Joe Biden picks diplomat William Burns as CIA director

The president-elect of the United States of America, Joe Biden, has announced that he has chosen veteran diplomat William Burns to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

As a former ambassador to Russia and Jordan, Burns, now 64, has a 33-year career at the State Department. He had been Deputy Secretary of State before retiring in 2014.

Burns has been a staunch advocate of rebuilding and restructuring the foreign service, positions with which Biden has agreed.

“Bill Burns is an exemplary diplomat with extensive experience on the world stage keeping our people and country safe. He shares my deep conviction that intelligence should be apolitical and that the dedicated intelligence professionals who serve our nation deserve recognition and respect. Ambassador Burns will bring the knowledge, judgment and perspective we need to prevent and confront threats before they reach our shores. The American people will sleep peacefully with him as our next CIA director," Biden said in a statement, Telegraph reports.

Previously, Burns had been mentioned as a candidate to be Secretary of State in the Biden administration.

If confirmed by the Senate, Burns will succeed Gina Haspel. As the first female director of the CIA, Haspel led the agency under the Trump administration.

Williams Burns has received three presidential awards for distinguished service and the highest civilian honors from the Pentagon and the US intelligence community.

He holds doctoral degrees in international relations from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.

Burns, a graduate of La Salle University in Philadelphia, joined the service in 1982 and before being named ambassador to Russia in 2005, served as a senior aide to former secretaries of state William Christopher and Madeleine Albright, as well as director of the State Department's Office of Policy Planning.

Burns was a close and trusted adviser to Christopher Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry before his retirement.

In his book "A Recollection of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal," Burns called for a reformulation of American diplomacy as he recalled his days in the field. /Telegraph/