ROB ARMSTRONG profile

Rob Armstrong, internationally known and award winning journalist, author and educator, has crafted a sensational new novel, THE OLD SPY, a page-turner ripped from today’s headlines. It’s the story of a retired CIA agent who becomes embroiled in a complicated international terrorist plot involving the Real IRA and an offshoot of al-Qaeda.  

Armstrong spent nearly 25 years with CBS News and nearly 32 years as a broadcast journalist. His career began in Denver in 1967. He was hired by CBS News in 1974. He joined the faculty of Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, in September 1998, and was Retired Professional in Residence, in Flagler’s Communication Department until he retired from teaching in 2011.

          Armstrong left CBS News in April, 1998, after nearly a quarter century as an on-air radio and television correspondent. He spent the last decade of his career as the network’s Senior Radio Correspondent in Washington, covering Congress, the White House and national politics. His assignments with CBS took him all over Europe, the Caribbean, 39 countries in all, and to 48 states to cover some of the biggest stories of the last quarter century.

          He reported on four presidential election campaigns as well as nine presidential nominating conventions. Armstrong reported the resignation of House Speaker Jim Wright, the political rise of Newt Gingrich, the tumultuous confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and the presidential runs of Gary Hart, Ross Perot and Jesse Jackson.

          His stories included the “troubles” in Ireland and the peace processes in the Middle East. He reported on international summitry in Washington, London, Paris, Brussels, Rome and Moscow. He was there when Britain’s Prince Charles married Princess Diana, when Pope John Paul II toured the United States, when Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the White House South Lawn, and when Bill Clinton became the first U.S. President to walk through Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate after the Wall came down; he covered pro-independence demonstrations in Kiev, Ukraine; he witnessed the thirtieth anniversary of Castro’s revolution in Havana. Armstrong has covered hurricanes (including Andrew, Diana, Elaina, and Floyd), tornadoes, floods and the San Francisco-Oakland earthquake.

          For nearly a decade, he anchored a weekly network radio broadcast, Capital Ideas, on which he interviewed politicians, authors, diplomats and world leaders, including Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, John McCain, Albert Gore, Bob Dole, George Mitchell, Newt Gingrich, Thomas Foley, Czech President Vaclav Havel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, PLO spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi, and authors Tom Clancy and Eudora Welty. .

          Aside from THE OLD SPY, Armstrong is the author of seven other books including two college level journalism textbooks, both published by Blackwell – COVERING GOVERNMENT and COVERING POLITICS. The third edition of his popular travel guide, GOLFING IN IRELAND, was published by Pelican Publishing Company in 2007.

          In addition to his textbooks and golf books, Armstrong has written extensively about food, travel and journalism. He contributed to the book THE AMERICAN INDIAN AND THE MEDIA published in 1991 by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. His work has appeared in The Denver Post, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The American Review of Journalism, Florida Golf News and Washington Golf Monthly.

          During the summer of 2004, he was a delegate to the prestigious Oxford Round Table, at Oxford University.

          Armstrong was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1949 and moved with his family to Denver, Colorado, in 1956. He graduated from the University of Denver with a BA in history in 1972 and attended the University of Denver College of Law until he joined CBS News in 1974.

          He is an avid golfer and an accomplished cook. He and his wife, Barbara, divide their time between St. Augustine and Charlottesville, Virginia.