award stars Meritorious Service Medal Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal with one star National Defense Service Medal with two bronze service stars Order of the Rising Sun, Grand Cordon (Japan) Retirement After retiring from the Navy, Blair held the John M. Shalikashvili Chair in National Security Studies at The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), and the General of the Army Omar N. Bradley Chair of Strategic Leadership at Dickinson College and the U.S. Army War College. He served as president of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) from 2003 to 2007, a U.S. government think tank in the Washington, D.C. area focused on national security. He was also deputy executive director of the Project on National Security Reform. Blair is now serving as the chairman of the board at Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, a U.S.-Japan relations think tank in Washington, DC. He also serves as co-chair of the Pacific Energy Summit, an annual forum that brings together key energy and environmental stakeholders from across the Asia-Pacific to discuss policies and practices needed to promote energy and environmental security. Blair is the co-head of the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property along with former governor of Utah and Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. Director of National Intelligence Nomination Dennis C. Blair became the third Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on January 29, 2009, after being nominated by newly inaugurated President Barack Obama. During his confirmation, Director Blair indicated he did not support a domestic intelligence agency separate from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He also promised to end special interrogation regimes, believing the Intelligence Community must conduct analysis on opportunities as well as threats. Appointment of Intelligence Community representatives In May 2009, Blair attempted to assert the DNI's role as the head of the Intelligence Community with a memo claiming authority to appoint CIA chiefs of station abroad. This was vehemently opposed by CIA Director Leon Panetta, who issued a memo of his own. Blair's two predecessors, Mike McConnell and John Negroponte, were both unable to bring this role under the auspices of the DNI, the authority to appoint chiefs of station having been the province of the CIA since 1947. According to news reports, President Bush issued an executive order to give Blair his congressionally-mandated powers to force the CIA and other intelligence agencies to