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well I was very conscious that I might be seen as an outsider I'd had 37 years in uniform I deliberately decided to
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take the uniform off before joining the organization I arrived with no one from my old uh days uh in fact I arrived
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alone just other than the security uh guards and security Force so I think that sent an important message to them I
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asked to be you know referred to as director or W rather than General you actually don't walk across
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the seal when you uh arrive every day as the Director of the Central Intelligence
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Agency you're actually in an underground parking lot which has a special elevator
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which goes up to the the floor in which the director's office is located one of the early decisions that I made was that
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we were going to move the swearing in ceremony for the new officers from this very very large cavernous Auditorium
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called the bubble to an event uh where we closed off that front entrance had the seal there and more importantly had
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the wall of stars and they actually sat facing the wall of stars each star represents an officer who has fallen uh
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in service and it's one of the very few days where their families were allowed into the agency that was a big deal in
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my mind I think there was a lot of symbolism and that front hallway is extraordinary as is the hallway where
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you walk walk past all the director's portraits and so on there is a sense of history there and indeed there's a
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continual effort to increase uh the recognition of that history by what you see as an officer walking through the
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the corridors of that great organization