Darpa Chief Staying On, For Now

From The Danger Room:

Tony Tether, the controversial chief of the Pentagon's premiere research agency, Darpa, will remain in office during the Obama administration. At least, for a little while. "Dr. Tether will be here after Jan. 20, and there's no formal date on which he plans to leave," Darpa spokesman Jan Walker tells Michael Belfiore in an e-mail.

Tether, the longest-serving director of the $3 billion-per-year agency, is one of several top Pentagon officials who will stay in place, if only temporarily, after the presidential transition. Defense Secretary Bob Gates is, of course, at the top of the list of holdovers.

Darpa, however, is an agency that prides itself on rapid turnover. "People come to me from all over the world, and they look at our track record and what we're doing, and they want to know how they can make an organization like ours," Tether once told me. "I tell them it's simple. You just have to make sure the people don't stay there very long."

Read more ....