Hannah Hofrichter. On the evening of Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024, the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security hosted their event, Susan Gordon: A Life in Intelligence. There were over 150 individuals registered to attend this event in-person, and over 200 individuals registered to attend online.
This event centered on a conversation with former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (PDDNI), The Honorable Susan Gordon, who served in this role from 2017 through 2019. Prior to this role, she had also served as Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and had served in numerous leadership positions across multiple directorates of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—where she spearheaded the development of its private venture arm, In-Q-Tel. Today, Gordon is a Senior Fellow at Duke and Harvard, in addition to serving as a board member, director, senior advisor, and consultant at a number of contracting firms.
The conversation with Gordon was moderated by Hayden Center Senior Fellow David Priess. Priess formerly worked as an intelligence officer, manager, and daily intelligence briefer for the CIA and had previously worked as a desk officer in the State Department’s Near East Bureau. Currently, he is the Director of Intelligence for Bedrock Knowledge, Inc. and is a frequent commentator on national security issues both on television and in print.
This event opened with Mark Rozell, Dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government, remarking on the importance of the Hayden Center, its work, and its non-partisan nature. Following Rozell’s remarks, the Director of the Hayden Center—former Chief of Staff to the Director of the CIA and former Senior Director of the White House Situation Room, Larry Pfeiffer—then informed people about how to subscribe for updates about the Hayden Center and its events, shared information regarding the Hayden Center’s social media presence, welcomed The Honorable Susan Gordon, and introduced David Priess as the moderator.
The conversation that Priess led with Gordon spanned Gordon’s experiences and thoughts. The conversation opened with a discussion about Duke’s current basketball teams and their skill, then flowed into Gordon’s experiences there as a three-time captain of the women’s basketball team and the ways in which this experience was valuable for her. Following this, Priess asked Gordon what it was like entering the CIA with a background in zoology. She explained that she had been hired for analysis on biological warfare but her job was eliminated in 1980 and she pivoted to research on Soviet missiles.
Regarding this change, Gordon grinned and opined, “Mechanical engineering is just applied zoology.” She further elaborated that “Zoology is an inductive science… You have to seek to understand [systems]… This is what intelligence is.” With all of the innovation Susan Gordon spurred during her career, Priess asked her what compelled her to continually seek new challenges. She responded that whatever job she was assigned, she endeavored to learn it fully, and she focused on the work and doing it well rather than worrying about what other people were doing. When the moderator probed more about her success, she responded that she was able to enact changes successfully because she had a boss who understood what needed to be done and trusted the team. Gordon then proceeded to talk about George Tenet, Ruth David, the process of In-Q-Tel’s creation, how well it has worked, and the decisions that were made that allowed it to be so successful. This line of thought then led to a discussion on the importance of analytic tools in intelligence analysis and the general importance of foundational infrastructure to allow the Intelligence Community to act on information in a meaningful way.
Then, Priess asked Gordon to explain how she got people “on-board” to see that technology increases opportunities and should not only be seen as a risk. In response to this, she responded that everyone loathes change but “irrelevance is worse.” She pointed out that risks cannot be wished away and that the only way to deal with the concern of risks is to work the problem, get people involved, and to utilize available resources. Following this, Priess asked Gordon to address an opinion piece in the media talking about cutting government programs, with a specific focus on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). She responded that no one in the government thinks the government should be as sprawling as it is, and she stated that while DNI is the weakest statutorily, without it, “we would never have integrated domestic intelligence agencies in a meaningful way.” Elaborating on this statement, Gordon said, “when it became a digital world… they knew the Intelligence Community couldn’t have chased [adversaries] if they were here and we couldn’t have integrated those [domestic intelligence agencies].”
After this discussion, Priess encouraged Gordon to offer some remarks on her time as Director of Support at the CIA, stating that many people speak about the work of operators and analysts but very few speak of the importance of support. Gordon responded by saying she loved working in that position and that it is “probably the one job she really hated leaving.” She stated that the Directorate of Support handles issues of logistics, HR, IT, security, and facilities. She further stated that it is a discipline with a lot of complexity.
To conclude the event, the audience asked a few questions. One audience member asked The Honorable Susan Gordon what strategies she relies on “to bring people along and see what they need to do.” She responded with, “There are a few things that only leaders can do. One of them is you really need to see very clearly what is, not what you prefer—and you have to see that within the domain of what you have. Be really clear on what you see in the moment. Given what I see in this domain, what should I do about it?” Gordon also recommended talking about this challenge with the people in question and stated that a leader should emphasize what positive impacts the group’s actions can have.
Hannah Hofrichter is an undergraduate Honors College student at George Mason University
pursuing a B.S. in Psychology with a Concentration in Forensic Psychology. At George Mason,
she is a co-founder and the current President of a student organization, the Intelligence
Community Network (ICN).
