R . James Woolsey , Jr . Robert James Woolsey , Jr . ( born September 21 , 1941 ) is a foreign policy specialist and former Director of Central Intelligence and head of the Central Intelligence Agency ( from February 5 , 1993 to January 10 , 1995 ) . A lawyer by training and trade , he held a variety of government positions in the 1970s and 1980s ( including Under Secretary of the Navy 1977 – 1979 , and involvement in treaty negotiations with the Soviet Union for five years in the 1980s ) , and also spent periods working in the private sector . Early life . Woolsey was born in Tulsa , Oklahoma , where he graduated from Tulsa Central High School . In 1963 he received his BA from Stanford University ( Phi Beta Kappa ) , and in 1965 his MA from Oxford University — where he was a Rhodes Scholar — and an LLB from Yale Law School in 1968 . Woolsey was founder and president of " Yale Citizens for Eugene McCarthy for President " from 1967 to 1968 . He was prominently active in the anti - Vietnam War movement . Career . Woolsey has held important positions in both Democratic and Republican administrations . His influence has been felt during the administrations of Jimmy Carter , Ronald Reagan , George H . W . Bush , and Bill Clinton . He has also worked at the Shea & Gardner law firm , as Associate ( 1973 – 77 ) and partner ( 1979 – 89 , 1991 – 93 ) . Woolsey has served in the U . S . government as : CIA Director . Relationship with Bill Clinton . As Director of Central Intelligence , Woolsey is notable for having a very limited relationship with President Clinton . According to journalist Richard Miniter : Never once in his two - year tenure did CIA director James Woolsey ever have a one - on - one meeting with Clinton . Even semiprivate meetings were rare . They only happened twice . Woolsey told me : " It wasn ' t that I had a bad relationship with the president . It just didn ' t exist . " Another quote about his relationship with Clinton , according to Paula Kaufman of " Insight on the News " : Remember the guy who in 1994 crashed his plane onto the White House lawn ? That was me trying to get an appointment to see President Clinton . David Halberstam notes in " War in a Time of Peace " that Clinton chose Woolsey for CIA director because the Clinton campaign had courted neoconservatives leading up to the 1992 election , promising to be tougher on Taiwan , Bosnia , and human rights in China , and it was decided that they ought to give at least one neoconservative a job in the administration . Aldrich Ames . Woolsey was CIA director when Aldrich Ames was arrested for treason and spying against the United States . The CIA was criticized for not focusing on Ames sooner , given the obvious increase in Ames standard of living ; and there was a " huge uproar " in Congress when Woolsey decided that no one in the CIA would be dismissed or demoted at the agency . " Some have clamored for heads to roll in order that we could say that heads have rolled , " Woolsey declared . " Sorry , that ' s not my way . " Woolsey was forced to resign . Later career . Woolsey is the chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies . He is currently a member of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy ( WINEP ) Board of Advisors , Advisor of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security , co - founder of the United States Energy Security Council , Founding Member of the Set America Free Coalition , and a Senior Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton for Global Strategic Security ( since July 15 , 2002 ) . He is a Patron of the Henry Jackson Society , a British think tank . Woolsey has had long - standing contact with Central and Eastern Europe and is a Member of the Board of Advisors of the Global Panel Foundation based in Berlin , Copenhagen , Prague , Sydney and Toronto . He was formerly chairman of the Freedom House board of trustees . He is a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor . Woolsey is also a member of the Project for the New American Century ( PNAC ) and was one of the signatories to the January 26 , 1998 letter sent to President Clinton that called for the removal of Saddam Hussein . That same year he served on the Rumsfeld Commission , which investigated the threat of ballistic missile s for the US Congress . In 2008 Woolsey joined VantagePoint Venture Partners as a venture partner . John McCain hired Jim Woolsey as an advisor on energy and climate change issues for his 2008 US Presidential election campaign . In April , 2011 , Lux Capital announced that Woolsey would become a venture partner in the firm . Woolsey will primarily focus on identifying novel breakthroughs and new investment opportunities in energy . By joining Lux Capital , Woolsey hopes to help end America ' s addiction to foreign energy resources . In July 2011 , Woolsey , in cooperation with Robert C . Mcfarlane , co - founded the United States Energy Security Council . Woolsey also currently sits on the Board of Advisors for the Fuel Freedom Foundation . Woolsey has been a Board Member and Vice - Chairman of The Jamestown Foundation . Views . Woolsey has been known primarily as a neoconservative Democrat — hawkish on foreign policy issues but liberal on economic and social issues . He endorsed Senator John McCain for president and served as one of McCain ' s foreign policy advisors . He has called himself a " Scoop Jackson Democrat " and a " Joe Lieberman Democrat " , with " social democratic " domestic views . He regards the label ' neoconservative ' as a " silly term " . Energy . Woolsey was a keynote speaker at the EELPJ symposium on wind energy and biofuel s in Houston , Texas on February 23 , 2007 , during which he outlined the national security arguments in favor of moving away from fossil fuels . In a July 2007 interview with " The Futurist " magazine he argued that U . S . dependence on Middle Eastern oil ranks " very high " as a national security concern . Woolsey is featured in Thomas Friedman ' s Discovery Channel documentary " Addicted to Oil " , and in the 2006 documentary film " Who Killed the Electric Car ? " addressing solutions to oil dependency through the development of the plug - in hybrid electric vehicle and use of biomass fuels such as cellulosic ethanol . He is a founding member of the Set America Free Coalition , dedicated to freeing the United States from oil dependence . He is also on the board of directors for the electric vehicle advocacy group Plug In America and an advisor to The Institute for the Analysis of Global Security , a think tank focused on energy security . Woolsey also wrote the foreword to " 50 Simple Steps to Save the Earth from Global Warming " ( Freedom Press , 2008 ) . Woolsey is known as well recently for clearly articulating the national security argument in support of moving away from fossil fuel s and towards distributed generation . He also advocates for measures to fight global warming and against global warming skeptics . Iraq . Within hours of the September 11 attacks , Woolsey appeared on television suggesting Iraqi complicity . In September 2002 , as Congress was deliberating authorizing President Bush to use force against Iraq , Woolsey told " The Wall Street Journal " that he believed that Iraq was also connected to the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P . Murrah Federal Building and the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 . In 2005 Steve Clemons , a senior fellow at the New America Foundation think tank , accused Woolsey of both profiting from and promoting the Iraq War . Melvin A . Goodman , senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and former CIA division chief , told the " Washington Post " that " … Woolsey was a disaster as CIA director in the 1990s and is now running around this country calling for a World War IV to deal with the Islamic problem . " On a January 14 , 2009 interview by Peter Robinson in the program " Uncommon Knowledge " , Woolsey described the CIA ' s intelligence about alleged Iraqi chemical and biological weapons as a " failure " before the 2003 invasion of Iraq . He criticized the Bush administration for lumping together many different materials with different capabilities under the broad category of ' weapons of mass destruction ' . He also stated that the Iraqis engaged on " red on red deception " in which Generals were led to falsely believe that their rival Generals had weapons , and he described the American intelligence failure as a reasonable mistake rather than an act of incompetence . Along with six other former directors , Woolsey was one of the signatories to the September 18 , 2009 letter sent to President Obama urging The President to exercise authority to reverse Attorney General Eric Holder ’ s August 24 decision to re - open the criminal investigation of CIA interrogations . Other . In 2010 , Woolsey supported the Oklahoma ban on Sharia law , recording a message aired for thousands of Oklahomans . Woolsey , along with co - authors such as former deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence Lt . Gen . William G . Boykin and neoconservative activist Frank Gaffney , Jr . , released a book titled " " Shariah : The Threat to America " , " published by the Center for Security Policy . The book " describes what its authors call a ' stealth jihad ' that must be thwarted before it ' s too late , " and argues that " most mosques in the United States already have been radicalized , that most Muslim social organizations are fronts for violent jihadists and that Muslims who practice sharia law seek to impose it in this country . " According to the " Washington Post " , " Government terrorism experts call the views expressed in the center ' s book inaccurate and counterproductive . " Woolsey was also criticized for his participation in the controversial films The Third Jihad and Iranium produced by the Clarion Fund . Woolsey was supportive of former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Leon Panetta , whom he has compared to Kennedy - era CIA head John McCone . Personal life . Woolsey is married and has two grandchildren . He lives near Annapolis , Md . , but travels frequently to New York , where he appeared in 2012 as a CIA director named Heinous Overreach in workshop productions of the musical " John Goldfarb , Please Come Home . " He took on the occasional role after meeting " Goldfarb " co - lyricist Michael Garin at the former Elaine ' s , where Garin was playing piano , and requesting a favorite song , " Dixie Chicken , " which he later sang on stage with Garin at The Follow Spot , a performance that was recorded and posted to YouTube . Woolsey is an advisor at the Gatestone Institute .