While attending George Washington University Lawlor was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency.[6] After graduation Lawlor became a full CIA staff member, took a paramilitary training course, and was trained as a foreign intelligence officer.[7] Assigned to the Vietnam Desk at CIA headquarters, he was trained in Vietnam agent operations and took a Vietnamese language course.[8] Lawlor was sent to South Vietnam in November 1971, and by the beginning of 1972 was working in counterintelligence in the Danang regional headquarters.[8] In the summer of 1972 Lawlor became Police Special Branch advisor in Quang Nam Province, organizing paramilitary Special Branch operations and interrogations.[8] He took part in Phoenix Program operations until 1973; he resigned from the CIA in 1974.[9][10][11][12][13]
From May 1998 to October 1999 Lawlor served as deputy director for operations, readiness and mobilization in the Army's Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans.[23]
From October 1999 until October, 2001 Lawlor was commander of Joint Task Force-Civil Support, the first individual assigned to this position.[24][25] In this assignment Lawlor oversaw creation of the Civil Support Team concept, an initiative that enables the National Guard to play a greater role in responding to domestic terrorism than has historically been allowed since the passage of the Posse Comitatus Act.[26] Lawlor retired from the military in November, 2003.[27]
Shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Lawlor joined the White House staff to help plan and coordinate the response as senior director for protection and prevention in the Office of Homeland Security.[29] While in this position Lawlor was one of the chief creators of the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security.[30] When DHS was officially founded in March, 2003 Lawlor was named its first Chief of Staff, and he served until being succeeded by J. Duncan Campbell in October, 2003.[31][32][33]
Since leaving DHS Lawlor has continued his involvement in national security affairs through both academia and private business, including: member of the board of advisors for the Global Panel Foundation; member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC); chief executive officer of Centuria Corporation; distinguished service professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology; professor at the George Washington University; instructor at the Army War College; and director of the Center for Technology, Security, and Public Policy at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech); advisory board member for Patron Systems, Inc.; and chairman and chief executive officer of Community Research Associates, Inc.[35][36][37][38] After leaving Virginia Tech, Lawlor was a senior associate at the Center for International and European Studies.[39]
^William P. Mahedy, Out of the Night: The Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Vets, 1988, page 18
^Al Santoli, Everything we had: an oral history of the Vietnam War, 1985, page 182
^Bright Quang, Road to the United States, Part 1, 2006, page 321
^Walter H. Capps, The Unfinished War: Vietnam and the American Conscience, 1990, page 97
^Loren Baritz, Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us Into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did, 1986, page 16
^Tom JennemannArchived 2013-10-23 at the Wayback Machine, Former Homeland Security Chief to Work at Stevens: University Hires Lawlor for Security Initiatives, Hudson Reporter, November 30, 2003
^Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Newly Formed Center for Technology, Security, and Policy Names Former Chief of Staff for U.S. Department of Homeland Security as Director, Virginia Tech News, February 5, 2008
