BURLINGTON, VT, June 15, 2023 - Charlotte Ruth Dennett has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Ms. Dennett has dedicated more than 50 years of her career to her diverse work as an attorney, author, and investigative journalist. She says what drives her, whether writing or advocating for her clients, is a determined quest for truth, justice and accountability. Her journalistic experiences in the Middle East and Latin America had a deep impact on her, as well as her quest for answers into the mysterious death of her father at age 37. He was the father she never knew but came to know through her investigation into his life as a Harvard scholar specializing in European and Middle Eastern history -- and his death in March 1947 as America's first master-spy in the Middle East. During her decades-long investigation, she developed a geopolitical analysis of the Middle East, focusing on the role of oil in foreign policy-making and conflicts, causing Time Magazine to describe her as "an expert in resource-based politics."
She was born in Beirut, Lebanon, where her father, Daniel C. Dennett, served for the OSS and the Central Intelligence Group, the immediate predecessor of the CIA. She returned to the US with her mother, teacher Ruth Leck Dennett, and two siblings, Daniel and Cynthia, as a two-month-old baby after her father died in plane crash following a top secret mission to Saudi Arabia.
She grew up in her father's home town of Winchester, Massachusetts and in 1963 returned to Beirut with her mother, who would serve as a librarian at the American Community School in Beirut and where she would attend her last two years of high school. It was a life-changing experience. Trips to Europe with her mother to escape the summer heat exposed her to yet another continent's vast cultural riches. She majored in art history at Wheaton College (Mass.) and received her Master of Arts in the history of art at the Villa Schifanoia, Pope Pius XII Institute in Florence, Italy. Her thesis was on City, Architecture and the Cultural Politics of Cosimo I de Medici, Florence: 1537-1574. "That was another wonderful experience in the birthplace of the Renaissance," she recalls. "In some respects, I suppose you could call me a Renaissance Woman."
She returned to Lebanon in 1972 after her mother died, and began her journalism career there, initially covering art and culture before expanding to all aspects of life in the Middle East. Ms. Dennett became a roving correspondent for the English-language Middle East Sketch magazine writing special issues on Iran and the emerging oil-rich countries in The Gulf: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. She then turned to political reporting including a trip to Iraq to investigate "the Kurdish question," while writing for the Beirut Daily Star. In 1975 she escaped a sniper's bullet during a prelude to the 1975 Lebanese civil war, cutting short her newspaper career, and causing her to return to the US, Settling in New York City, she met her future husband, author and journalist Gerard Colby, while covering the UN. The two would soon embark on a six-month investigation into the destruction of indigenous communities in the Amazon which became an 18-year saga, eventually resulting in their widely-acclaimed book Thy Will be Done. The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. (HarperCollins, 1994; updated in Openroadmedia as an ebook).
During her time as a journalist, Ms. Dennett developed an interest in law due to the amount of research and investigation her work entailed. In 1997, she was admitted to practice law in the state of Vermont after participating in Vermont's Law Office Study Program, which requires an apprenticeship in a law firm, reading the law, and after 6 years, qualifying to take the bar exam. Ms. Dennett, as Attorney at Law, specializes in personal injury, medical and legal malpractice cases, FOIA and public records requests, consumer fraud, and family law. She credits her success to her determined pursuit of justice and her focus on "getting the facts" accurately, a skill she attributes to her work in journalism. As Attorney Michael Marks, a well-known mediator in Vermont, said to the defendants in one of her cases: "She will go to the ends of the earth for her clients. Do you really want this to continue?" [The case settled] More on her legal and writing career can be found on her websites, Charlottedennett.com and Followthepipelines.com
Ms. Dennett was a 2008 candidate for Vermont Attorney General, vowing to prosecute President Bush if elected for sending troops to Iraq based on a lie. Called "one of the gutsiest women in America," she was assisted by acclaimed criminal prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (of Charles Manson fame). Her rollicking-yet-serious campaign became the subject of her second book: The People v Bush: One Lawyer's Campaign to Bring the President to Justice (Chelsea Green 2010) Her most recent book is "Follow the Pipelines: Uncovering the Mystery of a Lost Spy and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil," (Chelsea Green, 2022), about her decades-long inquiry into her father's death by plane crash. Her investigation into her father's life and death has earned her recognition from the Central Intelligence Agency, including posthumous honors for her father as the agency's "Fallen First Star" and as a model for incoming officers.
Ms. Dennett is active in her community and in progressive policy efforts. In Vermont, she is a former member of the American Civil Liberties Union legal panel, the Franklin County Family Center and for eight years served as an appointed board member of Vermont's Governor's Commission for Women. She has been a long-time member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Nationally, she served for many years on the executive board of the New York-based National Writers Union, as well as head of its book division and as a contract advisor on literary agents. She currently serves on the board of the Lawyers Committee for 9/11 Inquiry,
She speaks 5 languages and has traveled widely in Europe, the Middle East (Israel and Arab countries) Africa, South and Central America, the U.S. and Canada.
In her personal time, Ms. Dennett enjoys playing chess and watching movies on Netflix with her husband ('It's fun to talk and exchange ideas during the movies!"), creating art, tennis, canoeing, and playing with her dog Sparky along the shores of Lake Champlain.
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