From 1969 onwards, he was advisor for the South Vietnam military in the Rung Sat Special Zone for two and a half years.
Following his time as a staff assistant to Senator Warren Rudman he again became involved with global terrorism and the Middle East.
It also included him being part of a three-man team who secretly met with the Iranians at the request of the White House to lay the formal groundwork for the release of the Western hostages being held in Lebanon.
According to an article published in Politico in 2018, from 2002 to 2015 Cowan was involved in work for the Pentagon that “was so secret that only about a half-dozen people in the U.S. government were aware of it.” That work involved running numerous unacknowledged “special access programs” (SAPs) into the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran — assignments so secretive that information about them is restricted to only those with an absolute need-to-know.
He was a co-host with Ambassador Dick Carlson on the radio and television show Danger Zone, and he has written articles for The Washington Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Caller, Breitbart, The Hill, and has been featured in several television shows apart from the documentary such as 60 Minutes, Larry King Live and others.