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Operation Dark Winter was the code name for a senior-level bio-terrorist attack simulation conducted on June 22–23, 2001. It was designed to carry out a mock version of a covert and widespread smallpox attack on the United States. Tara O'Toole and Tom Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies (CCBS) / Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Randy Larsen and Mark DeMier of Analytic Services were the principal designers, authors, and controllers of the Dark Winter project.

Dark Winter was focused on evaluating the inadequacies of a national emergency response during the use of a biological weapon against the American populace. The exercise was intended to establish preventive measures and response strategies by increasing governmental and public awareness of the magnitude and potential of such a threat posed by biological weapons. 

Key participants

 | President  | The Hon. Sam Nunn
| National Security Advisor  | The Hon. David Gergen
| Director of Central Intelligence  | The Hon. R. James Woolsey, Jr.
| Secretary of Defense  | The Hon. John P. White
| Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff  | General John Tilelli, USA (Ret.)
| Secretary of Health and Human Services  | The Hon. Margaret Hamburg
| Secretary of State  | The Hon. Frank Wisner
| Attorney General  | The Hon. George Terwilliger
| Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency  | Mr. Jerome Hauer
| Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation  | The Hon. William Sessions
| Governor of Oklahoma  | The Hon. Frank Keating
| Press Secretary, Gov. Frank Keating (OK)  | Mr. Dan Mahoney
| Correspondent, NBC News  | Mr. Jim Miklaszewski
| Pentagon Producer, CBS News  | Ms. Mary Walsh
| Reporter, British Broadcasting Corporation  | Ms. Sian Edwards
| Reporter, The New York Times | Ms. Judith Miller
| Reporter, Freelance  | Mr. Lester Reingold

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