William H. Webster, longtime public servant and former judge, dies at 101

Former federal Judge William H. Webster died Aug. 8 at the age of 101.

Webster was born March 6, 1924, in St. Louis, and received his law degree from Washington University School of Law.

He served as a lieutenant for the U.S. Navy in World War II and the Korean War, before working as a practicing attorney at Armstrong Teasdale in St. Louis from 1949 to 1959. He then served as a U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri from 1960 to 1961. He returned to Armstrong Teasdale from 1962 to 1970.

He was appointed as a judge for the Eastern District in 1970 and was appointed to the 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1973.

In February 1978, Webster resigned from the appeals court to become director of the FBI, serving for nearly a decade before being sworn in as the director of the CIA in May 1987, a role he held until September 1991.

After his departure from the CIA, Webster joined the Washington D.C. law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, specializing in arbitration, mediation and internal investigation. During this time, he was also the chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council from 2005 to 2020. Webster is the only person to serve as director of both the CIA and the FBI.

He was an active member of The American Law Institute for more than five decades and served on its Council for 31 years.

During his service on the bench, Webster was chairman of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules and a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Habeas Corpus and the Committee on Court Administration.

Webster was presented with a number of awards for his government service: in 1991, he was awarded the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal as well as the National Security Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.