June 27, 2006 – 8:25 p.m.
Willie T. Hulon has been tapped to head the FBI’s new National Security Branch, making him the seventh official to run the bureau’s counterterrorism operations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Hulon, who joined the FBI in 1983 after three years on his hometown Memphis police force, is the second African-American picked by Director Robert S. Mueller to run a major investigative division in the past week.
On June 21, Michael A. Mason was appointed chief of the FBI’s Criminal Investigations division.
“They have operational control over all of our investigative programs,” an official said of Mason and Hulon, on a not-for-attribution basis. “But it is clearly their experience and skills that got them to these positions.”
Hulon will oversee the FBI’s counterterrorism, counterintelligence and intelligence programs. He also will be the FBI’s main liaison with the Directorate of National Intelligence headed by
Mueller said Hulon “has been heavily involved” in setting up the National Security Branch, or NSB, following the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendation that the FBI combine all its intelligence activities under one roof.
“His role in shaping our vision for the NSB, along with his knowledge, experience, and leadership abilities, will help us fully realize the organizational changes we have been working toward since creating the NSB last year,” Mueller said. “The attorney general and director of National Intelligence share my confidence in Willie’s leadership abilities and have concurred with his appointment.”
The first reactions to Hulon’s appointment among current and former FBI officials were almost uniformly positive, if cloaked in demands for anonymity.
In a typical comment, one former senior intelligence official who helped organize the NSB called Hulon “a true leader” and a “gifted professional of the highest integrity.”
Another called Hulon “a logical choice,” because he had been deputy assistant FBI director, and then director, for counterterrorism beginning in April 2004.
“He has excellent leadership and interpersonal skills and should serve the bureau well as NSB chief,” Dennis M. Lormel, a former chief of the FBI’s anti-money laundering unit, said by e-mail. “He’s a solid and stand up guy. “
Hulon previously served in the criminal investigative and inspection divisions at FBI headquarters, and in the Mobile, Ala.; Chicago and San Antonio, Texas, divisions, the FBI said. He also served as an assistant special agent in charge of the St. Louis division and special agent in charge of the Detroit division.
During his Detroit tenure, a confidential drug ring informant who had bilked the bureau out of $200,000 tried to frame Hulon by falsely claiming he leaked sensitive law enforcement information to their drug ring, according to news reports.
“Willie was set up,” a former FBI colleague said, and “vindicated in that instance.”
The informant was charged with defrauding the FBI, obstruction of justice, misleading conduct, threatening to murder an FBI agent and stealing government property, according to news reports
But another former colleague said Hulon’s “time in Detroit was not real good. The Detroit office should have had one of the biggest task forces” because of the area’s large Arab-American population, but “it had one of the smallest, [with] only about three or four people actually devoted to terrorism full time. I don’t think he fixed the problem when he got there.”
Recently retired FBI Special Agent Dell Spry was in the Detroit office during an inspection tour on Sept. 11, 2001.
“We were all stunned, momentarily. Then we went to work,” Spry recalled. “My recollection is Willie was faced with an almost insurmountable obstacle. He stepped over it and got the job done.”
A senior FBI official, speaking not for attribution, said he expected Hulon to stay in the job longer than his predecessors, the last of which lasted only months and resigned in May to become security director for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.
Turnover at the top of the FBI’s counterterrorism ranks has been rife.
“I think it is becoming a last man standing thing with high bureau management,” said the former Hulon colleague, who also left the FBI for private industry. “As soon as they get these jobs and make contacts, they are out the door. I hope he will be different, some stability would be good.”
More senior FBI appointments are “in the hopper,” a Bureau official said, awaiting approval by the Justice Department.
“I can only speak personally,” said this official, “but both Mr. Hulon and Mr. Mason will be super in their new roles.”
Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.