Kate Harper

Infobox character | colour =
name = Kate Harper


caption = Mary McCormack as Kate Harper "(left)" and Anna Deavere Smith as Dr. Nancy McNally
portrayer = Mary McCormack
creator = Eli Attie
first = Talking Points
last = Tomorrow
cause = End of series
occupation = Deputy National Security Advisor (Seasons 5-7)
Author (by 2009)
title =
family =
spouse = 2 ex-husbands
children =
relatives =
footnotes =

Katherine "Kate" Harper is a fictional character on the television show "The West Wing". She is played by Mary McCormack. Harper is a commander in the United States Navy, and serves as the Deputy National Security Advisor (under Dr. Nancy McNally) to President Josiah Bartlet. Throughout most of season seven, Kate, rather than Nancy McNally, briefs the President and Chief of Staff on national security issues.

Kate Harper was born into a Navy family, and grew up at various naval bases in Florida, in rather poor living conditions.

She joined the Navy and claims to have one time served aboard a submarine. She was recruited into the Central Intelligence Agency. During this time, she was involved in covert operations in Iran, Cuba, Africa, Kosovo, and North Korea, which were subsequently blacked out of her official file. She also served at the US Embassy in Mongolia. In 2004 or 2005, she was assigned to the White House, to her current post as Deputy National Security Advisor.

Harper came to prominence during the events leading up to President Bartlet's landmark Israeli-Palestinian peace summit at Camp David. Harper expresses general support for the Palestinians in the matter, clashing with Will Bailey and other senior staffers in that regard. She and then-White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg were Bartlet's only supporters among senior administration officials for pressing ahead with the peace talks in the face of opposition from Chief of Staff Leo McGarry and Secretary of Defense Miles Hutchinson. During the actual summit, Harper was one of the key negotiators with the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, and convinced him that a peace agreement would mean the end of the Palestinians' "Right of Return" to pre-1967 Israel.

Following the summit, she continued as an advisor to President Bartlet, most notably when he considered reopening American relations with Cuba. This incident brought to the forefront her past dealings as an officer in the CIA and a flashback showed she had crossed paths with Leo McGarry when he was involved with an electoral fraud engineered by a rabidly anti-Cuban U.S. Senator. When the current CIA Director talked about Cuba during "Ninety Miles Away", she makes it clear she does not believe a word he says (this also mirrors President Bartlet's attitude towards the Director, whom he neither trusts nor respects).

She has been married twice, with one of her husbands being an official at the Uruguay desk at the U.S. Department of State, and celebrates her "annivorceries" (the anniversaries of her divorces). She also speaks fluent Arabic as well as Mandarin Chinese at, by her own admission, "a second-grade vocabulary." (Toby Ziegler notes that, despite this, her vocabulary contains the words for "hydraulic lift.")

Starting in the 7th season and through the end of the series, she is in a romantic relationship with White House Communications Director Will Bailey. It is unclear what became of the romance, as Will Bailey moved to Oregon at the series' end to take up a seat in Congress, at Kate's own prompting. When saying: "I am not moving to Oregon", Kate would dismiss this and say: "I think you are". She has stated that she does not "live and die with the Democratic Party", despite working for a liberal White House and dating the equally liberal Will Bailey, hinting to him that she might have voted for moderate Republican presidential candidate Arnold Vinick, and that her position as Deputy National Security Advisor would not be threatened by a party-change in the White House. However, she later learns that someone named Glen is going to either take over as Deputy NSA or take the job she was hoping to have in the next Administration, putting her future prospects into limbo.

By the time of the dedication of the Bartlet presidential library in New Hampshire, several years after Bartlet has left the White House, Harper has written a book, which Charlie Young regards as "hogwash." It is not clearly stated whether or not she and Will, who also appears at the dedication having become a Congressman, are still dating.

See also

*"The West Wing"
*List of characters on "The West Wing"
*List of politicians on "The West Wing"
* List of "The West Wing" episodes