George John Tenet was born on January 5,1953 and is an American intelligence official and academic who served as the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.
34 Facts About George Tenet
2.
George Tenet played a key role in overseeing intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction in advance of the Iraq War.
3.
George John Tenet was born on January 5,1953, in Flushing, New York, the son of Greek immigrants Evangelia and John Tenet.
4.
George Tenet's father was from the ethnic Greek community of Himara, in Albania, and worked in a coal mine in France before arriving in the United States via Ellis Island, just before the Great Depression.
5.
George Tenet's mother was from Epirus, Greece, and had fled from the communists by stowing away on a Royal Navy submarine.
6.
George Tenet was raised in Little Neck, Queens, where as a teenager, he and his older brother Bill worked as busboys in their family's diner, the Twentieth Century Diner.
7.
George Tenet played basketball and softball for his Greek Orthodox church, where he was an altar server.
8.
George Tenet attended Public School 94, where he was president of his sixth grade class; Junior High School 67; and Benjamin N Cardozo High School.
9.
George Tenet was a staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1985 to 1988, then Staff Director of the SSCI from 1988 to 1993.
10.
Later, George Tenet joined President-elect Bill Clinton's national security transition team in November 1992.
11.
George Tenet was implicated in an illegal wiretapping case brought by Richard Horn.
12.
George Tenet was appointed Deputy Director of Central Intelligence in July 1995.
13.
George Tenet was then officially appointed Director on July 11,1997, after a unanimous confirmation vote in the Senate.
14.
George Tenet embarked on a mission to regenerate the CIA, which had fallen on hard times since the end of the Cold War.
15.
George Tenet appealed to the original mission of the agency, which had been to "prevent another Pearl Harbor".
16.
George Tenet focused on potential problems such as "the transformation of Russia and China", "rogue states" like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, and terrorism.
17.
In testimony before a congressional committee, George Tenet later admitted the strike was the only one in the campaign organized and directed by his agency, though he still claimed it was not deliberate.
18.
In 1999 George Tenet put forward a grand "Plan" for dealing with al-Qaeda.
19.
George Tenet placed Cofer Black in charge of the CTC, and Richard Blee in charge of the CTC's Bin Laden unit.
20.
George Tenet advised cautiously on the matter at a meeting of the Cabinet-level Principals Committee on September 4,2001.
21.
The "previously reluctant" George Tenet then ordered the Agency to do so.
22.
The 19-page summary states that George Tenet knew the dangers of Al Qaeda well before September 2001, but that the leadership of the CIA did not do enough to prevent any attacks and that George Tenet personally "bears ultimate responsibility" for the intelligence community's failure to develop a plan to counter al Qaeda.
23.
George Tenet reacted to the publication of this report by calling it "flat wrong", citing in particular the planning efforts of the past two years.
24.
George Tenet immediately increased the size and capability of the CIA's special operations component housed in the Special Operations Group of the Special Activities Division.
25.
George Tenet presented the Worldwide Attack Matrix, a blueprint for what became known as the War on Terror.
26.
George Tenet proposed firstly to send CIA teams into Afghanistan to collect intelligence on, and mount covert operations against, al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
27.
George Tenet indicated that it was made pursuant to a discussion about how to convince the American people to support invading Iraq.
28.
George Tenet responded by saying "We've never done a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq" and resisted the request to provide one to Congress.
29.
Congress voted to support the Iraq war based on the NIE George Tenet provided in October 2002.
30.
George Tenet's official teaching began in the Fall term, 2005.
31.
In October 2006, George Tenet joined British defense contractor Qinetiq as an independent non-executive director.
32.
George Tenet is on the boards of directors of L-1 Identity Solutions, a biometric identification software manufacturer.
33.
George Tenet appeared on 60 Minutes on April 29,2007, offering much criticism of the Bush administration.
34.
In 1998, George Tenet received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.