Former CIA director Woolsey dies at 84

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey died Tuesday at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 84.

Woolsey, who led the Central Intelligence Agency during the first two years of the Clinton administration, died of a stroke, according to his wife, Conchita Sarnoff Woolsey, The Washington Post reported.

She also said he had suffered declining health from Havana syndrome, the mysterious ailment that has afflicted hundreds of American spies and diplomats around the world.

A longtime national security expert who served Democrat and Republican administrations alike, Woolsey became CIA director in 1993 as the United States sought to redefine its intelligence priorities following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Woolsey famously warned against assuming America's security challenges had disappeared with the end of the Cold War.

"Yes, we have slain a large dragon," he said. "But we live now in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes," pointing to terrorism, North Korea, arms proliferation and organized crime as emerging threats, The Wall Street Journal reported.

His tenure was quickly overshadowed by the 1994 arrest of veteran CIA officer Aldrich Ames, who admitted spying for Moscow for nearly a decade in one of the agency's most damaging intelligence breaches.

Woolsey reprimanded 11 current and former CIA officials but declined to fire anyone, arguing those most responsible had already retired and describing the failure as systemic rather than the fault of a single individual.

Relations with President Bill Clinton also proved challenging.

Woolsey later said he had only a handful of face-to-face meetings with the president during his nearly two years as CIA director and joked years later that a pilot who crashed a plane onto the White House lawn "was me trying to get an appointment to see President Clinton."

Before leading the CIA, Woolsey served as undersecretary of the Navy during the Carter administration and later worked on strategic arms negotiations under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Though a registered Democrat for much of his career, he earned a reputation as a hawkish national security voice whose views often aligned with conservative defense leaders.

After leaving government, Woolsey remained active in foreign policy, worked in private law practice and consulting, and later served as a senior adviser to President Donald Trump's 2016 transition team before departing shortly before Trump's inauguration.

A graduate of Stanford University, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and a Yale Law School alumnus, Woolsey spent decades arguing that strong intelligence capabilities were essential to protecting the United States.

He is survived by his wife, three sons from his first marriage, two stepchildren and 10 grandchildren.