Former NSA and CIA director defended communications surveillance and intense interrogation to battle terrorism
Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — the only person to hold both positions — is the keynote speaker for the 7th Raleigh Spy Conference August 24-26, 2011.
He will provide background information on the operation to locate and terminate Usama Bin Laden in a tall entitled The Killing of Usama Bin Laden: Building A Bridge Pebble by Pebble.
Hayden, at one time the highest-ranking intelligence officer in the United States, oversaw NSA’s surveillance of technical communications between foreign and domestic terrorist groups during his tenure from 1999 to 2005, the longest stint of any previous director. While CIA Director from 2006 to 2009, he defended the results of extreme interrogation, including “waterboarding,
” again facing down extreme criticism from the media and pressure groups.
For the 2011 Raleigh Spy Conference, entitled “Spies Among Us: The Secret World Of Espionage Illegals,” Hayden will join speakers Michael Sulick, former director of CIA’s National Clandestine Service and now a Raleigh-area resident; retired CIA officer Brian Kelley, the “wrong man” in the investigation of FBI double agent Robert Hanssen; British author and intelligence expert Nigel West; and retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police intelligence officer Dan Mulvenna.
An Author’s Roundtable is scheduled for the 2011 Raleigh Spy Conference, with Douglas Waller, author of the best-selling biography Wild Bill Donovan, the founder of the Office of Strategic Services — the World War II forerunner of the CIA; David Wise, the dean of intelligence writers and author of the new book Tiger Trap: America’s Secret Spy War With China; and Kent Clizbe, author of Willing Accomplices, a study of Soviet covert influence on America’s institutions.
New to the conference this year: The Historical Collections Division of the Office of Information Management Services of the Central Intelligence Agency has selected the Raleigh Spy Conference to provide published works of recently declassified secret documents, ranging from the Korean War, the Warsaw Pact, Air America, martial law in Poland, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the papers of controversial CIA director Richard Helms. Officials from CIA’s Historical Division will be on hand in Raleigh to discuss their work and answer individual questions.
Magazine publisher Bernie Reeves founded the Raleigh Spy Conference in 2003 to provide a forum for intelligence experts to interpret for the general public the high volume of declassified information available since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Says Reeves: “No one knows anything until the real story is declassified. Today, history is being rewritten at a fast clip. Our job is to call on intelligence operatives and scholars to let us know the meaning of this prodigious flow of information that affects our knowledge of events.”
Raleigh Metro Magazine will host the 2011 Raleigh Spy Conference at the North Carolina Museum of History in downtown Raleigh. Go here to register. For information and updates on conference speakers and the final schedule go here.
About the Raleigh Spy Conference:
The Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) recognizes the Raleigh Spy Conference as the top intelligence conference specifically for the lay public in the United States. Three of the six conferences have been filmed and aired on C-SPAN.
For more details on the history of the conference, click here..