Why Gina Haspel Would Be Unlike Any CIA Director Before Her

Paul R. Pillar served in the CIA for 28 years. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University.

President Trump's nominee to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gina Haspel, will become, if confirmed, the first career professional of the agency to rise through the ranks to the top job since William Colby in the 1970s. Some other directors, such as Robert Gates and John Brennan, had prior experience in those ranks but went off to do other things and were placed in the director's job like any other political appointee. Other previous CIA directors