Posted on 08/08/2025 4:34:43 PM PDT by Borges
William Webster, the only person to lead both the FBI and CIA, has died. He was 101.
“The proud and loving family of the Honorable William H. Webster sadly announces the death of a beloved husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather and patriot,” his family said in a statement Friday.
At the time Webster was selected to lead the FBI in 1978 by then-President Jimmy Carter, the bureau’s reputation was badly damaged by congressional revelations that unearthed corruption and extrajudicial spying on Americans under longtime Director J. Edgar Hoover. Webster, who was previously a Republican-appointed federal judge from Missouri, sought to restore the bureau’s image: one of his first acts in office was to remove the bust of Hoover from the director’s office, The Washington Post reported in a laudatory 1987 editorial.
When his nine-year term leading the FBI concluded, Webster was quickly tapped by then-President Ronald Reagan to head up the CIA, which itself was in the middle of a public relations fiasco stemming from the Iran-Contra scandal. There, again, Webster moved to clean up the agency’s image, this time by cracking down on the kinds of secret practices that led to the arms sale scandal and disciplining lower-ranking officials who were involved, The New York Times reported. His time at Langley, from 1987 to 1991, coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Persian Gulf war.
Webster was highly regarded for his stewardship in both roles, at least as far as the mainstream press was concerned. Regarding his time as FBI director, the Post approvingly said Webster “used his reputation for personal integrity to restore public confidence in a tarnished agency,” and the Times hailed his CIA leadership in restoring “public trust in American intelligence.”
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Wonder what he knew. Was he a deep scumbag?
Bet he knew some things and took it to the grave.
CNN crap. Iran Contra was not a scandal. Only to the leftist media.
Nothing illegal was done.
Commie garbage all throuout the article.
And Hoover was a dedicated Anti- Communist who understood the threat. Sad that too many people didn’t listen.
Oliver North lied under oath.
About what?
Also, given that lives were on the line, even if he did, I give him a pass.
He lied to Congress about the funding scheme.
He later admitted he lied to Congress and years later expressed regret for doing so. His show honoring service to military personal in Iraq is top notch.
Two words....”Fawn Hall”.
Whenever I hear Iran-Contra I think of this SNL Classic.
Mastermind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5wfPlgKFh8
Indeed.
Related to Arsenio Hall?
Thanks for the link. I had recalled this as a distant memory from having watched it back then but had not seen it since. A classic, to be sure.
So sorry to hear, but he had a very full, long life. He was a good man, I worked for him during the Reagan administration. I was late getting to a meeting one morning and ducking into the room, thinking I’d not be noticed, I ran smack into him and about bowled him over. (I weighed 108 at the time) His security detail was not happy, but he was very gracious, and for years afterward addressed me by my first name whenever he saw me in a corridor. He was honestly respected by everyone, I never heard a word of criticism of him.
Hadn't seen that awesome skit in years. LoL Phil Hartman was a genius - haven't watched an episode since he left.
Webster was conservative during his FBI tenure, and his departure from the FBI in 1987 coincided with the Bureau’s early adoption of DEI policies (under pressure from a Democrat-controlled Congress), which grew increasingly worse over time from the tenure of William Sessions on. Despite his conservatism, though, Webster was a bureacrat with an instinct to defend the entrenched bureaucracy, and in his later years, he sided with the coup attempts against Trump—I suspect, without much clue what was going on, being in his 90s.
Ping.
he’s seated at the left hand of his lord...satan
Another WW2 veteran. Soon there will be none.
Only the good die young.
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