When Gen. Michael Hayden surprised me by calling me at 7 a.m. New York time and introduced himself, for a moment I felt like a man of consequence. This is not what one would expect from a respected and decorated general. A man who in the last decade was considered America’s “master spy.” Many hostile countries and terrorist organizations would like to take a peek, even for a moment, into the secrets hidden in his head.
But Hayden is unassuming, and during the call I discovered that he is a very nice man. After commanding Air Force Intelligence (AIA) during the 1990s, he was promoted in 1999 to be head of the NSA, and after seven more years he was appointed head of the CIA.
In this role, he was in President George W. Bush’s office daily, and became his eyes and ears on intelligence. There are few in the United States with this kind of intelligence experience.
