Frederick Hitz

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Frederick Hitz served as Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1990 until May 1998. A graduate of Princeton University and the Harvard School of Law, Hitz entered the CIA in 1967 as an operations officer. In 1973 he moved on to offices in the State Department, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy, before ultimately returning to the CIA in 1978. President George H. W. Bush appointed Mr. Hitz the first statutory Inspector General of the CIA in 1990.

Frederick Hitz is best known for his role investigating the CIA's role in the alleged cocaine trafficking in the US during the Reagan administration.

On March 16, 1998, Hitz testified to the House Committee on Intelligence that there was no conspiracy between the United States Central Intelligence Agency and the Contras to traffick illicit substances into the United States. He did, however, testify that there was no effort to expeditiously sever contact with contacts who were known drug traffickers.

Following this episode, Hitz retired from the CIA in 1998 and took up a position as Distinguished Practioner in Residence in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is also a lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law and Politics Department, specializing in intelligence and anti-terrorism law.

He authored "The Great Game: The Myths and Reality of Espionage" (2005), and the forthcoming "Why Spy?: Espionage in and Age of Uncertainty"