C.I.A. to Get First Woman in No. 2 Job
The C.I.A.’s deputy director, Michael J. Morell, is retiring after 33 years at the agency and will be replaced by Avril D. Haines, the top lawyer at the National Security Council, the C.I.A.’s director, John O. Brennan, announced Wednesday.
The switch will put a woman in one of the agency’s top two jobs for the first time. Ms. Haines is an unusual choice because she is not an intelligence professional, though in her two years at the White House she has been deeply involved in intelligence programs and got to know Mr. Brennan when he was President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser.
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As legal adviser to the National Security Council, Ms. Haines, 43, leads the group of lawyers from security agencies that studies the legal implications of the most delicate operations, including lethal drone strikes, cyberattacks and intelligence collection on American soil. Mr. Brennan said her work at the White House and previously as an assistant legal adviser for treaty affairs at the State Department “has given her a range of experiences on many of the same issues that we focus on as an agency.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/us/cia-to-get-first-woman-in-no-2-job.html?_r=0