What Senator John McCain Knew About Russia

By Daniel Hoffman

Daniel Hoffman is a former senior officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, where he served as a three-time station chief and a senior executive Clandestine Services officer. Hoffman also led large-scale HUMINT (human intelligence gathering) and technical programs and his assignments included tours of duty in the former Soviet Union, Europe, and war zones in the Middle East and South Asia. Hoffman also served as director of the CIA Middle East and North Africa Division. He is currently a national security analyst with Fox News.

For those who knew him, it is no surprise that the late Senator John McCain approached the national and global security threats posed by Russia with a confident clarity in what he felt needed to be done.  As with all things, when it came to Russia, he did not hold back.  The Cipher Brief’s Brad Christian spoke with former CIA Chief of Station Dan Hoffman about the Senator’s stance on Russia.  He started by asking Hoffman to describe McCain’s overall position.

Hoffman:  John McCain’s foreign policy toward the Kremlin was a straight line from President Reagan’s “peace through strength policy”.  McCain always delivered the strongest defense for what always scared the Soviets and Vladimir Putin the most- liberty, freedom and democracy.  Because of his outspoken nature on those issues, McCain became an inspiration to people around the world, especially those in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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