Gary Bald

Gary Bald
Director, National Security Branch
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Previous job: Executive assistant director for counterterrorism and counterintelligence, FBI
Reports to: FBI director

In June, President Bush ordered the FBI to combine its national security and intelligence components into a single service that would respond to priorities set by the new director of national intelligence. Observers thought the FBI might be brought to heel under the new spy chief. But the ultimate choice to head the National Security Branch, Gary Bald, is by all appearances a bureau man to the core.

Bald came to the FBI in 1977, and served as a special agent for eight years. He conducted investigations of organized crime, drug and violent crime, and public corruption. He later became the assistant special agent in charge of the Atlanta division and the special agent in charge in Baltimore. There, he led the FBI's investigation of the Washington- area sniper in 2002.

Following that assignment, FBI director Robert Mueller brought Bald to headquarters as the deputy assistant director for counterterrorism operations, where he was responsible for the bureau's international and domestic terrorism investigations. He showed himself a strong supporter of the FBI's new terrorism investigation powers under the 2001 USA Patriot Act. In a public address to a homeland security conference in Maryland in 2003, Bald said the act proved vital to a Maryland task force's arrest of an al Qaeda operative connected to a plot to blow up underground gas storage tanks. The following year, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bald praised the Patriot Act specifically for giving agents more latitude to investigate terrorists' financing sources.

"Without funds, terrorist groups suffer disarray, defection and, ultimately, demise," Bald said. "The material support statutes . . . provide the investigative predicate, which allows intervention at the earliest possible stage of terrorist planning to identify and arrest terrorists and supporters before an attack occurs. These statutes form a core aspect of the FBI's terrorism prevention strategy."

While Bald has won accolades for his work, he has been criticized by one lawmaker for comments he made about the kinds of experience that counterterrorism managers require. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, was angered by testimony from Bald in a civil lawsuit brought against the bureau, in which Bald said it wasn't necessary to have a detailed understanding of counterterrorism operations to lead such a unit. The Associated Press obtained copies of the testimony. Bald added that knowledge of Middle Eastern history and culture was "helpful, but not required. I wouldn't say it's important, although I wish I had it. It would be nice."

Grassley wrote to Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, following Bald's appointment in August, to say the post for which he had been hired "is not a position for on-the-job training."