Tether had a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University, and a long career at the Pentagon and in the intelligence world. Since 1978 he had been working in both intelligence and defense, serving as the director of the national intelligence office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1978 to 1982, and from 1982 to 1986 as the director of DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, the agency’s liaison to the CIA.