Summary:
DMGS welcomed General Michael Hayden on Monday to discuss the national security implications and consequences for the United States of certain key events that occurred in 2017, a year that he terms one of disruption. Hayden grappled with the current administration’s handling of many pressing national security issues including the threats posed by a nuclear North Korea, a nuclear Iran, acts of terrorism on U.S. soil, and U.S. relations with Russia. These national security issues are of great significance for our Distinguished Speaker Series, which hosts some of the most distinguished and influential leaders of the national security community with the purpose of preparing the next generation of national security leaders.
National Security Lecture Series at DMGS
The Daniel Morgan Graduate School Lecture Series is specifically designed to bring together speakers with divergent opinions on national security with the goal of enabling the public to engage in robust and informed discussions. It has hosted some of the most distinguished and influential leaders, thinkers, and practitioners of the national security community. These members of the national security community have provided our students, faculty, and guests with first-rate analysis of some of the most pressing challenges of our time. Daniel Morgan Graduate School will continue to host speakers who can help prepare the next generation of leaders, scholars and, practitioners to develop actionable solutions to global and domestic security challenges.
Speaker Bio
General Michael Hayden is a retired four-star Air Force General who served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency when the course of world events was changing at a rapid pace. As head of the country’s premier intelligence agencies, he was on the frontline of global change, the war on terrorism and the growing cyber challenge.
In addition to leading CIA and NSA, General Hayden was the country’s first Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the country. In all of these jobs, he worked to put a human face on American intelligence, explaining to the American people the role of espionage in protecting both American security and American liberty.
He also served as Commander of the Air Intelligence Agency and Director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center and served in senior staff positions at the Pentagon, at U.S. European Command, at the National Security Council, and the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria. He was also Deputy Chief of Staff for the United Nations Command and U.S. Forces in South Korea.
He was featured in the HBO documentary Manhunt, which looked at espionage through the eyes of the insiders who led the secret war against Osama bin Laden, and in Showtime’s The Spymasters, a detailed look at the Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency.
General Hayden is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group in Washington DC and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government. He is on the Board of Directors of Motorola Solutions and serves on a variety of other boards and consultancies.
In 2013, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) awarded him the 29th annual William Oliver Baker Award. General Hayden is also the first recipient of the Helms Award presented by the CIA Officers’ Memorial Foundation. In 2014 he was the inaugural Humanitas Visiting Professor in intelligence studies at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. His recent memoir, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, has been a New York Times best-seller and was recently selected as one of the 100 most notable books of 2016.
