“ I was an intelligence officer for what was then 8th Air Force, B-52 Air Force. ”
'End strength' - the total number of government employees you can have at the end of the year. That's a separate exercise and requires independent energy, independent effort with the Congress to get the ceiling of your government employees raised.
~ Michael Hayden
NSA is a very conservative culture legally. Our lawyers at NSA were notorious for their conservatism up through the morning of September 11th, 2001. The single most consistent criticism of the NSA legal office by our congressional oversight committee was that our legal office was too conservative.
When asked if I miss being in government, I usually try to lighten the moment by responding that I awake most days, read the paper, and then observe that, 'It's yet another great day to be the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.'
The intelligence community is governed by the same legal and ethical standards as the rest of American government and society, but an operational imperative is here, too. An intelligence community charged with global responsibilities cannot be successful without diversity of thought, culture and language.
