# Undaunted by John O. Brennan - Blinkist

What’s in it for me? Learn about the life and times of a former CIA director.

Keeping America safe is no easy task, but John O.

Brennan has made it his mission for over 30 years.

Coming from a blue-collar background, Brennan spent much of his youth fantasizing about being a spy, and, as a young adult, he was fascinated by the world of Middle Eastern intelligence.

This fascination turned into a career, and over several decades Brennan rose up the ranks to become the director of what he believes is the best intelligence service in the world: the CIA.

Brennan’s four years as CIA director could have been the capstone to his public service.

But that hasn’t proven to be the case.

Since leaving the CIA, Brennan has continued to speak out against the man he considers to be a different sort of threat to the USA: Donald Trump.

These blinks trace Brennan’s fascinating life story and reveal what’s motivated him over his many years in public service.

In these blinks, you’ll learn  what happened at Brennan’s first polygraph test; how the CIA got Bin Laden; and how Brennan revamped the CIA.

John Brennan’s early experiences prepared him for a career in intelligence.

Just west of New York City, past the Hudson River, lies Hudson County, New Jersey.

The county is small yet densely populated.

It’s long been home to immigrants from all over the world –⁠ including John Brennan’s father, Owen, who sailed to America from Ireland in 1948.

Growing up in New Jersey, Brennan’s early life was pretty simple.

The family was poor, so in order to afford movie tickets and ice cream he took on part-time jobs; he delivered newspapers and pharmacy prescriptions and stocked shelves at grocery stores.

In his spare time, he read children’s encyclopedias on American history –⁠ including one where he learned about American spy Nathan Hale, which made him fantasize about becoming a spy himself.

At Catholic school, a somewhat rebellious teacher taught Brennan to think independently and question other people’s claims – which prepared Brennan well for his later career.

The key message here is: John Brennan’s early experiences prepared him for a career in intelligence.

When he got to college, Brennan began taking courses on international relations and comparative politics.

But it was the philosophy and theology courses that left the deepest impression on him.

In particular, he was fascinated by the theories of war offered by Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Their ideas would travel the world with Brennan during his later roles in the CIA.

It was also at this age that Brennan got his first taste of life overseas.

His cousin Tom was working at the US embassy in Indonesia and invited him to spend the summer there.

When Brennan stepped off the plane in Jakarta, he felt as if a door to an entirely new world had been opened for him.

The intense smells and the hot air were different than anything he’d ever experienced.

The city also offered him his first exposure to the American diplomatic community, whose members impressed him with their patriotism and dedication.

This wasn’t Brennan’s only overseas experience during this time.

At the beginning of his sophomore year, he received a brochure about the American University in Cairo, Egypt.

On the way home that same day, Brennan happened to hear a radio broadcast about the assassination of Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal.

The political intrigue deepened Brennan’s interest in the region, and a few days later he informed his parents that he wanted to go to school in Cairo.

Brennan entered the CIA as an analyst covering the Middle East.

Brennan departed for Cairo on September 15, 1975.

He quickly became enthralled by the city’s intoxicating atmosphere, the dramatic backdrop of the pyramids, and the towering Sphinx.

As well as the famous sights, he also fell in love with the Egyptian people, who were unfailingly welcoming and kind.

During his time in Cairo, Brennan began to learn Arabic.

He also visited Jerusalem and the West Bank, a thrilling but humbling experience.

He had to return to America only a few short months later –⁠ but this was not his last experience of the Middle East.

In fact, his career would lead him back there soon.

The key message here is: Brennan entered the CIA as an analyst covering the Middle East.

Not long after graduating from college, Brennan noticed a CIA job advertisement in the New York Times.

He decided to apply, and to his surprise he was invited for an interview.

There, he was told to first attend graduate school and then ask the CIA for a position six months before his graduation.

It seemed a long time to wait.

While in graduate school, Brennan enjoyed his studies on international politics, national security issues, and the Middle East.

But his interest in academic work soon began to wane.

So he decided to fill out his CIA application a bit early.

The CIA gave him a call, and Brennan started jumping through the many hoops required to enter the organization.

One he remembers vividly is the polygraph test.

During the test, he admitted that in 1976 he had voted for the Communist Party candidate Gus Hall as a protest against political partisanship.

Brennan feared a rebuke from the polygrapher, but he needn’t have worried.

The polygrapher told Brennan it was his sacred American right to vote for whomever he chose, and that it would have no bearing on his application to the CIA.

Finally, months after the litany of tests, Brennan received his offer for a full-time position at the CIA.

He completed his orientation and two interim assignments, where he was introduced to the agency’s intelligence-collection capabilities and its relationships with foreign services.

Afterward, he was ready to take on his first official position.

He would be an analyst in the Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis, or NESA – a perfect fit.

Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Brennan made major leaps in his CIA career.

Early on in his tenure at the CIA, Brennan became well acquainted with the sacrifices the agency required.

Long hours, extreme secrecy, and an erratic schedule all took their toll.

These challenges affected not only Brennan but also his wife, Kathy.

In spring 1982, Brennan was selected to serve a two-year rotation as a political officer at the US embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

For Kathy, there were considerable drawbacks to living in the Middle East’s most socially conservative country –⁠ like the fact that she wouldn’t legally be allowed to drive.

Even so, she agreed to accompany John.

During the two years in Jeddah, Brennan discovered how embassies function, gave briefings to the US ambassador and explored Saudi Arabian politics.

But by the end, he and Kathy were ready to return to America and take on new challenges.

The key message here is: Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Brennan made major leaps in his CIA career.

After returning to the USA, Kathy and John decided to start a family.

Their first son, Kyle, was born in April 1986.

This momentous occasion was followed by a few equally momentous developments in Brennan’s career.

First, Brennan was asked to be the principal drafter of a special intelligence-community report called an estimate.

It would represent the intelligence community’s best judgments on the implications of an Iranian victory in the Iran–Iraq War.

This enticed Brennan to join the Issues Branch, a CIA division that focused on Middle East and South Asian regional topics like extremism, nuclear proliferation, and Arab–Israeli tensions.

Brennan was soon made chief of the Issues Branch in late 1988.

Then, after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, CIA leaders decided that Brennan’s talents and experience were needed in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.

Brennan took on a whole new set of responsibilities, like giving important intelligence briefings to the US president, George H.

W.

Bush.

These weren’t to be the only presidential briefings Brennan would give.

By the summer of 1992, Brennan had returned to his old workplace, NESA, to become the deputy chief of the Arab–Israeli division.

While in that position, Brennan was tapped to be one of the daily intelligence briefers for incoming President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

During this period, Brennan also built up an important relationship with George J.

Tenet – someone who would soon join the top ranks of CIA leadership.

George Tenet was a boisterous, jovial, and wise-cracking individual who served as the CIA’s deputy director and then director between 1995 and 2004.

The terrorist attacks of the early 2000s reshaped the American intelligence community.

He was nicknamed the “space invader” due to his propensity to get a bit too up-close-and-personal during conversations.

Not long after their first meeting, Tenet selected Brennan as his executive assistant.

Later, in 1999, Tenet made him chief of staff.

It was while in this challenging position that Brennan witnessed one of the greatest tragedies in modern American history.

The date of September 11, 2001, is etched into the collective consciousness of America.

It was the day that a plane hijacked by radical Islamist terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, reducing the towers to rubble and killing thousands.

The tragedy also transformed the CIA.

The key message here is: The terrorist attacks of the early 2000s reshaped the American intelligence community.

One of the programs that began in the wake of 9/11 was particularly controversial.

It was called the Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation covert-action program, or RDI.

Nowadays, the RDI is infamous for having authorized so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” such as waterboarding, which were used to elicit intelligence information from detainees.

When Brennan first became acquainted with just how far the RDI went, he was deeply disturbed.

Yet he chose not to speak up against the program –⁠ a decision he regrets.

Although he believes that the RDI did result in the CIA obtaining information that saved American lives, he agrees that it went much too far in its brutal methods.

The War on Terror also led the CIA to rethink its structure.

There were various legal, cultural, and organizational obstacles that made it difficult to foresee and prevent terror attacks, like the agency’s unwillingness to share intelligence broadly.

With that in mind, President George W.

Bush ordered the formation of a new multi-agency organization that would have access to all terrorism-related threat information.

And Brennan was asked to create it.

For someone who had no experience in designing or building organizations, it was quite the professional challenge.

Yet Brennan rose to it.

In August 2004, the new National Counterterrorism Center was codified into law.

Since he wasn’t chosen to be the center’s first director, and since he’d already spent 25 years in the CIA, Brennan decided to leave the agency and head into the private sector.

Barack Obama inspired Brennan to return to government service.

In late January 2008, Brennan was serving as president and CEO of an intelligence analysis firm called The Analysis Corporation.

That particular month, he was visiting Dubai for a board meeting when he turned on CNN.

It was broadcasting a speech by Barack Obama, who had just won the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary.

Obama’s eloquent, inspiring rhetoric articulated a hopeful dream for America’s future.

Brennan had never registered as a Democrat or a Republican, and he’d voted for candidates of both parties over the years.

However, after hearing that speech, Brennan decided to get involved with Obama’s campaign.

It began with a generous donation.

Then he was asked to offer national security advice to the campaign.

In November 2008, Brennan finally received an invitation to meet Obama himself, who by then was president-elect.

The key message here is: Barack Obama inspired Brennan to return to government service.

After the meeting, he wasn’t sure whether he’d just participated in a job interview or a courtesy call – but there was more to come.

A few days later, Brennan received a phone call from an unidentified number.

“Hello?

” Brennan said.

“Hi, John, it’s Barack,” came the response.

Brennan was taken aback.

But he was even more flabbergasted when Obama got to the point of the call.

He told Brennan that he wanted him to become director of the CIA.

Brennan was profoundly honored and immediately accepted Obama’s offer.

However, that didn’t mean he had the job yet.

He had to go through the Senate confirmation process, which would involve intense scrutiny of his professional and personal life.

Unfortunately, Brennan didn’t come out of the process unscathed.

Left-wing senators heavily criticized Brennan for his tenure as a senior CIA officer during the controversial RDI program.

Comments that Brennan had made on CBS were dredged up to imply that Brennan had supported it.

Eventually, the flames of criticism simply grew too hot.

Brennan chose to withdraw his name from consideration for the CIA director position.

But doing so opened the door to a different role –⁠ one that didn’t require Senate confirmation.

Obama asked him to be his Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

Brennan accepted the position, and he soon found himself working at the White House, just one floor beneath the Oval Office.

Brennan bore witness to the CIA operation that brought Osama Bin Laden to justice.

As Obama’s principal homeland security and counterterrorism advisor, Brennan was suddenly faced with a host of unfamiliar responsibilities.

Though he had considerable knowledge of counterterrorism, he had never been on the policy side of discussions.

And homeland security was a different ballgame entirely.

Early in the administration, Brennan had to step up to help tackle new issues like the H1N1 flu pandemic.

He was also responsible for liaising between Obama and the intelligence community regarding lethal strikes.

Because unpiloted military drones were so destructive, the president personally approved any strikes against terrorist targets outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Killing one terrorist in particular, however, took an even greater level of attention.

The operation to kill the mastermind behind 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, was more intense, secretive, and thorough than any other that Brennan witnessed in his career.

The key message here is: Brennan bore witness to the CIA operation that brought Osama Bin Laden to justice.

In May 2009, Obama called a national-security meeting to discuss the CIA’s mission to pursue Bin Laden.

Unsatisfied with the committee’s progress, Obama ordered the CIA director, Leon Panetta, to come up with a detailed plan for finally locating him.

A little over a year later, in September 2010, Panetta delivered a major update –⁠ one requiring the utmost secrecy.

Just nine non-CIA members, including Brennan, the president, and vice president, were allowed to hear the information: the CIA had discovered the possible location of Bin Laden’s courier.

He was living in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Practically every day after that, Brennan spoke with the CIA’s deputy director, requesting updates.

Finally, three months later, the CIA confirmed that the Abbottabad compound was the “bed-down” location of Bin Laden’s courier and his family.

Additionally, someone else was living at the compound –⁠ an individual resembling Bin Laden.

Was that individual actually Bin Laden?

Right up until the very end, the CIA wasn’t entirely sure.

But nevertheless, plans for invading the compound began to materialize after this revelation.

On May 11, 2011, Brennan and the other officials gathered in the Situation Room to watch the operation unfold.

At 3:50 p.

m.

, General Webb, who was communicating with the strike team, received the signal word: “Geronimo!

” It meant that Bin Laden was dead.

No one whooped, cheered, or applauded.

Instead, everyone shared a moment of intense relief and satisfaction.

Justice had finally been served.

As the CIA’s director, Brennan drove major changes.

Obama’s first term as president was slowly drawing to a close, and Brennan was beginning to make plans to leave government service.

He was fairly confident that Obama would be reelected, so he was in no rush to head out the door.

Yet it seemed to him that the beginning of a second term for Obama was a good time to leave.

He had spent four years in the White House on top of his previous 25 years at the CIA, and he was ready for a break.

But that wasn’t to be.

Two days after Obama was reelected, the FBI announced that the CIA director, David Petraeus, was under active investigation.

After the announcement, Petraeus resigned, leaving open the position of CIA director.

On January 7, 2013, President Obama nominated Brennan.

The key message here is: As the CIA’s director, Brennan drove major changes.

This time around, Brennan made it out of the Senate confirmation process relatively unscathed, and he was confirmed.

Brennan was immensely proud to be the head of an organization that keeps America strong and safe, but he also knew the CIA wasn’t perfect.

Early on, he made it his mission to introduce a wide range of reforms.

For starters, Brennan wanted to tackle the CIA’s diversity problem.

To increase the opportunities for women and minorities at the CIA, Brennan encouraged two third-party reviews that assessed the CIA’s diversity performance.

The reviews found several major deficiencies and recommended action plans and strategies for improvement, which the CIA then implemented.

Next, to accelerate the CIA’s digital and cyber capabilities, Brennan created a brand-new directorate: the Directorate of Digital Innovation.

But that wasn’t the only organizational change the CIA required.

In fact, it needed a complete overhaul.

At the time, the CIA was still balkanized: the various specialists within the organization didn’t often interact.

To change that, Brennan decided to get rid of the four previous directorates and reorganize the CIA into ten different mission centers.

The new structure brought together the CIA’s various specialties, giving it increased efficiency and flexibility.

Finally, Brennan addressed various ethical concerns, like the CIA’s practice of spreading disinformation.

Brennan argued that this was at odds with American democratic values and that the US government should always convey its message using the truth.

Reshaping the CIA was certainly challenging.

But it was nothing compared to dealing with the continued fallout from the CIA’s RDI program.

The biggest challenge Brennan faced as CIA director was dealing with the fallout from the RDI program.

The CIA’s RDI program, with its controversial “enhanced interrogation techniques,” had ceased long before Brennan became the agency’s director.

Even so, Democrats, including President Obama, continued to criticize it strongly.

Obama publicly referred to CIA practices as “torture,” much to Brennan’s chagrin.

Additionally, two days after his inauguration in 2009, Obama had signed an executive order to end the program.

Despite Obama’s actions, Democrats weren’t satisfied.

In part, they were genuinely outraged over what they saw as human rights violations.

But that wasn’t all.

They also had partisan concerns in mind and wanted to score political points by dragging the Republican Bush administration through the mud.

So, in 2009, the Democrats decided to bring together the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate the CIA program.

The resulting clash was extremely time-consuming, distracting, and heated.

The key message here is: The biggest challenge Brennan faced as CIA director was dealing with the fallout from the RDI program.

Early in the Senate committee investigation, the CIA director, Leon Panetta, agreed to a precedent-setting request.

The committee wanted the CIA to use its own computers and funds to create a specialized, searchable digital database for them.

Despite backlash from the Obama administration, Panetta acquiesced to the committee and had his specialists build the database, termed the RDINet.

It contained a firewall that allowed users to access specific information depending on their login credentials.

While the Senate committee was combing through the database, the CIA launched its own review of the same material.

This resulted in a document termed the Panetta Review.

The Panetta Review group was ultimately ordered to cease its work later in 2009.

But things got complicated years later, in 2014, after Brennan had been confirmed as CIA director.

He was informed that, somehow, the Panetta Review had made it to the other side of the firewall –⁠ even though no one had authorized a transfer.

To get to the bottom of this, the CIA conducted a digital forensics search.

This simply involved looking for a specific binary code sequence on the other side of the firewall.

But during the course of that search, CIA technical experts inadvertently and inappropriately accessed four emails written by the Senate committee’s staff.

Brennan apologized privately and publicly for the misconduct.

But, regrettably, ambiguities in Brennan’s statement allowed various political players to promote the false and damaging narrative that the CIA had hacked into Senate computers.

It’s a myth that still lives on today.

Brennan’s dealings with Russian officials were fraught and tense.

Brennan’s first visit to Russia as CIA director was in June 2013.

While in Moscow, he had the opportunity to meet Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the Federal Security Service, or FSB – the successor organization to the KGB.

It has a well-deserved reputation for obeying the Kremlin’s every order,⁠ even when it asks them to commit murder and torture.

Bortnikov was affable and relaxed, and he greeted Brennan with a smile.

However, Brennan didn’t return the pleasant welcome.

At the meeting, Brennan delivered a stern rebuke of the FSB’s transgressions, which included, among other offenses, the physical assault of Americans in Russia.

In response, Bortnikov tried to lessen the tension with a grin and an admission that some of his officers may have gotten “carried away,” as he put it, in the course of their duties.

This was Bortnikov’s typical demeanor in all their subsequent meetings.

The key message here is: Brennan’s dealings with Russian officials were fraught and tense.

In 2015, Brennan met Bortnikov again –⁠ this time on Brennan’s home turf.

There, they discussed the ongoing turmoil in Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

The tensions in these countries –⁠ and between the USA and Russia –⁠ would only increase thereafter.

When it came to Syria, for instance, Russia was concerned that the Putin-backed dictator Bashar al-Assad would fall to the forces of Syrian rebels.

Unlike the USA, Russia was willing to deploy considerable resources to turn the tides of battle in Assad’s favor.

The Kremlin also repeatedly ignored agreements they made to cease fire in the city of Aleppo, resulting in the death or dislocation of millions of Syrians.

At the same time, Russia’s efforts to interfere in the US election were in full force.

Over the years, Russia has repeatedly used blackmail, intimidation, and disinformation to help elect their favored candidates.

But in 2016, Putin’s efforts were focused on using cyber attacks and targeted social-media campaigns to harm Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump in the presidential election.

Why?

Well, Putin and Clinton hadn’t had the best relationship when she was Secretary of State.

The Russian leader blamed Clinton for sparking antigovernment protests in Moscow.

Trump, on the other hand, was a businessman whose primary interest was in making deals.

Putin understood him and felt he could get him on his side.

In Brennan’s view, it’s all too apparent that Putin’s assessment was right.

In spite of the personal costs, Brennan has been an outspoken critic of Trump.

After first learning about Russia’s interference in the election, Brennan began consuming everything he could get his hands on about what the Kremlin had been up to.

He and his deputy quickly came to an agreement that the threat was serious –⁠ they needed to brief the president.

The CIA, FBI, and NSA pulled together a joint team to coordinate their intelligence, cross-check information, and develop a comprehensive understanding of the situation.

They also discussed whether the USA should hit Russia back with a cyber attack of its own.

Ultimately, they chose not to.

But there’s no way of knowing whether it would have made a difference.

In any case, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in November 2016.

Shortly thereafter, Brennan left government service.

However, Brennan quickly realized that he couldn’t retreat from the public eye just yet.

The key message here is: In spite of the personal costs, Brennan has been an outspoken critic of Trump.

On the day of his inauguration, Trump gave a speech at the CIA headquarters.

He was standing in front of the Memorial Wall, which is decorated with stars representing CIA members who had lost their lives in the line of duty.

But Trump wasn’t honoring their sacrifices.

Far from it.

Instead, he was bragging about his election victory and the size of the crowd at his inauguration.

Brennan knew he had to make a public statement about Trump’s disrespectful antics.

So he got in touch with a former White House colleague who had press connections.

With him, Brennan shared a statement conveying his sadness and anger at Trump’s display of self-aggrandizement.

Almost immediately, Brennan’s statement began appearing on cable news networks.

This was just the first of Brennan’s many public critiques of Trump.

He has denounced Trump’s record as president, his interactions with foreign leaders, and his politically motivated firings of public servants like FBI director James Comey and acting FBI director Andy McCabe.

Brennan’s challenges against the president have come at a cost.

He’s been denounced and insulted by Trump and his spokespeople.

He’s lost financial opportunities and potential speaking arrangements.

And the White House has even refused to return his official CIA records to him –⁠ a privilege never denied to a former director before.

But for Brennan, this is a price worth paying if it means helping to uphold the democracy he holds dear.

Through the criticism, threats, and false allegations he’s faced, Brennan has remained undaunted.

Final summary

The key message in these blinks: John Brennan grew up in a blue-collar family in New Jersey and took his first position in the CIA in 1980.

He left after 25 years but was inspired to return to government work by Barack Obama.

Under Obama, Brennan served as an assistant advisor on homeland security and counterterrorism and then CIA director, in which role he introduced reforms that greatly improved the CIA’s ability to carry out its mission.

Since leaving the CIA, Brennan has been a proudly relentless critic of Donald Trump and his administration.

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What to read next: Red Team, by Micah Zenko  So you’ve learned a little bit about the CIA and its successful operation to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden.

But a lot more planning went into that mission than we’ve covered here.

One critical aspect of the operation involved using a red team –⁠ a group of specialists whose job is to determine exploitable weaknesses in an organization, strategy, or security measure.

But governments aren’t the only organizations that can benefit from red teams.

To learn more about how these specialized teams work, how they can help keep citizens safe, and why they constantly face criticism and resistance, check out our blinks to Red Team.