To the editor: Despite the fact that he will not be the official nominee for director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte can serve in an acting capacity for up to seven months without Senate confirmation (“Trump says Pulte won’t be his nominee for director of national intelligence,” June 4).
With a couple of notable exceptions, the previous directors were all serious public servants with years of government or military experience and knowledge of the intelligence profession. Pulte’s experience is pursuing the president’s political enemies as the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. His intelligence portfolio, as expressed by the president, will be finding out about “rigged” elections.
I was an Army intelligence officer for a quarter of a century in peace and war. I understood the critical nature of accurate and unbiased intelligence during the Cold War, from peacetime assignments along the Demilitarized Zone in Korea to the Iron Curtain in Europe, and on the battlefield during Desert Storm. It is literally a matter of life and death. The damage that Pulte can do to the national intelligence system even in a few months cannot be overstated.
There’s an anecdotal story about the Roman emperor Caligula who decided to appoint his favorite horse, Incitatus, to be a senator. It showed his dominance of the Roman senate and his disrespect for the institution. That exemplifies Pulte’s nomination: a nonentity to lead the finest intelligence system in the world.
Peter V. Huisking, Pasadena
This writer is a retired colonel for the U.S. Army.
