J. Cofer Black

hen Cofer Black testified in September 2002 before a joint congressional committee investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, the committee offered to let the veteran Central Intelligence Agency agent speak from behind a screen so that his face couldn't be seen.

Black refused. "Normally, I would have accepted," he testified. "This hearing is more important. I do not want to be only a voice. The American people need to see my face. I want to look the American people in the eye."

He was at the hearing to explain why the CIA had failed to head off the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and why it didn't warn other agencies of terrorist threats. Four months earlier, Black had completed a three-year stint as director of the CIA's Counter-terrorism Center.

Soon after the 2002 hearing, President Bush nominated Black to his State Department job. The ambassadorial-rank post involves Black in hot-button issues such as managing security for the upcoming Olympic Games in Greece, brokering an agreement to send Turkish troops into Iraq in support of U.S. forces, providing equipment and other aid to U.S. allies in the war on terrorism, and implementing sanctions against countries, such as Syria, that the administration considers to have aided terrorists.

Black, a 54-year-old native of Stamford, Conn., earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Southern California. He joined the CIA in 1974 and spent most of his career in the Operations Directorate, winning the Distinguished Intelligence Medal and other awards for his work overseas and at home. He was deputy chief of the agency's Latin America Division before heading the Counterterrorism Center. In that job, he pursued Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders. Referring to bin Laden, Black told a CNN interviewer last fall, "I guarantee you, this fellow will get caught like the rest of them."