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Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced today that he has selected former FBI Deputy Director Robert Bryant to be the next National Counterintelligence Executive. The National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX), under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, serves as the head of national counterintelligence for the United States Government.
Bryant has many years of investigative, operational and management experience in counterintelligence, counterterrorism and law enforcement. As the FBI’s deputy director and chief operating officer, he managed the day-to-day operations of the FBI and its national counterintelligence, counterterrorism and criminal programs. Bryant was also responsible for policy, personnel, budget, technology and security programs.
“A wide range of actors are taking advantage of globalization and the openness of modern information networks to undermine U.S. interests,” Blair said. “Robert has more than four decades of experience countering these substantial threats to our national security and he will be an important asset in protecting our military, economic and technological resources.”
The Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) sets the priorities for counterintelligence collection, investigations, and operations, and conducts in-depth espionage damage assessments. To ensure the effectiveness of these programs, ONCIX also performs periodic reviews of all U.S. counterintelligence programs, evaluates them against strategic and budgetary goals, and makes fiscal recommendations to the DNI.
In the recently published 2009 National Intelligence Strategy, counterintelligence is elevated for the first time as a mission objective. “Integrate Counterintelligence” is one of six mission objectives, and the strategy calls for a counterintelligence capability that is integrated with all aspects of the intelligence process, both offensively and defensively, to protect our secrets, and to better serve the policymaker and the operator.
Bryant has had a long and distinguished law enforcement and counterintelligence career that culminated with his appointment as the deputy director of the FBI, the number two official in the Bureau. He joined the FBI in 1968 and worked at the Seattle and Dallas field offices until 1975 when he was assigned to FBI headquarters in Washington where he was head of the Criminal Investigative and Records Management Divisions. Bryant returned to the field in 1978 and served in supervisory jobs in the Las Vegas and Kansas City field offices, and later as the special agent in charge of the Salt Lake City field division. In 1989, he returned to FBI headquarters as the deputy assistant director of the Criminal Investigative Division, and in 1991 he was named special agent in charge of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Field Office. He later served as the assistant director in charge of the National Security Division and was appointed in 1997 as the assistant director in charge of the Criminal Investigative Division.
Bryant’s notable achievements were the successful investigations and prosecutions of the spies Aldrich Ames, Earl Pitts and Harold Nicholson, oversight of the Oklahoma City bombing investigation and the bombing of the Khobar Towers investigation in Saudi Arabia, and the peaceful resolution of the Montana Freeman standoff. He was most recently the president and chief executive officer of the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
Bryant holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration and a law degree from the University of Arkansas.
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This appointment, which requires congressional confirmation, was completed completely behind closed doors. How's that for transparent governance?
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