Hitz '61 to take year-long sabbatical at University of Virginia

Frederick Hitz '61, former inspector general of the Central Intelligence Agency, is wrapping up his six-year lecturer's term at the University with a rather surprising twist.

Hitz had said he intended to spend his time at Princeton — to which he will return after a year's sabbatical — writing a book which analyzed the changes in intelligence agencies after the end of Cold War, when the intelligence community was preparing to face new, non-Soviet threats.

Instead, the book Hitz wrote focuses not only on the gathering of secret information, as some might have assumed given his experience, but also touches on another topic of which he is a longtime devotee — the spy novel.

Hitz said he felt that "yet another book on intelligence reform would not be as original" as what he ultimately wrote. His book, "The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage," will be published later this month by Knopf.

In addition to teaching classes on intelligence and security at the Wilson School, where he is the director of the Project on International Intelligence, Hitz has had the opportunity to combine his interests of real-life espionage and spy fiction in the freshman seminar he teaches, "The Myth and Reality of Espionage."

Hitz said the seminar forced him to reexamine some of the spy novels he had enjoyed when younger. It was also one of the primary incentives to write a book dealing with spy fiction.

The purpose of the book is to give the reader the information necessary to decide "whether the truth of espionage is stranger than the fiction," Hitz said.

The new book is not an anthology of works by spy-fiction writers, he said. Instead, by using quotes from such authors and other sources, Hitz analyzes the tropes of espionage fiction — such as betrayal and the sex life of the elusive spy — in order to elucidate the difference between the tales authors spin and the reality of a spy's life.

However, Hitz said his primary intention was not to present a great deal of unknown "salacious information," but rather to get the reader to "think anew" about the subject. Paraphrasing Kim Philby, a well-known British intelligence operative and Soviet defector, Hitz described espionage as the gathering of secret information relating to foreign nations by illegal means.

The field is a "complex world of [subverting] others," he said. Such a clandestine life of manipulating others and of illegal activity, Hitz admitted, can be a "very, very difficult business."

Professors with lecture status must leave Princeton every seventh year, though they can come back after their temporary leave of absence.

Hitz will leave Princeton for the University of Virginia to teach in its law school and college of arts and sciences. However, he said he is resolved to return the following year.

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Hitz, who initially thought he would teach at Princeton only temporarily until he finished his book, said he has developed a particular affinity for University students.

Princetonians hail "from all over the world with all kinds of backgrounds," he said, adding that his students keep him "on [his] toes" by catching any mistakes he makes in lecture.

While post-Sept. 11 events and terrorism are extremely salient topics in the intelligence community, Hitz said such topics are not the main focus of his book.

Many books provide an analysis of intelligence and national defense-related topics, he said, and he himself has written articles with such a focus and leads policy task forces related to similar topics.

But Hitz said he does not want his book to be yet another in a series of such books which will "clog up shelves and gather dust."

Because it also draws on the tradition of spy fiction, Hitz's book, he said, is both "fun and informative."

Hitz was appointed CIA inspector general by President Bush in 1990, a position he held until 1998, and has served as a congressional relations officer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, and as legislative counsel to the director of central intelligence from 1978 to 1981.