Intelligence Wars: A Discussion with General Michael Hayden About the CIA And NSA

  

I covered a World Affairs Council of Philadelphia (WAC) discussion with former CIA director and retired Air Force General Michael Hayden (seen in the above Air Force photo) last evening for Counterterrorism magazine.  

The WAC offered the below announcement prior to the meeting:

General Michael Hayden, a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is the only person ever to helm both the CIA and NSA.

For 10 years, General Hayden was a participant in some of the most telling events in the annals of American national security, and now, at a time of heinous new threats and wrenching change, General Hayden joins the World Affairs Council to present an unprecedented high-level narrative of America's intelligence wars.

In his book, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, he argues that playing to the edge means playing so close to the line that you “get chalk dust on your cleats,” and that by playing back, you may protect yourself, but you will be less successful in protecting America. "Play to the edge" was Hayden's guiding principle when he ran the National Security Agency, and it remained so when he ran CIA. It is an unapologetic insider's look told from the perspective of the people who faced awesome responsibilities head on, in the moment.

Established in 1949 as a forum for discussing differing points of view, the WAC is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization dedicated to informing and engaging people of all ages on matters of national and international significance. The Council provides its members and the greater Philadelphia community with influential speakers.

General Hayden offered a frank, lively and provocative discussion on U.S. intelligence operations since 9/11 as well as the Russian cyber campaign during the past presidential election.

 I’ll provide a link here to my piece on General Hayden when it comes out.

Ex-CIA Chief Michael Hayden: Yes, We Spy

Jeff Stein at Newsweek offers a piece on former CIA and NSA director retired Air Force General Michael V. Hayden's response to the current CIA director's assertion that the CIA "does not steal secrets."

Former CIA chief Michael Hayden drew laughs from a banquet room full of former intelligence officers Friday when he was asked about an assertion by the current spy agency’s head, John Brennan, that the CIA doesn’t “steal secrets.”

In a February 24 interview on National Public Radio that drew public ridicule from some former spies, Brennan was asked about hints from President Barack Obama that he’d like to get the CIA back to “its traditional roots—espionage, stealing secrets—reversing this trend we've seen toward a paramilitary force,” as NPR interviewer Mary Louise Kelly put it.

“We don’t steal secrets,” Brennan responded. “We uncover, we discover, we reveal, we obtain, we elicit, we solicit. All of that.”

That came as a surprise to former operatives who spent their careers stealing secrets.

"Is he joking?" a former CIA senior manager, John Sipher, complained in an essay on The Cipher Brief, a national security-oriented website. “Let me be clear…what my colleagues and I did in the CIA was espionage—stealing secrets. We didn’t ‘discover,’ we stole.”

In reality, CIA operatives—case officers in spy argot—actually get other people—foreigners, for the most part—to steal secrets for them. Or as Sipher put it: “People with access to secrets who were well aware that they were risking their lives, and possibly those of their families, to steal information for the U.S.”

... “One of the things that distinguishes the CIA from the State Department,” Hayden said, “is that the CIA is both asked to, and authorized to, steal secrets. So if the question is whether the CIA steals secrets, the answer is yes.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:  

http://www.newsweek.com/michael-hayden-cia-spying-438635

Note: General Hayden's new book is called Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror 

Playing To The Edge: American Intelligence In The Age Of Terror

Veteran journalist and author Joseph C. Goulden offers a good review in the Washington Times of retired Air Force General Michael V. Hayden's Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror.    

The image of the Central Intelligence Agency perhaps best known to the public is the shield in the marble entry concourse of the Original Headquarters Building, which features a quotation from St. John: “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

But up a stairway off to the left is another quotation, on a stylized mural of Lady Liberty, “We are the Nation’s first line of defense. We accomplish what others cannot accomplish and go where others cannot go.”

Such was the challenge accepted by Gen. Michael Hayden during a tumultuous decade in the heart of the intelligence community, first as director of the National Security Agency (NSA), then principal deputy director of National Intelligence, and finally, director of the CIA.

Gen. Hayden's account is both inspiring and frustrating. Inspiring, because he depicts a dedicated band of men and women determined to devise programs to protect the American public from terrorist attacks both at home and abroad.

But also frustrating, chiefly because of the members of Congress who disavowed programs they had previously approved once they were criticized by a reckless media that valued headlines more than protecting sensitive national security measures.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/16/book-review-playing-to-the-edge-american-intellige/