May 1997: David Edger Is New CIA Chief of Station in Germany

David Edger, a veteran CIA operative, is nominated chief of station at the US embassy in Berlin. [Washington Post, 5/1/1997] Previously, Edger had been associate deputy director for operations in the Directorate of Operations (DO) since July 1995. [Associated Press, 7/31/1995] The DO is the clandestine operations arm of the CIA. [Tenet, 2007, pp. 18] Many reports in the German and international press indicate that the CIA was monitoring members of the Hamburg cell in the years before 9/11 and tried to recruit informers (see November 1, 1998-February 2001 and December 1999). Although press reports do not mention him by name, these efforts would have been overseen by Edger. He will later say that the CIA tracked some of the people responsible for the 9/11 attacks in Germany (see February 12, 2002). Edger will stay in this position until the summer of 2001, when he is appointed to the University of Oklahoma (see August 2001).