Hayden, Michael Vincent (1945– )

US soldier and intelligence specialist, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2006. With a long career in military intelligence, he became a general and principal deputy director of national intelligence in 2005. He became CIA director after the resignation of Porter J Goss in May 2006.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of an Irish-American welder, he studied history at university before training for the military. He entered active military service (the United States Air Force) in 1969 and became a specialist in military intelligence. As director of the National Security Agency 1999–2005, he developed a strategy to place greater reliance on US industry for domestic spying and oversaw a large increase in surveillance of communications between persons in the USA and alleged foreign terrorist organizations.