Former CIA Director James Woolsey dies

Administration Former CIA Director James Woolsey dies Comments: by Ryan Mancini - 07/22/26 10:27 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Ryan Mancini - 07/22/26 10:27 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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R. James Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under former President Clinton who served a brief, embattled tenure, died on Wednesday. He was 84.

Woolsey’s wife Conchita Sarnoff Woolsey told The New York Times that he died from a stroke in their Washington, D.C., home. She told The Washington Post that Woolsey died of “Havana syndrome,” a mysterious conditions that has reportedly afflicted some U.S. diplomats and other government personnel, first reported in Cuba in 2016.

“CIA extends our condolences to the family and loved ones of former Director James Woolsey,” the agency wrote in a statement on the social platform X. “He was a great patriot who served his country as Director of Central Intelligence, Undersecretary of the Navy, Ambassador, and attorney.”

Clinton named Woolsey to be director in 1993 and faced challenging dilemmas, including the first World Trade Center bombing that same year, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the arrest of CIA case officer Aldrich Ames, who provided intelligence secrets to Moscow over the course of a decade.

Facing criticism and little support from Washington, Woolsey left the agency in December 1994. His departure “made him much more conservative over time,” former New York Times reporter James Risen told the outlet.

“His bitterness led him to be anti-Clinton. And then that led him to become more Republican in the late ’90s. And then Iraq brought him completely into the Bush, Cheney, neocon orbit, and he became a real pro-Iraq War hawk,” Risen continued, referring to former President George W. Bush and his former vice president, Dick Cheney.

Woolsey advocated for the Bush administration’s war in Iraq against former dictator Saddam Hussein. Over a decade later, he became a senior adviser on President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, having grown to become a critic of former President Obama.

The former CIA director was considered for a national security post, but did not receive a position in the previous Trump administration, the Times reported.

Woolsey was born in Tulsa, Okla., on Sept. 21, 1941. He graduated from Stanford University, became a Rhodes Scholar and earned a law degree at Yale University. He first joined the government in 1970, working as a staff member on the National Security Council.

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