Voting Station

William H. Webster

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Politician

The Resume

    (March 6, 1924- )
    Born in St. Louis, Missouri
    District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri (1970-73)
    Appeals Court Judge for the Eighth Circuit (1973-78)
    Director of the FBI (1978-87)
    Director of the CIA (1987-91)
    Chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (2005-20)

Why he might be annoying:

    While FBI director, he agreed to a request from Attorney General Ed Meese and ordered a temporary halt to a Bureau investigation of an air transport company involved in illegally supplying weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras (1987).
    As CIA director, he was criticized for the Agency's failure to anticipate Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
    He was appointed first chair of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, but resigned after three weeks amid controversy following reports that he had headed the audit committee of U.S. Technologies, a high-tech firm being investigated for accounting irregularities and fraud (2002).

Why he might not be annoying:

    He served in the US Navy during World War II and the Korean War.
    He is the only person to have led both the FBI and the CIA.
    He was credited with restoring morale and credibility at an FBI that had been tainted by revelations of illegal domestic spying, unauthorized wiretaps, and harassment of political dissidents.
    He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, and the National Security Medal.
    He and his wife were targeted by a phone scammer (2014); they contacted agents they knew at the FBI, resulting in the scammer's arrest.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 7 Votes: 57.14% Annoying