James Woolsey
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James Woolsey served as Director of Central Intelligence for twenty-three months at the very start of Bill Clinton's first term. John Kiriakou, who knew him and "liked him fine," describes him as a neoliberal hawk and lifelong Democrat who had been Secretary of the Navy under Jimmy Carter and had held State Department and Arms Control and Disarmament Agency posts under Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Respected by both parties, he was widely expected to be "the adult in the room" at the CIA.

The Ames fallout

Roughly a year into his tenure the FBI arrested Aldrich Ames, who as director of counterintelligence in the Soviet Operations Division had access to every recruited CIA asset in the Soviet Union and Russia, assets who, in Kiriakou's phrase, "all started dying. Executed one by one by one." Woolsey refused to fire, demote or even reassign anybody over it, despite Ames having been a known drunk for decades who kept being promoted grade after grade. Clinton told him to resign or be fired, and he resigned.

Afterwards

In what Kiriakou calls a fit of pique, Woolsey switched parties, became a Republican and endorsed Bob Dole in 1996, "good for a chuckle at the CIA," given that Dole never had a prayer of winning. He went on to considerable wealth as chairman of the board of Booz Allen Hamilton, the largest contractor inside the intelligence community.

Death

His obituary gave the official cause of death as a stroke, but recorded that he had suffered for four years from Havana syndrome. Kiriakou credits the family with being "brave enough and bold enough" to say so publicly.

The line about Clinton

Kiriakou cites Woolsey's own account of his standing with the president who appointed him: Clinton's first Director of Central Intelligence "once famously said that Clinton wouldn't know who he was if they bumped into each other in a room." Kiriakou repeats it as evidence of Clinton's disengagement from intelligence rather than of any failing of Woolsey's.

See also

- Aldrich Ames
- Havana Syndrome
- Central Intelligence Agency
- Bill Clinton
