Thinker, Briefer, Soldier, Spy

Should a military man head the CIA? Pentagon critics say no, but Michael Hayden is nobody's puppet

A welder's job is to put things together--hard, metal things that have to be melted and manipulated in order to be fused into something useful, like a pipeline, or a bridge. So maybe it was from his father, a welder in Pittsburgh, Pa., that General Michael Hayden long ago acquired the tools that made him one of the pre-eminent intelligence players in Washington. His great talent is the briefing, when he sits down in secret sessions with leaders in Congress who don't always know much about intelligence analysis, and he shows how the pieces fit together, explains how things work, lays...

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