Alexis Debat, currently using the name Yves Bergquist (born 1977) is a French former commentator on terrorism and national security issues, formerly based in Washington D.C. He worked as a reporter, consultant, and source for ABC News for six years, as a senior fellow at the Nixon Center, and was a contributing editor to The National Interest. According to Mother Jones, he was the Director of the Terrorism and National Security Program at the Nixon Center. He was also part of the Consulting Committee of the French magazine Politique Internationale, headed by Patrick Wajsman, and worked until September 2007 for the National Security Institute of the George Washington University on Islamist radicalization in Afghanistan since 2005. Since 2003, he has been called an "expert" by Time, U.S. News & World Report, National Journal, the Boston Herald, the Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, PBS, etc. He also wrote op-eds in the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune.
However, he resigned from ABC News in June 2007, after some ABC officials raised questions about his credentials. He is currently the director of artificial intelligence and neuroscience in media at the Entertainment Technology Center.
Background
An in-depth inquiry into his work as a consultant cleared his reporting, according to ABC News President David Westin. That investigation found no instances of false reporting, ABC said, but did uncover four details about operations and meetings in Pakistan that could not be confirmed. "None of these discrepancies would rise to the level of a formal, on-air retraction because none of them was material to the substance of our report," Mr. Westin wrote in an internal memo ABC has however deleted articles by Alexis Debat, replaced by the notice "This story has been removed from our Web site because of questions raised about the credibility of one of its authors, Alexis Debat."
Kerry Smith, ABC's senior vice president for editorial quality, who headed up the inquiry, described the process as "particularly sensitive" because it involved re-reporting on confidential sources, belonging not just to Mr. Debat but to other, current ABC reporters—reflecting the collective nature of investigative work. At one point, Ms. Smith sent a three-person team, which included an Urdu speaker and producer Rhonda Schwartz, to Pakistan to determine whether Mr. Debat went to the hotels he said he did, and to confirm that he met with the people he said he met with.
In an interview with The New York Observer in 2007, Debat said he felt cautiously pleased for himself and for his former colleagues by the results of the inquiry. "I'm very happy that their collective reputation is salvaged," said Mr. Debat.
In September 2007, the French news media Rue 89 alleged that two interviews, one of Barack Obama and the other of former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, both published in the French magazine Politique Internationale, had been fabricated. These allegations in turn led to Debat's voluntary resignation, allegedly for "personal reasons", from The National Interest and the Nixon Center. Many other personalities also since stated that Politique Internationale published bogus interviews of them. The list included former US President Bill Clinton, US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Alexis Debat has denied Rue 89's allegations, and claimed that he was taking steps to charge Rue 89 and Pascal Riché, author of the story, for "slander. The trial is pending." He admitted however having made "a mistake" for Obama's interview. On the other hand, Debat also admitted he did not interview Bill Clinton, Pelosi, Bloomberg, Gates, Greenspan or Annan, but that these "interviews" were piece together from speeches, with the consent of Patrick Wasjman, the director of Politique Internationale. He has also claimed that "a technicality" had prevented the Sorbonne University from issuing his PhD, which he had not been made aware of.
Alexis Debat moved to California and currently uses the name Yves Bergquist.
