Martha Kesler was a long-serving Central Intelligence Agency Syria analyst and the author of Syria: Fragile Mosaic of Power, a book the agency distributed to newly hired Middle East analysts as the canonical example of how CIA analytical work should be done. “When you got hired, you got her book — and you had to read the book, because like, this is what we do. This is the perfect example of what we do.”[1][2]
The Brennan firing
Kesler was the first CIA supervisor of John Brennan. In approximately December 1993 or 1994, with Brennan having served years as her deputy at GS-15 rank, Brennan approached her and asked for her endorsement for promotion to the Senior Intelligence Service (SIS). Kesler’s response — recounted to John Kiriakou by her daughter:
Not only will you never be a member of the senior intelligence service — I don’t even want you working for me anymore. You’re fired.[2]
Because firings in the CIA take the form of a six-week internal-job-search window rather than immediate termination, Brennan was given six weeks to find another position or be escorted off the premises with his badge taken. The timing — the week before Christmas — was structurally unfavorable: normal CIA job turnover happens in the summer. Brennan eventually found the only available position: morning briefer on the President’s Daily Brief staff, where he was assigned the lowest-ranking person entitled to a PDB briefing — the National Security Council Director for Intelligence Programs, a man named George Tenet.[3][4][5]
Kesler’s own subsequent firing
When Tenet became Deputy Director of the CIA, he brought Brennan back with him and placed him as Deputy Director of the office in which Kesler worked — that is, as Kesler’s direct superior. Brennan then called Kesler in and reciprocated her earlier action verbatim: “Now you’re fired.” Kesler chose to retire rather than walk the corridors.[6]