Michael Hayden (general)

Michael Hayden (general)

Michael Vincent Hayden is a retired U.S. Air Force four-star general. He was Director of the National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005. He retired from the Air Force in 2008 after over 41 years of service. In 2017, Hayden became a national security analyst for CNN. In 2020, he endorsed Joe Biden in the presidential election.

About Michael Hayden (general) in brief

Summary Michael Hayden (general)Michael Vincent Hayden is a retired U.S. Air Force four-star general. He was Director of the National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005. He also served as Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. He retired from the Air Force in 2008 after over 41 years of service. In 2017, Hayden became a national security analyst for CNN. He is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. In November 2018, Hayden was hospitalized after suffering a stroke; he suffers from aphasia as a result. Hayden is married to the former Jeanine Carrier. They have a daughter Margaret and two sons, Michael and Liam. In 2020, he endorsed Joe Biden in the presidential election. He received an honorary doctorate from The Institute of World Politics in Washington, D. C. in 2009. He has served in senior staff positions in the Pentagon; Headquarters U. S. S-People’s Command, Stuttgart, Germany; and the U.N. Embassy in the Republic of Bulgaria. Hayden has served as commander of the Air Intelligence Agency and director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center, both headquartered at Lackland Air Force Base.

He currently co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Electric Grid Cyber Security Initiative. He continues to be an avid fan of the hometown Pittsburgh Steelers, since the 1990s traveling with his wife and family to at least three or four games a year. Hayden attended to St. Peter’s Elementary School where, in 7th and 8th grade he played quarterback on the school football team then being coached by the late Dan Rooney, the son of the founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Hayden was commissioned through Duquesne University’s Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. Hayden entered active military service in 1969 and served as a second lieutenant. He served as the chief of the general staff for the United Nations Command and S-san Garrison, Yongsan, South Korea. From 1996 to 1997, Hayden served as Commander of the AIA, an agency charged with defending and exploiting the domain of information. In 1999, he was responsible for a combat support for the CSS and Chief of the Central Security Service at Fort George G. Meade, Guam. From March 1999 to April 2005 he was the Director of NSA.