In my particular situation, I found the CC myself as it was a hometown firm where I had many relatives working. The CIA’s Central Cover Division went and made the initial pitch to provide cover and gave the president of the CC a sterile look at my resume. When he learned that I was a local boy, it peaked his interest and he agreed to meet with me. I filled out a CC employee application form, which, along with many others, was viewed by the president ands selected for vetting. He assigned me to the division of the CC that did overseas sales and I was then assigned to open a sales office in the target country where the CIA wanted me. Before going overseas, of course, I had several months of training by the CC.
The key to success as a NOC officer is to have a work ethic that surpasses the average and to have a CC supervisor who understands that your first priority is to be a NOC officer and serving the CC comes second.
Operating Funds
All operating funds are advanced to the NOC officer by the Station as a revolving fund, usually on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. All fund recipients are required to do a monthly or, in rare cases, a bi-monthly accounting to the Station on all funds expended, at which time their revolving fund will be replenished. If any NOC case officer finds himself short of operating funds, it is entirely his own fault. Fund accounting is not rocket science, so there is no excuse to be unable to account for the expenditures made.
The amount each NOC officer receives as a revolving fund is decided on a case-by-case basis and will vary depending on a number of factors, such as agent caseload and the salaries and operational budget for each agent. Also taken into consideration are such factors as the operating directives that the NOC is tasked to undertake and the Station allocation of funds for each directive. NOCs are thoroughly briefed on Station policy for operational and administrative travel expenses and discretionary entertainment expenses for meetings with agents, targets of opportunity, cold contacts, etc., and such funds are included in the revolving fund. NOCs provide input to the Station on the amount of revolving funds they may require each month based on their own anticipated needs, so again, if the NOC finds himself short of funds and must temporarily reach into his pocket, it is not the fault of the Station.
There may be rare occasions when unanticipated needs arise and the NOC finds himself out of pocket. NOCs are encouraged not to dip into personal funds and all Stations will go out of their way to accommodate and advance additional funds. These days, NOCs communicate with the Stations in real-time so a cash replenishment turnaround by dead drop or brush pass can be done in a matter of hours. Even in my day of the 1970s and 1980s, an emergency turnaround of twenty-four hours was not unheard of.
As for my own experience, I never felt for a lack of funds to administer my agent operations or for conducting agent development or making cold calls. Funding for agent operations is an annual bureaucratic event at each Station. It is the responsibility of each case officer to prepare the “annual review” of his agents, both recruited and developmental cases, that includes all anticipated financial needs. This annual review projects anticipated funds requirements five years forward. Stations encourage case officers to over-anticipate the budget just to make sure there is a buffer available for unanticipated opportunities. Headquarters usually rubber-stamps these annual reviews and thus the Station’s budget is allocated. I never had an agent case that exceeded the approved budget. If I had, it would have been my own fault.
As for targets of opportunity for which there are no “approved” budgets, all case officers work within Station funding policy. Some targets have a higher collection priority than others and the funding policy reflects that. Even here, the NOC has great personal discretion as to how he expends operating funds to develop a target, and the Station usually will not object as long as results in the form of FIRs and operational cables reflect intelligence or operational value. A NOC may request that his monthly revolving fund be increased based on new target opportunities, and it would be rare for a Station to refuse such a request.
Getting the Family Settled
When the NOC officer and his family travel to their overseas post, they travel in true name just as anyone else does. Of course, they are known in true name within the cover company and a minimum number of people inside the cover company actually know that the NOC is a CIA operative. This usually includes, but is not limited to, the chairman, CEO, CFO, and immediate supervisor of the NOC. Depending on the size of the cover company, others may know as well.
The NOC usually receives several operational aliases with documentation and pocket litter to use for his operations in the field. In most cases these aliases are backstopped with a devised commercial cover facility for the NOC to use in developing, recruiting, and handling assets in commercial cover and alias. The NOC may also be given alias documentation in some US government–backed cover such as the Department of Defense to use as well. Documentation may include a US passport in alias, alias international driver’s license, alias credit cards, etc.
NOC officers must use extreme caution and clandestine tradecraft when going from true name into alias and visa versa. For example, when the NOC goes to his cover company office to work each morning, he does so in true name. But perhaps on some occasions, the NOC may have to meet an agent in alias for debriefing at a local safehouse in the middle of his normal workday. To ensure that he is not compromised, he must employ counter-surveillance, if he has a second person to help him, or conduct an SDR if he works alone. Each time the NOC goes from one status to another, he must do this. Done properly, it is a long process that usually takes more time than the agent meeting itself. The agent, too, should also conduct an SDR to and from the meeting site to make sure he is not being followed.
The NOC must also use extreme caution to ensure that his true-name documentation and alias documentation are not on his body at the same time and that they are properly and securely stored when not in use. To do this, the CIA provides the NOC with concealment devices to use in his office and his home. In fact, the concealment devices are used to store all CIA materials in the NOC’s possession.
Role of the Spouse and Old Family and Friends
The spouse of a CIA case officer is truly a valuable asset and a full partner in this business, and the CIA expects the spouse to assist the officer in many aspects of the business of intelligence. There are many functions that the spouse may well perform that lighten the load of responsibility for the CIA case officer and in some cases the spouse may provide better services than the case officer. My spouse frequently acted as a live drop to receive documents and film from agents. She also on many occasions acted as my counter-surveillance to help detect possible hostile surveillance prior to me going to agent meetings. She also performed as a cutout and message drop to receive and deliver clandestine communications between me and my agents. Perhaps the best example of my spouse supporting my professional activities was in the area of spotting, assessment, and development of potential targets of interest. Spotting, assessment, and development of potential new agents requires numerous meetings under various social circumstances to determine personal information useful to evaluation of the target. Many of these meetings were held in a couples environment with the target and his own spouse. The point of view of my spouse was often very insightful and helpful to the agent-acquisition process. Her presence at meetings also helped to reinforce my own recollections of events in the meetings. In the agent-spotting environment of large social gatherings, my spouse’s ability to recall names was invaluable since I had essentially trained myself not to remember agents’ true names—a practice that unfortunately carried over to normal social life as well.
Involving the spouse in this process has another benefit as well. It gives the spouse an appreciation of the case officer’s real job and relieves internal stress the spouse may have about the case officer being gone so much of the time, often without being able to explain the reason for the extended absences.
The benefit to the CIA, of course, is that
it essentially gets a force multiplier in the form of the spouse free of charge since the spouse is not paid for the services provided in support of the case officer. The support of the spouse, however, is expected by the CIA.
Hopefully, when you join the CIA either as an OC or NOC case officer you have not told this fact to your family and friends. I’m guessing you have heard it comically said that the best way to keep a secret is to tell someone the secret, then shoot them. Well, the best way is just not to tell anyone. Just stick to the cover story you are given by the CIA. If you are an OC case officer, that cover story may be that you have joined the state department or perhaps the department of defense or some other government agency. If you are a NOC, the cover story will be that you are employed as the overseas representative of some corporation that is secretly providing you the cover at the request of the CIA. Whatever the case, LIVE YOUR COVER.
If you have already taken a few special people into your confidence about your CIA affiliation, you should strongly impress upon them the need to maintain secrecy. Also, you should disclose to the Company the names of all persons outside the CIA who are aware of your affiliation.
Regarding your historical relationships with friends and family, there is no need to distance yourself from them. Today’s technologies—email, Facebook, etc.—allow you to have nearly instantaneous communication with friends and relatives all over the world. In my day, it was overseas mail or occasional long-distance phone calls and faxes. Shutting out friends and family, especially those who are aware of your CIA affiliation, will only cause them to worry. This may cause a security problem when they, out of concern, start inquiring about you.
Your social life should become more active as a CIA case officer. You will maintain normal personal social activities, but you will also add social venues to your social schedule as a tool to spot and develop targets of interest to the CIA. You will join appropriate clubs and professional organizations once you are overseas, all at the expense of the CIA. These may include the local American Club, Chamber of Commerce, sports clubs such as golf and tennis, etc. In my situation I joined engineering societies and scientific and academic organizations in the countries where I served in order to find targets of opportunity. I also frequently trolled clubs and bars near government ministries and military organizations in an effort to meet foreign government officials who frequented there. Believe me, your social life will not at all suffer as a consequence of your CIA employment.
The Company does not expect the NOC officer’s spouse to become involved in any agent handling role. In fact, such participation is not desired, but it is also not unheard of. However, the Company does expect the spouse to be involved in a supporting role in the agent recruitment cycle, such as spotting, vetting, development, assessment but not directly in agent recruitment itself. In fact, in some cases the NOC officer’s spouse may receive some training, both in the US and abroad, at Company expense. My own spouse received several years of foreign language training in three different languages at Company encouragement and expense. She was also trained by me in dead drop loading and unloading. In one of my cases, my wife and infant daughter acted as live drops to receive film drops from one of my agents who refused to brush pass them directly to me. My daughter was probably the youngest co-opted agent in the history of the Company. In this case, the agent knew me only in operational alias and did not know my wife or daughter by any name. He was a long-term valued asset in a country under martial law where foreigners were all suspect. My wife’s ethnicity fit well into the local society where I stood out like a Christmas tree.
The spouse can handle many roles in the agent recruitment cycle; especially valued is the second set of ears. It is always of value to get a second opinion from the opposite sex on what the agent candidate may have meant by a certain phrase. It is also of value to have a second person vetting the agent candidate with questions that you may not have thought about. If you are so fortunate to have a couples gathering where the agent candidate and his or her spouse are together, you and your spouse may split them off for separate conversations for insight into the motivations and vulnerabilities of both partners. Thus, your spouse may play an equally important role with the NOC in assessment of the couple.
The NOC’s spouse can gain an appreciation of the NOC’s role in the agenda of the Company, which may strengthen the NOC-spouse marital relationship. Further, the NOC’s spouse may feel a genuine part of the Company team, which may help ensure more tolerance for the NOC’s heavy workload that may keep him away from the family for long periods of time. On the whole, having a spouse who is a participant with the NOC is seen within the Company as a definite plus and to that end the Company will provide ample opportunity for training. I knew a NOC couple in the 1980s where the supporting wife was so active and valuable that she was eventually hired as a NOC herself.
Support for the NOC’s Family If the Agent Is Caught
The NOC case officer is, after all, a legitimate full-fledged CIA employee with all the rights and privileges of all other CIA employees. The support given to the family of a captured NOC officer, of course, must remain covert. Above the table, the US government will afford the NOC officer all the support that is provided to any US citizen arrested by a foreign government. This may be liaising with the arresting authority to see that the captive is being treated well, assisting with family visitations, providing medical assistance, etc. Under the table, depending on the relationship between the foreign country and the US government, talks may be undertaken to secure the release of the captive.
But let’s not forget the US company providing cover for the NOC. The cover company has legitimate business interests and equities at stake in the country. It is vital that the cover company continue to support the NOC as a member of its staff and to provide, with the covert cooperation of the CIA, legal support to the NOC. It is vital that the cover be maintained even though the NOC may have been caught red-handed in the act of spying. After all, industrial espionage is a possible explanation for the NOC’s actions, and the cover company, to protect its own interests, could claim its management had no knowledge of the over-zealous activities of its NOC employee.
It may be in the interest of the NOC that his family initially stays in country rather than immediately returning to the US. Depending on the country, the family may be allowed to maintain contact with NOC. While they remain in the country, they will continue to receive financial support channeled through the cover company. If the NOC should be tried, convicted, and imprisoned, of course, at some point the family will probably return to the US and will continue to receive full financial, psychological, and logistical support from the CIA.
Personality Traits of Successful Case Officers
The most important qualities you will need to advance your career in the CIA are verbal dexterity and flexibility, or put another way, to be a good actor who can quickly adjust or adapt to evolving situations and to portray a varied portfolio of personality traits.
Throughout your career with the CIA, you will be called on to perform or act. The successful handling of agents depends on your mastery of the art of acting so well that it is not perceived as acting at all. You will constantly adjust your character in order to harmonize with that of your target. If your agent perceives that you are putting on an act, you will likely lose his respect and certainly lose control of your asset. So your need to master the craft of acting requires more skills than that of the paid professional actor.
Your interpersonal relationships with other CIA officers, especially those above you in the hierarchy, depend on your ability to give a convincing act or argument. Regardless of position ( junior case officers, senior case officers, operations officers, Station chiefs, or Division chiefs), the ability to put on a convincing “act” or to present a convincing argument is an absolute must to a successful career. Of course, it is most important that your accomplishments as a case officer have actual substance to use as a basis in your acting. You will see
more about this later concerning agent handling.
Another important quality is trainability. The CIA will take you after coming “on board” and, for OC case officers, send you for training at the Farm for anywhere from four to six months and for some as long as one year.. The young case officer trainee is monitored and graded through every step of the training process, and those who do not pass muster are often given less responsible positions within the CIA or are sometimes farmed out to other government agencies. When the Drug Enforcement Agency was formed and grew in number in the early 1970s, many CIA trainees who washed out of their training cycles were offered and accepted positions there.
As you advance through your career with the Company, you will be trained in more advanced and new techniques of espionage. For those officers who switch from operations to administration, more specialized training is required. The bottom line is that the CIA does teach old dogs new tricks. Even senior CIA officers nearing retirement still receive training, and when you finally retire you are once again trained on how to integrate back into normal, civilian life in the good old USA.
NOC case officers, those officers under deep commercial cover outside the physical confines of the CIA Station, are trained in the same tradecraft techniques as their inside counterparts and, in addition, they are given more intensive training in areas unique to the NOC operational environment. These include the use of clandestine communications systems such as radio communications, secret writing techniques, and false subtraction code encryption. NOC officer training in planning and execution of SDRs is also more intensive than that given to inside officers. NOC officer cover maintenance is also greatly emphasized since their vulnerability to cover compromise is much greater than for inside officers.
A Guide for the Aspiring Spy (The Anonymous Spy Series) Page 7
