Our chapter on foreign policy and national security discusses the intelligence community at some length. The community is in the news, with reports that the president is going to name General David Petraeus to head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). At The Atlantic, Max Fisher says that the move represents a trend "in which the lines between military and intelligence operations increasingly blur."
It is worth noting, however, that four other CIA directors have come from the military:
- Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, USA (1950-1953)
- Vice Adm. William F. Raborn, Jr. (1965-1966)
- Adm. Stansfield Turner (1977-1981)
- General Michael V. Hayden USAF (2006-2009)
