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Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
Politics
Amy Mackinnon, Jack Detsch

After Biden Win, U.S. Intelligence Community ‘Probably Doing Cartwheels’

The seal of the CIA is seen at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on April 13, 2016. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

People working at the White House often take guests on tours of the historic building. But unlike others, during his two terms as vice president, Joe Biden made a point of taking guests down to the Situation Room, said Larry Pfeiffer, a veteran intelligence official then serving as the room’s senior director.

Biden would look over the team of analysts monitoring world events, point to them, and tell his guests, “These are the smartest people in the world,” Pfeiffer said. “That was something you didn’t have to do, but it went a heck of a long way to raising the morale of people who were working 12-hour shifts around the clock. It demonstrated a guy who really had a lot of respect for intelligence.” 

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