Central Intelligence Agency - Obama Presidency Oral History Back Central Intelligence Agency Index / Organizations Transcripts James Clapper ...of stomping on the—intruding on the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] tour... ...stomping on the—intruding on the CIA [ Central Intelligence Agency ] tours where the military wa... ...best resided with and practiced by the CIA rather than elements connected to th... ...the arrangement where the director of CIA was also the director of centra... ...ended, then his tenure as CIA director ended. But we were prett... ...associate, of Bob Gates back in their CIA days. Of course, Mike was a legendar... ...his principal focus, frankly, was on CIA and the aversion to, or opposition to... ...being the DNI and the director of CIA . But he, as you know, is a ver... ...of experience in intelligence, career CIA officer, and he was the founder, th... ...the way, when the PDB was done only by CIA . They weren't looking for anybody t... ...became a community product, not just CIA —I mean CIA is still dominant, but i... ...community product, not just CIA—I mean CIA is still dominant, but it was ... ...would argue they were yelling, “ CIA ! CIA!” I don't know if that's true o... ...would argue they were yelling, “CIA! CIA !” I don't know if that's true or not... ...And Leon Panetta was ideally suited as CIA director. He understood that it was... ...for signs of instability—the CIA , particularly. They have metrics the... ...the Director of National Intelligence, CIA , FBI, and, to a lesser extent, NSA... ...experts from across the three agencies— CIA , FBI, NSA—and ODNI [Office of th... Show more... John Brennan ...2013 to 2017, he was director of the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA]. These appointments came during ... ...of the Central Intelligence Agency [ CIA ]. These appointments came during ... ...work. Mr. Brennan served with the Central Intelligence Agency from 1980 to 2005, in a number o... ...studies. And I applied for a job at the Central Intelligence Agency . I had noticed an ad in the New Yor... ...and had studied some Arabic, the CIA decided to take a chance on me. So i... ...me. So in August of 1980, I joined the CIA . As you noted, I stayed twenty-fiv... ...then I built upon it with my time at CIA . I'm looking forward to your book fo... ...House official and then as director of CIA , I was sent frequently to the Middl... ...for over five years while I was in CIA , and so therefore I had established ... ...I was able to leverage my time in the CIA in support of Obama administratio... ...book, I tried to address my time at the CIA , as well as my time at the Whit... ...total; twenty-five years first in the CIA and eight years in the Obam... ...about what it's like to work in the CIA , what it's like to work in the Whit... ...career, and I talked about my time at CIA , the types of things that I wa... ...asked me if I would be his director of Central Intelligence Agency . It was obviously a tremendou... ...I was no longer going to be director of CIA at the start of his administration, h... ...than I would have if I became CIA director at the start of hi... ...he first asked me to be director of the CIA . That was in November of 2008, again... ...that I was under consideration for the CIA director job. Well, there had bee... ...been quite a bit of criticism of the CIA during the George W. Bush years fo... ...and interrogation program that the CIA was tapped to conduct. At the time o... ...the time of that program, I was CIA 's deputy executive director, which i... ...on the campaign trail, to select a CIA officer who had been a part of the CI... ...CIA officer who had been a part of the CIA when that program was in force. Th... ...and my outspokenness during my CIA career, which is what I think a lot o... ...of years later, to actually go back to CIA as its director. But I wa... ...me to join his administration, not as CIA director, but as his assistant fo... ...to mean for the community itself? The CIA was already under a lot of criticism b... ...in the corridors of Langley [ CIA Headquarters] about what this ne... ...the fact that he tapped me, as a former CIA officer, and I knew a lot of the CI... ...CIA officer, and I knew a lot of the CIA officials—I knew Mike Hayden, who wa... ...Mike Hayden, who was the director of CIA at the time. In some respects, it was ... ...it was a reassuring signal to the CIA that he, President Obama, greatl... ...of the intelligence community and the CIA . So my focus during the transition wa... ...group also had former officials of CIA and other agencies. Again, I thin... ...respects, it was—in all respects, the CIA and the intelligence community reall... ...or discontinued or initiated. But the CIA has been fairly used to saluting t... ...clearly getting full briefings from the CIA and others about what was happening... ...of Leon Panetta to head up the CIA early on was also a very, ver... ...it sent a very good signal to CIA when I stepped away from tha... ...the intelligence community, and the CIA in particular was quite frustrated a... ...when there were indications that the CIA had a lead on an individual who the... ...Michael Morrell, the deputy director of CIA , come down to the White House and tol... ...the subsequent months, the CIA and their intelligence community siste... ...there was a real effort by the CIA to get as much intelligence a... ...that the secretary of defense and the CIA director and other people were able t... ...my point to the president was that the CIA experts were convinced that it was bi... ...was pivoting off of the strength of the CIA view, which I felt was more informe... ...term? Before I had retired from the CIA the first time, I was introduced to th... ...and get into your time as director of CIA and cover the range of geopolitica... ...2013 to 2017, he was director of the Central Intelligence Agency , which is the period we'll be focusin... ...twenty-five-year career with the CIA . In this interview, we will not b... ...important. Given your background in the CIA , we were talking about terroris... ...in acts of violence. When I was at the CIA , I was looking at any type o... ...in 2012, and you became director of the CIA in the spring of 2013. You wer... ...security advisor to director of the Central Intelligence Agency . I was planning to leave th... ...that after twenty-five years in the CIA , and then another four years of rathe... ...But then David Petraeus left the CIA , and then President Obama asked m... ...At the time, the deputy director of CIA , Michael Morell, a very clos... ...in-depth, and controversial review of CIA 's controversia... ...until I saw it, because I knew that the CIA had some concerns about some of th... ...if I were confirmed as director of CIA , to basically come clean on what th... ...to basically come clean on what the CIA had done. I said if I was confirmed, ... ...I be objective, could I be the type of CIA director that's needed to make sur... ...that the intelligence coming out of CIA was is going to be as objective... ...retired in 2014, I invited him to be on CIA 's advisory board, my advisory board... ...though I was fulfilling my role as the CIA director. You brought up something ... ...with him when he was the director of CIA , director of Central Intelligence a... ...beneficial was, when I returned to CIA , I had a much better appreciation fo... ...you live in a certain world, like the CIA , you tend to have maybe an exaggerate... ...exaggerated view of the role that the CIA or intelligence plays in that polic... ...that I wanted to do when I returned to CIA to make CIA's voice much mor... ...to do when I returned to CIA to make CIA 's voice much more impactful... ...that I'd like to think helped the CIA , during my tenure, to be all that i... ...years. It ultimately results in, the CIA 's inspector general releases a repor... ...report in 2014 which explains that the CIA did act inappropriately, I think is th... ...Senate staffers' computers, that the CIA had established an agreement in orde... ...if I can parse it a bit. As far as the CIA 's detention-interrogation program i... ...appropriately and fairly, said that CIA officers who were asked to implemen... ...of Justice—he didn't want to hold those CIA officers culpable for doing anythin... ...of Justice, to see whether or not any CIA officers needed to be criminall... ...Now, there were individuals in CIA who had administrative sanctions appl... ...witch hunt and try to, again, hold the CIA to account. So what I found with th... ...even-handed and a fair look at what the CIA 's role was in the aftermath o... ...that, more than any other organization, CIA prevented following attacks by Al-Qaed... ...attacks by Al-Qaeda because of what the CIA was able to do, worldwide, working wit... ...focused on all the bad things that the CIA reportedly did. But also, I think i... ...a one-sided view of the bad that the CIA might have been involved in, but put i... ...the heroic actions that a lot of CIA officers took to save the lives o... ...fellow citizens. At the same time, CIA has to be held to account for an... ...failings in terms of poor management. CIA had never undertaken a program lik... ...far as the issue related to the CIA accessing information on computers tha... ...that were used by the Senate—they were CIA computers, and I think there has been ... ...Panetta agreed to a Senate request that CIA set up a computer system that th... ...documents. That was a system that the CIA designed and was responsible fo... ...security. At a point in time, and in my CIA tenure, we became aware that the Senat... ...Senate committee staff environment. So CIA had an obligation, in respects, t... ...that were used by Senate staffers. So CIA , then, conducted a forensic check t... ...and consequential in terms of the CIA and Senate relationship, and I gues... ...bottom line is that in that review that CIA security folks did, they di... ...what happened. That aspect of what the CIA officers did was inappropriate an... ...wrong, and I acknowledge such. But the CIA 's access to its own computer system... ...do. So I know that the reports that the CIA was spying on Senate computers—again... ...were not Senate computers. They were CIA computers being used by the Senat... ...system, we had to see whether other CIA systems, that had tremendousl... ...always will be people who will condemn CIA for both the detention program an... ...as well as for what happened with those CIA computers used by Senate staffers, bu... ...out between the Senate committee and CIA was novel, was it not? Was that th... ...were doing, in terms of accessing a CIA document that they weren't entitled to... ...system is so novel,” as you say, “the CIA and the Senate security folks should b... ...Dianne that if my review indicates that CIA officers did anything wrong, I wil... ...tries to keep things inside. But the CIA followed through, and we conducted a... ...I apologized for that activity that the CIA officers involved in that wa... ...happened, it was very appropriate for CIA to conduct that review. She very muc... ...as, “Well, Brennan admitted that the CIA was spying on Senate computers.” No... ...I think important mistake that the CIA security officers made in their review... ...just having become the director of the CIA , how the revelations made by Edwar... ...just the way I sat on top of CIA , and Mike Rogers is sitting on to... ...you felt as well, as director of CIA , or were you separate from that? No... ...pieces of your legacy at the CIA that I wanted to ask you about were th... ...the first new directorate created at CIA in quite some time. But if there ar... ...and how were you trying to shape the CIA 's role in the Intelligenc... ...By the time I returned to the CIA in 2013, the agency's organizationa... ...to better integrating and leveraging CIA 's capabilities across the enterprise... ...that I thought the approach that the CIA continued to take, despite all th... ...this review team that I think that the CIA , in fact, should do something ver... ...I came back from the White House to CIA —and at the White House I did have th... ...portfolio—I was very concerned that the CIA cyber capabilities, both from ... ...at least the intelligence tradecraft at CIA are maintained. So that wa... ...takes place, and just the way the CIA has operated for decades in th... ...for decades in the physical domain, the CIA and US Intelligence Community have t... ...and other players and actors that the CIA needs to understand what they'r... ...operate. So I tried to ensure that the CIA was going to be positioned well i... ...process was to, again, position CIA for the future, as opposed to jus... ...past. I felt that, since I had been at CIA previously and had a lot of experience... ...not just to be a caretaker of CIA 's capabilities, but to really do wha... ...I could do in order to better position CIA for the challenges of the twenty-firs... ...intelligence services, including the CIA , to operate clandestinely around th... ...clandestinely around the globe. So the CIA needs to be thinking about how we'r... ...the world. So I think these changes at CIA were necessary and important. I'm gla... ...fact, when I was speaking to a group of CIA officers, they asked, “When is thi... ...the whole impetus behind what I did at CIA . And I told President Obama what ... ...about President Obama, that when I got CIA , he let me lead that organization. H... ...and now, but also making sure that the CIA is able to deal with the challenges o... ...my Middle East background, because the CIA has some of the world's greates... ...as a result of this conflict. The CIA had certain capabilities. We worke... ...environment. And intelligence and CIA try to do the best in terms of keepin... ...But at the same time, you joined the CIA in the 1980s. You had served during th... ...those four years that you were with the CIA surprise you, or did you see some logi... ...wondered, as you became director of the CIA , to what extent was that rebalance... Show more... Rumana Ahmed ...his top-secret trips. I'd work with the CIA office in Langley with someone who ha... ...get that primarily working with our CIA counterparts who were read in, an... Robert Gates ...George H. W. Bush. His career with the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] began i... ...H. W. Bush. His career with the CIA [ Central Intelligence Agency ] began in 1966. He is the only caree... ...1966. He is the only career officer in CIA 's history to rise from an entry-leve... ...at the White House, coming down from CIA on loan for all those years, reall... ...[III]—and Bill Webster, the director of CIA for the first two and a half years o... ...that I had served on and observed from CIA is that while most of the people i... ...outgoing administration, and also the CIA , who would provide the dail... ...And it's clear that the troops at CIA like him, so I think he'll care abou... ...intelligence], and the director of CIA , and the national security adviso... ...early, maybe in 2012, when Petraeus, as CIA director, and Clinton were arguing fo... ...couldn't agree, they'd just turn to CIA and ask for covert action, whic... Show more... Chuck Hagel ...had asked me about, early on, being a CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] director... ...asked me about, early on, being a CIA [ Central Intelligence Agency ] director. I had told them right u... ...team, the people who ran the CIA and FBI [Federal Bureau o... ...take them out. We would go out to the CIA and spend a day out there with th... ...out there with the senior people at the CIA . Actually go into the rooms and as... ...I think he took the job coming from the CIA to DOD [Department of Defense] just a... ...interagency worked well. Obviously the CIA was critically important for ou... ...talking about that around the table, CIA director, FBI director, attorne... Show more... William Taylor ...people in the State Department and at CIA and the Defense Department. And h... Michael Posner ...of Education, Bureau of Prisons, CIA , wherever it was, Homelan... Load more Transcripts Related Topics go to the Transition Transition go to the Elections and Campaigns Elections and Campaigns go to the Arts and Humanities Arts and Humanities go to the Immigration Immigration go to the Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa