LOL!!! Thanks. I was just a SMSgt working in Air Intelligence Agency, Europe (my part was communications and computer support), I wasn't a "great" man, but worked beside a lot of them (and some GREAT gals, too!).
Gen Hayden was NCEUR in Stuttgart, and we supported his mission. He got there in April '93, I believe, on a selection that began in Dec of '92. The job entailed getting his first star (he was a Col when appointed to it). People see the date of the assignment, and think, "Oh, that was when Clinton was president, so he must have been put in his job by Clinton."
What they don't realize, and I think most military folks on this thread can back me up on, is that appointments/assignments are made months, sometimes even a full year, before you report in. Hayden later left NCEUR to become commander of the Air Intellinge Agency in 1995. Most Air Force Colonel and above assignemnts only last two years. What was Hayden to do, refuse the assignment because people would later say Clinton appointed him so he then owed Clinton? Heck, I got an assignment to Maxwell AFB, Alabama in 1997. So I guess I'm a Clinton stoolie!
Hayden served as an intel chief at Andersen AFB, Guam, during Operation Linebacker I & II, which cummulated in the Christmas bombings of North Vietnam 1972, when the commies walked out of the Paris Peace talks (the ones Kerry thought he could "help" negotiate with). The bombings brought Hanoi to its knees, and led to Nixon's Peace with Honor strategy, which led to final peace agreement ending the war in January, 1973.
Now, if Hayden has served in a combat-related intel role since 1972, how can Greg Kelly and Fox News say he was "brought" on by Clinton to the national intelligence agenda in 1993? A right awful and innaccurate smear. Sometimes Fox New surprises me, and Greg Kelly!!! I really thought he knew better. I think reporters read other reporters stuff and rely on it way too much. Somehow Greg or some other reporter is only looking at the dates and making stupid assumptions.
During his hearing in Congress, one of the senators stated that Hayden was new to human intelligence so how did he expect to head up the CIA. Hayden corrected him by reviewing his career appointments, back at least as far as Guam, IIRC. If Greg Kelly is repeating inaccurate info, then he is using the same talking points as the misinformed senator was using.
Great post, but of course I do have one point of disagreement with you (wouldn't ya know it?).
The bombings brought Hanoi to its knees, and led to Nixon's Peace with Honor strategy, which led to final peace agreement ending the war in January, 1973.
the "final peace agreement" led to the end of our involvement in the war, but it didn't end the war. In fact it led to the North Vietnamese communists winning the war and the eventual deaths of several million people in Southeast Asia.