http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10480407/Rock ’n’ roll guitarist Jeff Baxter is one of the country's top experts on counterterrorism. ‘Today’ show correspondent Jamie Gangel reports
Guitarist Jeff Baxter is a founding member of Steely Dan and a member of the Doobie Brothers. The 56-year-old Baxter has eight platinum albums and two Grammys, but he likes to call himself a hippie rock guitarist with top secret clearances. Now, believe it or not, he's one of the top counterterrorism experts in the United States. “Today” national correspondent Jamie Gangel caught up with Baxter in between top-secret meetings in our nation’s capitol.
It began in the mid-’80s, when Baxter started researching music technology. He then started reading about weapons systems, became a self-taught expert and, for the fun of it, wrote a five-page paper on missile defense.
Baxter: So, one day, I don't know what happened. I sat down at my Tandy 200 and wrote this paper about how to convert the Aegis weapon system — why it would make sense to convert it to do theatre missile defense because it would be on a mobile platform and give the United States a new role in NATO in the 21st century. I have no idea. I just did it.
Conservative congressmen Dana Rohrabacher and Ed Royce are Baxter’s biggest fans.
Rohrabacher: I want you to tell me we're not getting BS'd about missile defense and that it's actually going to have an impact here.
Baxter: It's a hard thing to do.