R. James Woolsey, Jr.
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Robert James Woolsey Jr. (born September 21, 1941) is a foreign policy specialist and former Director of Central Intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency (February 5, 1993 - January 10, 1995).
Woolsey was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1941 where he graduated from Tulsa Central High School. In 1963 he received his AB from Stanford University (Phi Beta Kappa), and in 1965 his MA from Oxford University—where he was a Rhodes Scholar—and an LLB from Yale Law School in 1968.
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[edit] Career
Woolsey has been known primarily as a conservative Democrat—hawkish on foreign policy issues but more traditionally Democratic on economic and social issues.[citation needed] A classic Washington insider, Woolsey has held important positions in both Democratic and Republican administrations. His influence has been felt during the Carter, Reagan, Bush (elder), and Clinton administrations. Woolsey was among the first to point the finger at Iraq in the immediate days following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.[1] During the second Bush administration, he has been strong proponent of the war in Iraq.
Woolsey has served in the U.S. government as:
- Advisor (during military service) on the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT 1), Helsinki and Vienna, 1969-1970
- General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, 1970-73
- Under Secretary of the Navy, 1977-1979
- Delegate at Large to the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) and Nuclear and Space Arms Talks (NST), Geneva, 1983-1986
- Ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Vienna, 1989-1991
- Director of Central Intelligence, 1993-1995
He is currently a trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Advisor of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, Founding Member of the Set America Free Coalition, and Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton for Global Strategic Security (since July 15, 2002). [1]. He is a Patron of the Henry Jackson Society, a British think tank based in Cambridge. He was formerly chairman of the Freedom House board of trustees.
He is also a member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and was one of the signatories to the January 26, 1998, PNAC letter sent to President Clinton that called for the removal of Saddam Hussein. That same year he served on the Rumsfeld Commission, which investigated the threat of ballistic missiles for the US Congress.
Woolsey is featured in the 2006 documentary film Who Killed the Electric Car? addressing solutions to oil dependency through the development of the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle and use of biomass fuels such as cellulosic ethanol.
In July 2006 Woolsey called on the US to bomb Syria.
Woolsey attended the September 12-14, 2006, North American Forum entitled the Continental Prosperity in the New Security Environment, held in secret at Banff Springs Hotel, in Banff, Alberta, Canada. [2].
Woolsey is listed as a keynote speaker at the EELPJ symposium on wind and biofuels in Houston, Texas on February 23, 2007. The Symposium is entitled Getting Real About Renewables. [3] He is also a keynote speaker at the Alternative Fuels & Vehicles National Conference + Expo in Anaheim, California April 1-4, 2007. http://www.afvi.org/NationalConference2007
On December 9-10, 2006 Woolsey was the keynote speaker at a major exposition of alternative vehicles and transportation held in Santa Monica, California.
Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation think tank, has accused Woolsey of both profiting from and promoting the Iraq War[4].
[edit] Relationship with President Clinton
As Director of the CIA, Woolsey is notable for having a very limited relationship with President Bill Clinton. According to journalist Richard Miniter:
Never once in his two-year tenure did CIA director James Woolsey ever have a one-on-one meeting with Clinton. Even semiprivate meetings were rare. They only happened twice. Woolsey told me: "It wasn't that I had a bad relationship with the president. It just didn't exist." [5]
Another quote about his relationship with Clinton, according to Paula Kaufman of Insight Magazine:
Remember the guy who in 1994 crashed his plane onto the White House lawn? That was me trying to get an appointment to see President Clinton. [6]
[edit] Notes
- ^ TRANSCRIPT OF JAMES WOOLSEY ON CNN, SEPTEMBER 12th 2001
(As the following excerpt is unfolding, the following news can be read on the ticker tape:
PAKISTANI NEWSPAPER QUOTES OSAMA BIN LADEN AS SAYING “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT”.)
CNN Anchor (Daryn Kagan): “Meanwhile a lot of people wanting information about how this investigation will take place how government authorities will get to the bottom of who carried out these attacks. Let’s bring in James Woolsey, former CIA director, director from 93 to 95 also a former ambassador. Mr. Ambassador, good morning and thanks for joining us here.”
Woolsey: “Good morning, good to be with you.”
CNN Anchor (Daryn Kagan): “Any clues you’re hearing as they come… as more information becomes available that has given you an indication as to whom might be responsible for these attacks?”
Woolsey: “Well of course there is a lot of information that points toward Bin Laden’s group and that’s err… understandable. Bin Laden’s has been advertising himself now for some time, issuing “fatwas”, religious declaratives, err… condemnations err… making videotapes, quoting poems, having his subordinates all talk about how they’re going to be carrying out major terrorist operations against the US. Err… So, it may well be the case, that Bin Laden’s group was instrumental in this, and in fact, err… carried it out. But one wants to be careful using the word ‘Behind it’, because there is at least some possibility that someone else was behind it”
“This is a very complex operation and the possibility that there was a state sponsor behind or working with Bin Laden, such as possibly Irak, I think has to be investigated.
“There is a book out late last year by Lory Milroy called Sadam’s study of revenge about the possibility that Sadam was behind the 1973 (sic) World Trade Center bombing and that Ramzy Yousef who was the mastermind of that was involved with Iraqi intelligence.”
“That information has been “poopooed” to some extent by the Clinton Administration…”
CNN Anchor: “Mr. Ambassador I am going to have you hold on one second, I want to go live to the White house, President Bush is speaking with the members of the cabinet.”
Interrupted by the presentation of George W. Bush Adress to the Nation on September 12th 2001.”
CNN Anchor: “…When the president said that this is a different enemy than before what does he mean by that?”
Woolsey: “Well he’s talking about terrorists and particularly I think a group like Bin Laden, and I thought the president’s address was eloquent, stirring even, but he used a word harbor, which he used last night. A harbor for terrorists might be say the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, but there may be more involved than harbors here, there may be a government other than a harbor, such as the Iraqi government that is orchestrating and to some extent funding, working closely on it behind Bin Laden or some other terrorist group, and I every much hope that the Bush Administration, unlike the Clinton Administration, will not set aside this possibility and assume that everything is just a terrorist group, even a terrorist group as major as Bin Laden’s. It really needs to look carefully at the possibility that there may be state sponsorship here and I think the most likely, certainly not the only possibility err.. is Irak.”
CNN Anchor: “ so to look outside the box in other words that the terrorists might be geographically in one place but the funding might be coming from someplace very different”…
Woolsey: “…Possible funding, possible direction, possible support in the form of err… Intelligence organization assistance… to the terrorists, there are all sorts of possibilities. This was the original theory of the chief FBI investigator, Mr. Fox of the World Trade Center bombing of nineteen seven err… nineteen-ninety-three but the government prosecutor turned away from it a couple of years later and the Clinton Administration turned away from it, toward the theory that it was all just a loose association of terrorists and then later Bin Laden. I think, I hope the Bush Administration will go back and take a fresh look and consider at least the possibility that there could be some state sponsor err… involvement here.
CNN Anchor: James Woolsey, Mr. Ambassador, former CIA director, Sir Thank’s for your time this morning and thanks for your insight as well.
Woolsey: Thank you.
[edit] See also
- Project for the New American Century
- Committee on the Present Danger
- Committee for the Liberation of Iraq
- Coalition for a Democratic Majority
- Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Freedom House
- Henry Jackson Society
- Set America Free Coalition
[edit] External links
- Woolsey's World War IV speech
- An Unlikely Meeting of the Minds
- Woolsey's political donations
- Biographical information from the CIA site
- EMA International
- Institute for the Analysis of Global Security
- Set America Free Coalition
- SourceWatch Profile
| Preceded by Robert Gates |
Director of Central Intelligence February 5, 1993 - January 10, 1995 |
Succeeded by John M. Deutch |
| Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency |  |
|---|---|
| Souers • Vandenberg • Hillenkoetter • Smith • Dulles • McCone • Raborn • Helms • Schlesinger • Colby • Bush • Turner • Casey • Webster • Gates • Woolsey • Deutch • Tenet • Goss • Hayden |
