CIA's Head of Espionage Resigns

On Monday, February 6th, it was announced in Washington that the head of the CIA's espionage division is resigning from his position. This move is part of a comprehensive and historic reshuffling in the management of the U.S. intelligence agency, which also affects other intelligence agencies in the country. According to a report by AFP, the name of the senior CIA official has not been disclosed, but based on a message posted on Twitter in 2013, he is identified as Frank Archibald, who previously served in Pakistan and Africa and was once the head of the Latin America division at the CIA. On Monday, the CIA refrained from commenting on the resignation of the head of covert operations and whether such a change is part of a broader restructuring of the agency, although John Brennan, the head of the CIA, had previously spoken about plans for significant changes within the organization. AFP quoted former CIA officials as saying that Mr. Brennan aims to reduce the long-standing gap between the intelligence and analysis divisions and possibly create a new unit focused on specific geographic areas or threats. The report further states that this idea had been proposed before but faced opposition from senior managers within the agency. The National Security Service of the U.S., essentially the CIA's intelligence arm, has always been very protective of its operational independence and cautious about changing its relationships with other parts of the organization. AFP also quoted former intelligence officials as saying that if the mentioned changes are fully implemented, the transformation in the CIA's structure will be extensive and historically significant. Frank Archibald's exit from the scene is part of ongoing changes in the leadership of other CIA divisions and other U.S. intelligence agencies. David Cohen, the Deputy Treasury Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, was recently appointed as the Deputy Director of the CIA, and Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, who was previously the head of cyber operations at the U.S. Marine Corps, has been selected to lead the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). General Michael Flynn, the former head of Defense Intelligence, also resigned from his position last August.