John O. Brennan - Undaunted: My Fight Against Americas Enemies, At Home and Abroad

This is a memoir that I never expected to write.

Those are not just my words. They are also the opening words of A Look over My Shoulder, the posthumously published memoir of Richard Helms, who served as director of central intelligence from 1966 until 1973. I wouldnt be surprised if, like Helms, the other former CIA directors and acting directors who have written memoirsBill Colby, Bob Gates, George Tenet, Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, and Michael Morellnever thought they would write a memoir, until they did. I now join their ranks.

I had an extraordinarily rich thirty-three-year government career, working on a wide array of national security matters under the administrations of six presidents, from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama. As a kid growing up in a blue-collar northern New Jersey neighborhood, I never dreamed that I would one day work in the White House as a senior adviser to the president of the United States or become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the worlds greatest intelligence service. But, as fate would have it, I did both, witnessing history and maybe even helping shape a little bit of it along the way.

This memoir has two principal purposes. First, I want to share my experiences and perspectives on the fascinating and often mysterious world of national security. Over the course of my professional life, I have been queried by thousands of individualsjournalists, historians, academics, students, news junkies, family, friends, and neighborswho craved insight into what it was like to work in a world of secrets and to interact with presidents, cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, kings, princes, and high-ranking foreign officials on issues of great consequence to Americas security. By sharing my personal experiences, as well as some anecdotes of the missteps, joys, and heartbreaks that have marked my lifes journey, I hope to convey the challenges, responsibilities, and opportunities that accompany what I consider a most noble profession. And if this memoir encourages even just a few more talented young Americans to pursue careers in public service, I will consider it a resounding success.

My second reason for writing this book pivots off the first, which is to correct some of the mischaracterizations and falsehoods that have been propagated over the yearssome purposefully, others unintentionallyabout the CIA, the national security community, and individual government officials, including me. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump and his supporters have been among the most recent and prolific purveyors of inaccurate information and disparaging commentary about the members and work of the intelligence community. I realize that I am unlikely to alter the views and public claims of those driven by ideological, political, or personal agendas and who are not interested in the truth, but I feel an obligation to present as accurate an account of the facts as I can. I have never been a member of any political party and am frequently a critic of both Democrats and Republicans. This memoir will likely burnish my well-deserved reputation of being an equal-opportunity offender.

When I made the decision in the fall of 2018 to write a memoir, I requested the opportunity, as did all previous directors and acting directors who wrote memoirs before me, to review my official records. Specifically, I asked for access to classified and unclassified records that I originated, reviewed, signed, or received while serving as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 8 March 2013 to 20 January 2017. The arrangements for such access are stipulated in an executive order, and all such requests by other former directors were promptly and routinely approved. Not so in my case, as I have been denied access to any classified information. After eleven months of haggling, the CIA in November 2019 provided only heavily redacted copies of my daily calendars and the tables of contents of my daybooks, which held information relevant to my daily schedule. The material I was given was labeled FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY, which means that it cannot be publicly disclosed but can be used for reference. All entries that referenced my foreign trips, calls with foreign officials, and other information that would have been useful were deemed classified by the CIA and were blacked out. Had I been given access to my actual records, no classified material would have been revealed to the public in this memoir because I am required, like all former CIA officers, to submit the manuscript to the CIA for a classification review before its publication.