Failure of American Conservatism(1993) and more recently Revolution from the Middle.
Mr. Francis received the Distinguished Writing Award for Editorial Writing of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) in both 1989 and 1990. He also was a Finalist for the National Journalism Award (Walker Stone Prize) for Editorial Writing of the Scripps Howard Foundation in 1989 and 1990.
Since 1991, Mr. Francis has written a twice weekly column that is nationally syndicated through Creators News Syndicate. He is Editor and Publisher of SamFrancis Online.\