William Webster, Only Person to Lead FBI and CIA, Dies at 101

Aug. 8, 2025, 9:55 PM UTC

William Webster, the only person to lead both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency and, very briefly, the first head of the US accounting oversight board, has died. He was 101.

His family announced his death in a statement that called him an “extraordinary man” who “spent a lifetime fighting to protect his country and its precious rule of law.”

Webster was appointed a federal judge by Richard Nixon, FBI director by Jimmy Carter and CIA director by Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush kept him on at the CIA until his retirement in 1991. ...

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