William G. Hyland

William George Hyland (January 18, 1929 – March 25, 2008) was Deputy National Security Advisor to President of the United States Gerald Ford and editor of Foreign Affairs magazine.

William G. Hyland was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1929. He was educated at the Washington University in St. Louis, graduating with a B.A. in History. After college, he spent 1950–53 in the 2nd Armored Division of the United States Army; during this time, he was stationed in West Germany. He did graduate work at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, receiving an M.A. in History in 1954.

After graduating, Hyland joined the Central Intelligence Agency. He was initially assigned to the CIA's Berlin desk, and in this capacity frequently briefed Director of Central Intelligence Allen Welsh Dulles. He was later assigned to the Soviet desk, where he gained a reputation as a skilled Kremlinologist. In 1960, he wrote a memorandum in which he predicted that Nikita Khrushchev would come up with a pretext to avoid an upcoming Paris summit with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Shortly before the summit, the Soviets shot down a U-2 spy plane and Khrushchev used this as a pretext for walking out of the summit. Hyland was still a CIA agent when his first book, The Fall of Khrushchev, was published in 1968.