A former director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Bill Clinton has died.
R. James Woolsey was 84 years old.
His wife confirmed his death, saying the cause was a stroke, The New York Times reported. Conchita Sarnoff Woolsey said her husband had been in declining health over the past few years due to “Havana Syndrome” or the mysterious condition that spies and diplomats seem to have developed around the world, according to The Washington Post.
Woolsey was a Rhodes Scholar and a lawyer before leading the nation’s spy agency for two years. But his tenure in the position came at a time when the agency had difficulty adjusting to the era after the Cold War, the Post reported.
During his confirmation hearings, he said, “Yes, we have slain a large dragon,” speaking of Russia. “But we live now in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.” He said the CIA should focus on terrorist groups and arms proliferations, as well as Iran and North Korea.
The newspaper said he worked to improve morale and protect the CIA from sharp budget and staffing cuts.
In addition, his tenure was affected by the arrest of senior CIA counterintelligence official Aldrich Ames, who spied for nearly a decade for Russia.
Congressional intelligence committees took exception when he would not fire or demote CIA employees but instead reprimanded only about a dozen people, blaming a “systemic failure” for the CIA not catching Ames, according to the Post.
He had strained relations with the White House and claimed that by the time he left, he was not able to speak with the president.
Despite claims that Clinton had lost faith in Woolsey, the president called him “a staunch advocate of maintaining an intelligence capability that is second to none,” the Post reported.
Woolsey, known as a “Defense Democrat,” also served as undersecretary of the Navy under President Jimmy Carter and worked on arms control under President Ronald Reagan. He was an ambassador for President George H. W. Bush on talks to limit military forces in Europe, according to The New York Times.
But it was the Ames situation that made him more conservative, former New York Times reporter and author James Risen said.
“It made him much more conservative over time,” Risen said. “His bitterness led him to be anti-Clinton. And then that led him to become more Republican in the late ’90s. And then Iraq brought him completely into the Bush, Cheney, neocon orbit, and he became a real pro-Iraq War hawk.”
In 2016, he was a senior advisor for then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. It was said after Trump’s win Woolsey was in the running for a national security job, but one never came, the Times reported.
Woolsey leaves behind his third wife, three sons from his first marriage, two stepchildren, and 10 grandchildren.
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