William Webster Led FBI and CIA Through Crises

William Webster, who became the only person to run both the FBI and CIA and who is credited with restoring public faith in the agencies after they were mired in scandals, has died. He was 101. Webster died Friday in Warrenton, Virginia, a family spokesman said, per the New York Times. He built a reputation for integrity as a federal judge before becoming the FBI's third director, picked by Jimmy Carter, in 1978. Webster was a Republican, appointed to the bench by Richard Nixon, but his nonpartisan stances on partisan issues made him someone presidents of both parties wanted in high-profile positions.

"The liberals who like me think I'm liberal; the conservatives who like me say I'm conservative," Webster once said, per the Washington Post. When he took over the FBI, it was dealing with a loss of trust over disclosures that agents had taken part in break-ins, illegally opened the mail of people under surveillance, and spied on civil rights leaders. Webster said during Senate confirmation hearings that the FBI "is not above the law" and should not "wage war on private citizens to discredit them." He was director during the Abscam undercover operation, in which six members of Congress were convicted of crimes including bribery.

In 1997, Ronald Reagan chose Webster to be director of the CIA, which was dealing with the aftermath of the Iran-contra illegal weapons sales. Webster quickly fired two staff members tied to the scandal, demoted a third, and reprimanded four more. He increased oversight of clandestine operations—bringing back a retired covert officer to supervise—added lawyers to review the legality of missions, and gave the agency's inspector general more power. He was widely praised though he came in without experience in the field. "He was criticized for not being a strategic thinker, but that's not why he was selected," Vincent Cannistraro, a former counterterrorism official, told the Post in 1991. "He was selected to calm troubled waters."

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Webster, who grew up in St. Louis, went on to practice law at a top Washington firm into his 90s, per the Times. Along with other former CIA officials, he signed a letter in 2018 criticizing President Trump for revoking former Director John Brennan's security clearances in retaliation. And in a Times essay, Webster condemned attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. He helped the FBI catch and win a conviction against a scammer who tried to get $50,000 from him, then did a public service announcement warning against elder fraud.