Haspel, Gina (1956-…), served as the director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2018 to 2021. Haspel had been named to the position by President Donald J. Trump . She was the first woman to serve in that role. Prior to becoming CIA director, Haspel had served as the agency’s deputy director.
Gina Cheri Walker was born in Ashland, Kentucky, on Oct. 1, 1956. Her father served in the U.S. Air Force, and she spent much of her childhood on Air Force bases overseas. After graduating from high school in England, she studied languages and journalism at the University of Kentucky. She later transferred to the University of Louisville, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communications in 1978. She later earned a paralegal certificate at Northeastern University and also studied at George Washington University. A marriage to Jeff Haspel, a U.S. Army officer, ended in divorce.
Following graduation, Gina Haspel worked as a civilian contractor, working in the library and running a foreign language lab for a U.S. Army special forces group at Fort Devers in Massachusetts. From 1982 to 1984, she did paralegal work. She joined the CIA in 1985. Haspel was often stationed overseas as an undercover agent, and she did additional language study in Russian and Turkish. In 2001, she transferred to the CIA Counterterrorism Center in Virginia. Haspel eventually came to fill a variety of senior roles within the agency. She became the agency’s deputy director in 2017. In 2018, President Trump nominated Haspel to replace Mike Pompeo as CIA director. Pompeo had been named secretary of state in Trump’s Cabinet.
During confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate, Haspel faced intense questioning about the months she spent supervising a secret CIA detention site in Thailand. In the years following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, CIA agents working overseas seized terror suspects and flew them to secret CIA-run prisons around the world. Detainees suspected of terrorism were subjected to legally questionable interrogation methods. Such methods, including waterboarding , were banned in 2009. Senators also questioned Haspel about her role in the CIA’s destruction, in 2005, of videotapes of the interrogations. Haspel said her actions while overseeing the secret CIA prison were considered lawful at the time. The Senate confirmed Haspel’s nomination in May 2018.
