Those who saw the first Mission Impossible movie with Tom Cruise know that the NOC list had been stolen and Tom and company were to retrieve it to keep it from being sold and exposing the identities of all the agency’s NOC officers. In actual fact, there is no place where the true identities of all the Company’s NOC officers are kept on such a list. NOC officers are never referred to in their true names inside the Company. They are given a pseudonym, as are all CIA officers, and their cover company is given a cryptonym to be used in all correspondence and communications.
NOC officers receive the same basic employment benefits as other CIA personnel in their grade level. They receive the same annual leave and sick benefits, the same medical and hospitalization insurance, and the same retirement benefits. Where the policy of a NOC officer’s cover company differs with that of the CIA, then overtly the NOC officer must follow the policy of his cover company. Covertly, the CIA will make appropriate adjustments to ensure that the NOC is neither compensated too much nor deprived of his due allowances and benefits. NOC officers, however, do receive 20 percent premium pay over inside officers because of the extra demands and risks of the position.
Some thirty to forty years ago, Stations were allowed to recruit and train NOC officers from among the local US student and US expatriate communities. Such early NOC officers were hired as contract employees rather than staff officers. A staff officer in those days who volunteered for the NOC program was classified as a staff agent. In those early days the NOC program was essentially run between the Station and the corresponding Headquarters desk, and the treatment, training, and benefits of NOCs varied greatly. There was no centralized handling of NOC officers. Finding corporate cover was also sometimes a problem. This was the responsibility of the CIA’s Central Cover staff but it was a difficult process especially where the Stations made certain demands of the cover that was often hard to fulfill.
This all changed with the creation of the OED in the early 1980s. All recruiting and training of NOC officers as well as the development of commercial cover was centralized in the OED. As a result, while the bureaucracy and budget of the program grew, so did its effectiveness. Standards for NOC recruitment were established, as was the vetting process for NOC applicants. The CIA stopped the transfer of inside staff officers into the NOC program and all new NOCs were recruited clean without any hint of CIA or government affiliation. New standards resulted in recruitment of NOCs with real-world business experience, but at the same time it led to an elite group that was results-oriented with a disdain for bureaucracy.
The program grew rapidly, doubling the deployment of NOC officers worldwide between 1975 and 1986. By 1993, NOC overseas deployment grew another 50 percent, with the US Congress still pressing for an increase in the program. After the September 11th terrorist attacks, the US Congress provided additional funding and mandates for the CIA to continue expansion of the NOC program. Clearly, the strain on the CIA’s resources for recruitment, training, and management of such a significant increase and the lack of available commercial covers for these positions has reached a saturation point.
Actually, by the mid-1990s the NOC case officer pool awaiting cover arrangements for deployment overseas had exhausted available covers. Many US corporations had become reluctant to provide positions to the CIA; thus, the agency began to look toward smaller US businesses for cover. Often, however, these smaller businesses lacked the resources to serve the needs of the NOC officers in the field. Many lacked the financial foundation in terms of overall cash flow or profitability to truly justify the expense of placing an employee overseas. Such institutional problems create internal problems in smaller businesses where unwitting employees do not realize that the CIA is actually footing the bill to cover the NOC case officer’s expenses. Usually, in a business, large or small, only a handful of people, perhaps two or three people, are actually witting of the clandestine relationship with the CIA.
With changing priorities following the fall of the Soviet Union, the CIA began to seek covers to provide a higher degree of access by the NOC case officer to new targets of interest. As the CIA’s priorities changed as a result of new directions from US government policy makers, the CIA began to seek covers with access to terrorist targets, drug-related targets, money laundering, high-technology, and commercial competitiveness issues. The CIA has found it to be a significant challenge to obtain and to maintain commercial cover arrangements that provides such access.
Paramilitary Case Officer
The CIA maintains a cadre of very specialized personnel called Special Operations and Programs Officers (SOPO), or paramilitary case officers as we were called during the Vietnam War era. Fondly called “knuckle draggers” by insiders, the SOPO are largely recruited among the ranks of present and former US military personnel, mainly personnel with prior combat experience and military intelligence experience such as the Army Special Forces or Navy Seals.
The SOPO receive the same Basic Operations training at the Farm as other OC case officers. In addition, they receive six to eight months of specialized paramilitary operations training, such as small unit tactics and ambush operations, weapons training, parachute training, explosives training, desert, arctic, and tropical jungle escape, evasion, and survival training. While most SOPO have previously received such training as part of their military training, the CIA introduces its particular twist to this training based on the peculiar needs of the CIA.
The history of paramilitary operations in the CIA goes back to its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), during World War II. With the creation and growth of the CIA in the 1950s, little emphasis was given to such operations, and the cadre of paramilitary personnel from the OSS days were integrated into other CIA operations or released from service. It was not until the early 1960s and the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion that the CIA again placed an emphasis on paramilitary operations.
Then along came the Vietnam War. Its counterpart, known as the CIA’s private little war in Laos, resulted in CIA recruiting paramilitary personnel in large numbers. The special operations group within the CIA that was responsible was made a full-fledged Special Ops Division and given major funding to recruit, train, and deploy paramilitary case officers abroad to confront communist inspired insurgencies worldwide.
It is the SOPO who are intimately involved in the worldwide war on terror. SOPO are mainly deployed in hostile military theaters such as Iraq and Afghanistan. While they are not supposed to be directly involved in hostile military operations, they often find themselves drawn into such hostile zones by virtue of their work to collect intelligence. Often SOPO are involved in liaison operations with host country intelligence, security, and paramilitary forces. They may be “advisors” to local level host country security offices responsible for penetrating local terrorist cells. They may work with local paramilitary forces to fund, plan, and deploy teams to pursue terrorists. They also serve as liaison with US military forces in their theater of operations to collect and disseminate intelligence on the local terrorist target.
While the SOPO are an action arm of the CIA at the grass roots level, they also attempt to collect and report to CIA headquarters intelligence information to help CIA analysts understand what is going on at the local level. Thus, they must write operational cables and FIRs (Field Information Reports) just like any other CIA case officer. SOPO also run agent operations just like their Official Cover counterparts. Some operations may be in conjunction with local liaison services and some may be “unilateral” operations.
Paramilitary operations run by the CIA have a mixed history. On the high side was the successful operation to hunt down Cuban communist revolutionary Che Guevara in Bolivia in the 1960s before he could develop a successful communist insurgency. On the low side was the Phoenix Program in Vietnam—the so-called assassination program to neutralize the Viet Cong infrastructure. While the Phoenix Program was, indeed, a success in many provinces in Vietnam, it was tainted by the CIA’s intimate involve
ment with the program’s action element, the Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PUR) that conducted the ambush operations that killed many Viet Cong agents. Whatever the track record, however, the CIA is involved in paramilitary operations for the long haul. The SOPO are here to stay if you are interested in this program.
Testing Doesn’t End After College
Whether you want to be an inside case officer, outside case officer, or paramilitary case officer, you have to pass a battery of test before you are considered for employment for any position.
The testing process described in this section can differ based on a number of factors. For example, if you are a former or active military officer or enlisted man with a security clearance or you already have a position with another federal government agency and seek a transfer to the CIA, then the application and vetting process may be a matter of months. If, however, you are fresh out of college or in the civilian job arena, the process may take up to a year.
This will basically be the same whether you are seeking an OC or a NOC position. Once you submit your resume and application, for example, via the CIA website for an “operations officer” position, it will be up to the CIA to decide whether or not you may receive an OC or NOC position.
Whether you are going to be an OC officer or a NOC is decided right at the beginning of the hiring process since the vetting process is so compartmented. NOC candidates are never allowed on overtly CIA installations as are OC candidates.
It is not a matter of your choosing. You may voice your preference, of course, but the needs of the Company are of paramount consideration, not your personal preference. The various psychological and other batteries of tests may help the CIA decide in which area you may be most useful. Not all candidates have the unique type of personality required for the often lonely lifestyle of a NOC case officer. Also, not all candidates are able to function in close contact with the CIA bureaucracy that OC case officers find themselves exposed to on a daily basis.
What qualities should you have to be of interest to the CIA for a case officer position? You might think that the ability to keep a secret, to keep your mouth shut, would be an asset. During the investigation process, the agency will determine that you can, indeed, keep a secret. Surprisingly, however, this is not one of the qualities required once you are inside the Company.
The good-old-boy network inside the CIA is one of the most vocally prolific inside the US government, as case officers brag with pride about their agents and their exploits. Officially, when you go through a pre-employment background investigation, the agency attempts to determine your suitability for employment based on what is known in the counterintelligence community as LIDMC (pronounced Lid Mac), which stands for Loyalty, Integrity, Discretion, Morals, and Character.
To determine whether you possess such qualities, the agency will investigate your personal, academic, and professional history by interviewing teachers, employers, co-workers, friends, and foe, virtually anyone with the exception of former spouses who most probably will have nothing good to say about you anyway.
LIDMC are the personal qualities that get you qualified, but these qualities alone are not enough to get you employed and ensure you have a bright career with the agency.
The Company will also conduct a National Agency Check with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other federal and local law enforcement agencies to determine if you have even so little as a parking ticket.
All this is done without exposing to those interviewed that you are interested in joining the CIA.
This investigative process may take four to six months, during which time you will also be put through a battery of tests and interviews and finally a polygraph examination before a position is offered. For OC and NOC positions alike, the candidate will be flown to the Washington, DC, area for testing. The OC candidate may go into some government building for the testing, and the NOC candidate will be tested at some off-site location such as a safehouse. Initial testing is the same for both covers. You will be told not to tell any of your friends and relatives about your candidacy or the fact that you are undergoing testing for any government position.
It is these other tests and interviews that will establish that you have the other qualities the CIA desires in its case officers.
You will be given academic tests much like the Scholastic Aptitude Tests you took in high school. The questions will cover basic math, history, geography, and English grammar. You may also take a language learning test where you will be given the basic grammar rules of a made-up language to test your language reasoning and learning skills since the CIA will want you to learn at least one foreign language.
There will also be at least one multiple-choice test that will develop your psychological profile.
This is a particularly important test to ensure the CIA is able to weed out undesirables from a well-tested psychological profile. This testing process is unique to the CIA. The same question will be repeated in several different methods and references to make sure you are not trying to second guess the system to manage your profile.
You will also be asked to write something based on a given theme or to just write something about yourself or about someone in your life. This may be used to assess your writing abilities. It may also be used to augment the psychological testing process since the CIA does employ handwriting analysis as a psychological profile tool. However, because of the large backlog in this department due to shortage of trained personnel, it is a higher priority to use handwriting in agent operations rather than personnel recruitment. If, however, your psychological profile tests leave any questions about your suitability in question, the handwriting analysis can be employed.
There will also be a series of personal interviews by one or more of the Directorates that may have an interest in hiring you. When you get to this level, the process of getting on board with the Company is nearly complete. The interview process is multi-functional. First, it helps the interviewer get an understanding of your vocal skills in casual conversations. How is your spoken grammar, for example? It also gives an indication of how well you respond to pressure, as in when the interviewer asks some perhaps embarrassing or challenging questions that may be a bit personal in nature. Also your physical response—body language—will be noted to determine your honesty in responding to personal questions. This interview is usually conducted at CIA headquarters for OC candidates and at a DC-area safehouse for NOC candidates. Attire is casual.
Once you get to the phase where you are given a medical examination, you may feel more comfortable that the investigative process has gone well thus far. The medical examination is an in-depth physical examination. It starts with a detailed medical questionnaire to document your family history. You will have to sign a release form to give the CIA—through a covered outside medical facility—access to your medical files. The medical examination will take place at a DC-area medical facility cleared by the CIA. Pre-existing conditions will not necessarily disqualify you from employment but may limit your qualifications for certain positions.
Toward the end of the investigative process you will be required to take a polygraph examination. This is at the final stage just before you will officially be offered a position.
The polygraph will focus on any unresolved areas of your background investigation and you may be asked about your sexual history, your drug history, and financial history. The test takes about one hour in a small room about 12 feet by 12 feet with only you and the polygraph operator present. For OC candidates it will be held at CIA HQ and for NOC candidates at a DC-area safehouse.
If you have a past history of drug use that has not been made a part of any police record but you are no longer a user, it is best to lay the facts on the table before you come to the polygraph stage. Concern over drug use is a major reason to disqualify a candidate from consideration for employment by the CIA.
Once you have gotten past all this, you’ll be invited “on board,” as they say in the CIA. Now t
he real work begins.
What Happens At the Farm?
Okay, you’ve been hired. Now what? Training and lots of it. The CIA’s premier training facility for its Clandestine Service Operations Officers is the Farm. Also called “Isolation” because of the location and nature of the facility and “Camp Swampy” because of the nature of the topography there, the Farm is a small facility known as Camp Perry near Williamsburg, Virginia. On paper, it is a a US Army base. If there is a Spy University then this is it. A wide variety of training takes place here.
The campus at the Farm is much like a small college setting with student dormitories, classrooms, administration buildings, gymnasium, recreation center with a bar, shooting ranges, hiking, biking, and running trails, and more. Instructors have their own individual homes with their spouses and children. The rural setting is in the wild Virginia countryside with literally hundreds of deer roaming the roads and yards.
A Guide for the Aspiring Spy (The Anonymous Spy Series) Page 2
