<p>Mr. Brennan is a Fordham graduate. So was Bill Casey (deceased) and G. Gordon Liddy.</p>
<p>John O. Brennan </p>
<p>CIA
John O. Brennan, who is under consideration for director of national intelligence, has a 25-year career in intelligence, much of the time focused on terrorism. He was chief of staff to George J. Tenet, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and was the C.I.A.s station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the 1990s. As the first director of the National Counterterrorism Center, he won praise for riding herd over various spy agencies trying to protect their turf.</p>
<p>Anthony Lake, national security adviser to President Bill Clinton and an early Obama adviser, brought Mr. Brennan into the campaign, where he became a senior adviser on intelligence and security issues. Mr. Brennan is leading a review of intelligence agencies to make recommendations for the new administration. In The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (The Conundrum of Iran: Strengthening Moderates Without Acquiescing to Belligerence, July 2008), Mr. Brennan was quoted as saying: A critical step toward improved U.S.-Iranian relations would be for U.S. officials to cease public Iran-bashing, a tactic that may have served short-term domestic political interests but that has heretofore been wholly counterproductive to U.S. strategic interests. Rather than stimulating a positive change in Irans behavior, politically charged and wholesale condemnation of Iranian policies has energized and emboldened Iranian radicals at the expense of Iranian moderates.</p>
<p>Mr. Brennan delivered the morning intelligence briefing to President Clinton, a job he would have six days a week if he becomes director of national intelligence. He is currently president of the Analysis Corporation, an intelligence contracting firm.</p>
<p>As a senior adviser to Mr. Tenet in 2002, Mr. Brennan was present at the creation of the C.I.A.s controversial detention and interrogation program, which Mr. Obama has strongly criticized. But Mr. Brennan has distanced himself from the program, and told The Washington Times in October 2008 that interrogation methods like waterboarding are not going to be allowed under an Obama presidency. During a confirmation hearing, he could face criticism by former C.I.A. officers that while he was station chief in Saudi Arabia he was too risk averse in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.</p>
<p>Mr. Brennan, who speaks Arabic, is otherwise known as an unpretentious, hard-working New Jersey native. Born Sept. 22, 1955, he earned a bachelors degree from Fordham University and studied abroad at the American University of Cairo; he also holds a master's in government from the University of Texas. He and his wife, Kathy Pokluda Brennan, have a son and twin daughters.</p>
<p>The New Team</p>