Sue Gordon, Deputy Director of US Intelligence: What America Needs From Its Leaders
Stumbling Blocks: How Great Leaders Are MadeShow Notes
Sue Gordon once oversaw 100,000 women and men of the U.S. intelligence community as Deputy Director of National Intelligence, the number two role in American spycraft.
She briefed Presidents Reagan, HW Bush, Clinton, W Bush, Obama, and Trump. She managed a $100 billion budget.
And in August 2019, she handed Vice President Pence her resignation letter with a handwritten note: "I offer this letter as an act of respect and patriotism, not preference. You should have your team. Godspeed, Sue."
Since then, life has come at her hard. Both parents died. Her husband Jim, the love of her life for 43 years, died unexpectedly. She has faced two rounds with cancer, the second one far more deadly than the first.
And she says she's the most blessed woman in the world.
In this conversation, Sue goes deep on:
The U.S. strikes on Iran and what she sees that most Americans don't What the Epstein files actually reveal about how power protects itself Why she almost ran for President Why she quit the CIA with two weeks' notice to be a better mom How the Trump administration publicly excoriated a 40-year career civil servant, and what she chose to do instead of fighting back Why she thinks America needs to fix a system the Founders never designed for this much speed What she wants every woman in a man's world to know, and what she wants the good men to finally do about it The doorways of grief, and how to move through them
This is Sue Gordon in full: the spy, the mom, the widow, the patient, the patriot. Unfiltered. Funny. Occasionally heartbreaking. Always worth your time.
Find her podcast, Understandable Insights here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/understandable-insights-information-to-intelligence/id1827249845
Books and Works Mentioned: A Severe Mercy
The Price We Pay
An Immense Journey
Sue's Resignation Letter
If this episode is worthy of your time, please share it and leave a review. It's how we grow.
More from Stumbling Blocks: How Great Leaders Are Made
In 2016, a former PEOPLE reporter named Natasha Stoynoff said Donald Trump attacked her during an interview at Mar-a-Lago. Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, the Washington Bureau Chief for PEOPLE Magazine, made a business and editorial decision: She would stand by her friend and colleague. The magazine would cover the President's policies, but it would not cover his family the way it had covered every other First Family. This is the story of that decision... and what happened next.
Tim Creasey: Chief Innovation Officer, Prosci: How to Lead Change
On 9/11/2001, Scott Stanzel was 28 years old, working his dream job at the White House when Secret Service agents came running down the halls, throwing open doors and shouting at everyone to get out. They had two minutes.
Most crisis experts have never actually sat in the room when everything fell apart. Jim Olson has. He was head of communications at US Airways when Flight 1549 landed on the Hudson. He was at Starbucks when its flagship store in Jakarta was bombed. And he was at United Airlines the night Dr. David Dao was dragged off a plane and it became one of the first viral crises in business history.
Kelli Arena spent her career at CNN telling the public what powerful people would rather keep quiet. She covered the Justice Department, won an Emmy, and reported the Moussaoui trial, the only 9/11 case tried in an American civilian courtroom. After Kelli left journalism, she went into another form of public service, serving as Chief of Communications for the National Security Agency, spending eight years helping the Agency find its voice.