In the world of public service, few names stand out as prominently as Robert M. Gates. With a career spanning more than four decades, Gates left an indelible mark on the U.S. intelligence community and national defense. He got his start as an analyst and ended up leading some of the most critical institutions in American government.
Gates' journey began in 1966 when he joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an analyst. He quickly made his mark, specializing in Soviet affairs and eventually finding himself at the negotiation table during talks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union on reducing strategic arms.
From 1974 to 1979, Gates served on the National Security Council staff, gaining a broader perspective on national security issues. In 1980, he returned to the CIA, this time as a national intelligence officer on the Soviet Union and as the executive assistant to DCI Stansfield Turner.
The early '80s saw Gates rise through the ranks, becoming the executive assistant to CIA Director William Casey and later taking on roles as director of the Office of Policy and Plans and chairman of the Executive Career Service. In 1982, he climbed further, taking the position of Deputy Director of the Directorate of Intelligence.
In 1983, Gates was appointed chairman of the National Intelligence Council, and by 1986, he became Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. When Director Casey underwent surgery for a brain tumor, Gates stepped up as acting DCI, showcasing his leadership and dedication.
In 1987, Gates was nominated by President Reagan to become the new Director of Central Intelligence, but he faced scrutiny over his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair and withdrew his nomination. However, he stayed on as Deputy Director under William H. Webster.
Gates' journey continued when, in 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated him again, and this time he was confirmed as the 15th Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). He took office on November 6, 1991, in a time of significant change as the Cold War came to an end. Gates played a pivotal role in reshaping the CIA and the intelligence community to meet emerging challenges. He championed human intelligence (HUMINT) and advocated for recruiting and training intelligence officers.
Stepping down as DCI in 1993, Gates didn't retire from public service. In 2006, he returned to the spotlight, this time as Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush. He continued in that role under President Barack Obama until his retirement in 2011.
His dedication to the nation earned him respect and recognition. In 2011, President Obama awarded Gates the Presidential Medal of Freedom during his retirement ceremony. And it didn't stop there. Gates took on roles as a university president, chaired independent panels, authored books, and even led the Boy Scouts of America.
With a 45-year career dedicated to public service, Robert M. Gates' legacy is one of leadership, commitment, and a tireless devotion to the security and well-being of the United States. He remains a respected figure in the realm of U.S. national security and foreign policy, a true exemplar of an American public servant.
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William E. Colby joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1943 during World War II, cheating his way through an eye exam to be qualified for parachute training. At the age of 24 he commanded Jedburgh Team Bruce and parachuted into France to run operations. He later parachuted again into Europe and received a Silver Star for his activities. He later commanded an OSS Operational Group with Norwegian Commandos and took part in what he said was the first and only Army ski-parachute operations of the war.
Post War
The 1950s saw Colby return to Europe, this time as part of early Cold War activities. He was sent to Stockholm in 1951 to organize stay behind capabilities and groups as part of Operation Gladio. Similar networks were set up throughout Europe as a means to counter a possible Soviet invasion. He later spent time on anti-communist operations out of Rome.
Vietnam
In 1959, Colby's path led him to the bustling heart of intelligence operations in Saigon, South Vietnam. There he was deputy chief and later Chief of Station Saigon where he assumed a critical role in supporting the government of South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm. Colby's tenure in Vietnam was marked by his establishment of key relationships with Diem's family, especially Ngô Đình Nhu, the president's brother, with whom he developed a close bond. No doubt his time working with insurgency operations in the OSS gave him, and his fellow veteran officers, a distinct approach. Either way, he steadfastly believed that the villages held the key to the larger conflict – a conviction that underscored his strategic approach.
In 1962, Colby returned to the United States to become the deputy and later chief of the CIA's Far East Division. This shift in roles propelled him into the heart of Washington's policies in East Asia, including Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and China. His insights into these regions influenced critical decisions, yet he remained a vocal critic of the decision to withdraw support for President Diem.
In true “let the 7th floor guide your career” fashion, 1968 saw Colby's career veer back to Vietnam, taking on the role of deputy to Robert Komer who headed Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). Tasked with streamlining efforts against the Communists, Colby succeeded Komer as the head of CORDS in its final days. Among its components was the controversial Phoenix Program, aimed at disrupting the "Viet Cong Infrastructure." While the program's methods raised ethical questions, Colby consistently asserted that it did not endorse assassination or torture.
Post Vietnam to DCI
Colby returned to Washington in July 1971 and became executive director of CIA. In 1973 then DCI James Schlesinger tapped Colby to become the head of the clandestine service, in part because of Colby’s shared views on his reformist approach CIA. Later that year Nixon reshuffled his agency heads and made Schlesinger secretary of defense, Colby emerged as a natural candidate for DCI, apparently on the basis of the recommendation that he was a professional who would not make waves. His tenure as DCI, which lasted two-and-a-half tumultuous years, was overshadowed by the Church and Pike congressional investigations into alleged US intelligence malfeasance over the preceding 25 years.
Colby's time as DCI was also eventful on the world stage. His tenure oversaw the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, which was largely a surprise to CIA and Israeli itself. As with any seemingly unpredictable world event, an intelligence surprise of this nature apparently damaged Colby’s credibility with the Nixon administration. Colby participated in the National Security Council meetings that responded to apparent Soviet intentions to intervene in the war by raising the alert level of US forces to DEFCON 3 and defusing the crisis.
In 1975, after many years of involvement, South Vietnam fell to Communist forces in April 1975, a particularly difficult blow for Colby, who had dedicated so much of his life and career to the American effort there. Key world events in Angola, and the Middle East also took center stage, along with a sharp uptick in arms-control efforts.
Colby also focused on internal reforms within the CIA and the intelligence community. He attempted to modernize what he believed to be some out-of-date structures and practices by disbanding the Board of National Estimates and replacing it with the National Intelligence Council. In a speech from 1973 addressed to NSA employees, he emphasized the role of free speech in USA and moral role of CIA as a defender, not a detractor, of civil rights, an attempt to rebut the then emerging revelations of CIA and NSA domestic spying. He also mentioned a number of reforms intended to limit excessive classification of governmental information. All of these are remarkably topics of much concern to this day.
Colby’s tenure of DCI ended in late 1975 when President Ford, under advisement of his national security staff, replaced Colby with George H.W. Bush. William E. Colby's time as Director of the CIA reflected the challenges faced by intelligence agencies during an era of increased scrutiny and evolving foreign policy dynamics. His leadership played a role in shaping the CIA's response to these challenges and in implementing reforms to enhance transparency and accountability within the agency.
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Case Synopsis
The investigation into Jerry A. Whitworth's espionage activities began in the early 1980s. Whitworth had served in the US Navy for over 22 years and had access to sensitive information due to his role as a radioman and communication specialist. He formed a close friendship with John Walker, a former Navy officer, who had already been arrested for his involvement in a spy ring that provided classified information to the Soviet Union.
Whitworth's involvement in espionage came to light when Walker's spy ring was dismantled in 1985. Walker's own son, Michael Walker, reported his father's activities to the FBI, leading to John Walker's arrest. During the investigation, evidence emerged implicating Whitworth as a key participant in the espionage activities.
The evidence against Whitworth included intercepted communications, financial records, and witness testimonies, all pointing to his collaboration with the Walker spy ring. Whitworth provided classified codes and encryption keys to the Soviets, allowing them to decipher encrypted Navy communications. These communications included sensitive information about US Navy operations, troop movements, and other strategic details.
Damage Assessment
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) played a significant role in the investigation of the Walker spy ring, which eventually led to the exposure of Jerry A. Whitworth's espionage activities. The CIA collaborated with the FBI to gather evidence and assess the damage caused by the compromised information. The full extent of the damage caused by Whitworth's spying is not entirely public, as much of this information remains classified.
However, it is known that the compromised information seriously jeopardized US national security interests. The decrypted communications provided valuable insights into American military plans and capabilities, potentially allowing the Soviet Union to anticipate and counter US actions. The compromised information could have also put American military personnel and assets at risk.
Conclusion
On August 28, 1986, Jerry A. Whitworth was sentenced to 365 years in prison for his role in espionage. The severity of the sentence was intended to send a strong message about the consequences of betraying national security. Whitworth served his sentence at various federal prisons and is currently incarcerated at USP Atwater in Atwater, CA.
The case of Jerry A. Whitworth highlighted the ongoing challenges posed by espionage and the lengths to which foreign adversaries would go to gather classified information. It also underscored the importance of counterintelligence efforts to detect and prevent such activities in order to safeguard national security.
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When I saw a book was out about Dutch’s life, I was excited to learn more about him. And also to learn how much of what I remember of those stories was fact or fiction. Needless to say, almost every story we’d heard of his exploits proved true, and many more.
Kim Kipling, a pseudonymous author with whom I served in an early overseas tour, has done a great service for intelligence historians by documenting the history of Master Sergeant Jan Wierenga, aka “Dutch”. Dutch has spent his entire adult life (and a fair amount of his youth) engaged in, learning about, or teaching combat skills. He was running jungle combat patrols in Indonesia (his country of birth) at age 16, served in the Dutch army in the late 50’s and then emigrated to the US in 1960 and joined the US Army. He would serve in the Army, primarily in Special Forces for the next 23 years, earning a Silver Star, 4 Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.
But his time serving his adopted country didn’t end with his retirement from the Army in 1986. Dutch would join CIA as a Paramilitary Operations Officer (PMOO), running operations and assets across multiple war-torn continents before finally landing at The Farm as an instructor for the next several generations of PMOOs and OOs, until his final retirement in 2022.
Author Kipling tells Dutch’s amazing story by weaving together a narrative informed by his own extensive research, but also by including direct quotes and stories from Dutch, as well as from many others who served along side him. He is thus able to provide a unique view of many of these stories by coming at them from differing angles and viewpoints. I have no doubt too that Kipling’s own service in the CIA and US Navy proved critical in informing this narrative.
It is worth noting that the Agency did request several redactions in their review process. Author Kipling finds a way to provide appropriate context for those, without violating his Agency confidentiality requirements. And he rightly notes (as I have experienced myself) that often times those redactions are excessive and silly. And in the end, ineffective, as many students of history will be able to piece together the redacted information with little difficulty.
6 decades of service. What an amazing legacy. It is rare that we get such a complete telling of the life and service of one of our shadow warriors. Dutch would never have told his own story, but it is one that will inspire future generations and needed telling. I am grateful for his life of service, and equally grateful to have been able to learn from him so many long years ago. I was changed in knowing him.
Thank you Kim, for recording and sharing Dutch’s story.
]]>The team, having landed three weeks prior to the well-known infiltration of the US Army’s Special Forces ODAs 555 and 595 on October 19th, was able to prep the Northern Alliance for the introduction of US forces and to gather crucial battlefield intelligence needed for US forces prior to their deployment. Both ODA teams linked up with Jawbreaker advisors and the US response to the 9/11 attacks began in earnest, 39 days after the attacks on September 11, 2001. Another month later, there would be 100 CIA officers and over 300 US Special Operations Forces on the ground in Afghanistan.
Both Schroen and Reilly had served in the Agency for decades, with Schroen, then 59, bringing a depth of experience in Afghanistan as well as other parts of South Asia, while Phil had served as a Special Forces officer and Special Activities Division officer for most of his career. In fact, Gary was on his way out the door heading towards retirement when he was recalled to lead the Northern Alliance Liaison Team.
The US Embassy in Kabul had been closed since January of 1989, so in the aftermath of 9/11, the US needed to strengthen the longstanding, but distant, relationships with Northern Alliance leaders such as Ahmad Shah Massoud. Fortunately, Gary Schroen had previously built a relationship with Massoud and other Northern Alliance commanders, further solidifying his suitability to lead the mission. The rest of the Jawbreaker team brought deep Agency experience (the average age was 48) as well as Russian, Dari and Farsi language capabilities. The team also included a medic and a communications specialist.
Once the team had been assigned, they spent the next 9 days between the attacks and their departure for Afghanistan focused on gathering supplies, material, money and intelligence to prepare for the mission. They would bring, among other things: $3,000,000 in $100 bills, 40 pounds of onions and 40 pounds of potatoes, knowing that conditions on the ground would be rudimentary at best. Gary Shroen later would affectionately refer to their Mi-17 as a workhorse, “designed to take a punishment.” And she would serve the team well, including getting them through the Anjuman Pass at nearly 15,000 feet, at maximum payload, in the dark of night, and with no back up or CSAR response.
The helo was painted in the same black and green camo pattern that the Taliban used at the time and bore the tail number 607 in white on the side of the fuselage. Worried about being shot down by American forces confusing her for a Taliban helicopter, the flight crew repainted her in a more muted camo and added the tail number 91101 on the tail boom, in a muted black.
And 91101? She would go on to fly 310 missions in Afghanistan, and last year took a place of honor on the CIA compound. I make a point to visit, and express my gratitude for the team, every time I visit Headquarters.
]]>Sarah Carlson has had a heart for public service her entire adult life. She comes from a family with a strong commitment to serving in our military and in their communities. Sarah’s journey of service started in her local PNW emergency management community, but shortly after 9/11, took her to the federal realm as a CT analyst at DIA. After 5 years in DIA, including being deployed to Iraq, Sarah jumped over to CIA where she continued serving as an analyst in CTC. Her time at CIA included an eventful deployment to Libya, where she spent a year culminating with the overland evacuation to Tunisia of the entire US mission to Libya. Over 150 Embassy staff traveled across 250 miles of desert in the middle of a revolution in order to get to safety. Her book, In the Dark of War, covers all of this but focuses on her experiences in Libya during the lead up to, and actual evacuation.
Sarah’s story is an intensely personal story. Within appropriate boundaries to protect identities, she opens up her life in Libya including her fears and uncertainties, finding burgeoning love in a war zone, frustrations with bureaucracy, and the importance of her deep-rooted Christian faith. She tells her stories in chapters alternating back and forth between the evacuation story, and flashbacks leading up to it.
The reader gains a small window of insight into the life of a CIA analyst in an austere and dangerous environment. The hours are long, the time off is little, the contact with family and friends back home is infrequent and the bureaucracy and internecine conflict with other agencies can be maddening. While it may seem extreme to some, the picture she draws is accurate, and for those wanting to understand if this life might be for them, it provides a rare reality check on what doing the job is like.
Sarah’s recounting of the political and military environment is robust though for readers without a strong interest in Libyan affairs or the intricacies of counterterrorism, some of the detail may be a bit overwhelming. That said, it helps provide context for the deteriorating security and political environment and gives us some insight into her capabilities as an analyst and briefer.
Intelligence community insiders will recognize the various details that Sarah had to modify or cut from the book to get it through the Agency’s Publication Review Board. Sarah ultimately had to sue the Agency to get the final approvals needed for publication, a process that took almost two years.
As a former DO officer who has served in high threat environments, much of her recounting resonated. The intensely strong emotional bonds you develop with those you serve alongside, the things you begin to think and talk about as you plan your return home, the difficulty of managing cover status and job requirements (often in an Annex or other location), and the value you place on the role served by GRS and other security staff who work so hard to keep us safe while we do our jobs. And even the role faith plays for many of us.
This is not an academic tome, and the reader will not learn any new secrets about the Agency, but it is definitely a strongly personal memoir of a difficult and challenging time. Her story, and the work she did in Libya, reflect very highly on Sarah’s character and work ethic. Our nation continues to need men and women like Sarah to go do this work in hard places around the world, far from home, family, and friends.
You can follow Sarah on Twitter @smcarls1
* I received this book as a courtesy from the author so I could review it. I am not bound by any written, verbal, or implied contract to give this product a good review. All opinions are my own and are based off my personal experience with the product.
]]>In a world where recognition is rarely given and then only privately, it was a great joy to see a public celebration of this man’s 28 years of service, all while surrounded by family, close friends and colleagues. For most of his family, it was their first time visiting CIA headquarters. Most moving was when he rose after all the accolades and moved to the podium to give his remarks. While he mentioned his colleagues and friends and the pride he took in his career was evident, it was his remarks to his family that were most moving. Tears filled his eyes as he acknowledged their sacrifices for his career, and costs.
As I looked around the room, I saw recognition of similar in the eyes of others. Among the officers in that room, few had marriages that had survived. Families were blended, half-siblings and stepsiblings as common as blood siblings. Most had endured unaccompanied tours, apart from spouses and children for months, sometimes years at a time. Relationships kept alive on the thread of Skype and FaceTime. Moreover, most of us had had friends wounded, or killed, in the line of duty in far off places. Tired eyes and drawn faces bore the lines of stress, long hours and separation.
While celebratory, it was a somber event too. We saw, and counted the cost, to serve our nation in the shadows. There was no room for regret; we shared the privilege of being our nation’s first line of defense, her Third Option. Most of us would readily do it all over again and are pleased to see the next generation stepping up to serve as well.
Nevertheless, in this time where those in the Intelligence community are pilloried publicly, it is good that you the reader understand what we ask of our shadow warriors and the costs over their lifetimes of service.
]]>The Jedburgh project was a combined Allied initiative consisting of members from the Office of Strategic Services Special Operations, the British Special Operations Executive, and the French Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (BCRA). A typical Jedburgh Team consisted of a commander, an executive officer, and a non-commissioned radio operator. One officer was British or American, while another was from the country the team was deploying to. In total, ninety-three teams parachuted into occupied France, and eight into the Netherlands. After their success, more teams were later deployed to South East Asia to support and recruit resistance movements against Japanese forces in Burma. Teams reported directly to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in London via SOE wireless radios or “Jed Sets”.
Jedburgh teams went through extensive training to prepare for parachuting behind enemy lines. Much of this training is consistent with what paramilitary officers and Special Forces soldiers receive to this day. Language training, parachuting, mountaineering, amphibious operations, skiing, radio communications, small arms, navigations, hand to hand combat, explosives, and other tradecraft training was all completed in the Scottish Highlands and then Milton Hall near Peterborough in England.
On 18 October 1942 Hitler issued the Kommandobefehl (Commando) directive, ordering the execution of any captured saboteurs or commando units taking part in such action. Jedburgh teams were deployed covertly in generic uniforms to better protect them from this directive should they be discovered and captured. On 25 November 1944 British Captain Victor A. Gough became the only Jedburgh executed in this fashion after being captured as the only remaining Jedburgh from his team. He had survived alone in the Vosges Mountain region of France until October of 1944 when he was captured and tortured by the Gestapo, shipped to the labor camp at Gaggenau and then executed at the Ehrlich Forest under the directive. Though this is the only reported Jedburgh member executed under this directive, other OSS teams were not so lucky.
The first Jedburgh team, Team Hugh was inserted into central occupied France on 5 June 1944, just before the launch of Operation Overlord. Teams were deployed just prior to D day so as to ensure the operational security of the impending allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. In total, 97 teams executed 93 missions in France. They also conducted missions in Algiers, Holland, and Belgium. Jedburgh trained personnel were later sent to Japanese-occupied “French-Indo China” (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) and teams were deployed in support of resistance efforts in Burma.
Well known Jedburgh members include former CIA Director William Colby, General John Singlaub, who went on to a storied CIA career, and Colonel Aaron Bank who became the first commander of the Army Special Forces 10th Special Forces Group. The lessons learned from Operation Jedburgh are still relevant and exercised today. From recent history, the invasion of Afghanistan by CIA “Jawbreaker” teams and Special Forces teams directly mimics the lessons learned some 57 years previously. Without the brave men of the Jedburgh teams, who volunteered for an immediate overseas assignment with a guarantee of a dangerous mission, the US ability to support internal defenses of our allies and nations in need would seriously be diminished.
]]>Equally important though is being able to perform a surveillance detection route (SDR) without the host country intelligence service knowing you are doing so. Ostensibly, as a c/o arriving in country, the local intel service doesn’t know who you are. But they sure hope to. Some of that information may come from local nationals and others they have recruited to provide information on Americans in the country.
But some of it comes through good old fashioned leg work. Local intel officers and contractors will surveil foreigners as they go about their daily activities. In their best case scenario, they hope to catch a foreign intel officer in the act of committing espionage, but they know that if they are dealing with a professional, that is a low likelihood. But they may find a foreigner acting differently than other foreigners, or than he/she should be. It might be someone having an affair, or buying/doing drugs, or even, someone engaged in espionage. So what they are really hoping to do is winnow through the targets so they know where to put more resources. Once they see that individual’s patterns are abnormal for a foreigner, then they will take a closer look at them.
As a c/o, if you head out on your SDR and detect you have surveillance, you are not likely to make your original meeting, but instead, will change your plans. What you hope you don’t do is let surveillance know that you have detected them, thereby betraying that you are surveillance aware, and thus a likely intelligence officer. You want to lull them into a sense of complacency.
And sometimes, surveillance is there just to harass and aggravate. Operating in a 3rd world environment where cars were relatively sparse, but scooters were ubiquitous, brought its own challenges. The locals could clearly see me a ways off, and picking out specific scooters in a throng of Hondas and Suzukis wasn’t easy. Most of the time we were in congested city traffic, on old center streets designed for carts and foot traffic, so we moved at slightly more than a snail’s pace. But inevitably, I would get to a section of road where I was able to pick up a little more speed, making it a challenge for the 100cc scooters to keep up and certainly facilitating identifying which ones were trying to do so.
This wasn’t anything specific to my operational profile, it fit within my normal pattern of activities. And all of us regularly received pretty heavy surveillance from the locals. Whether I intended my actions to be aggressive or not though became irrelevant, as it became clear that the locals at least thought I was being aggressive and trying to lose them.
One morning I walked out of the house into my courtyard where my vehicle was parked. Note, the courtyard was surrounded by 10 foot tall concrete walls, topped with concertina wire and a locked solid metal gate on rollers. I opened the gate, and got in the car and started it. As I looked down and to my left to use my side view mirror to back out of the drive, I noticed that the mirror was not there. A quick glance to the right confirmed that side view mirror wasn’t there either.
I turned off the car, went back in the house and told my wife and the maid (a local national who was probably regularly interviewed about my patterns of movement) what had happened. And then headed in to the office and shared the same information with my chief and the security officer. After some thinking about it and analyzing the previous couple of weeks, we figured it was the local service sending a not so subtle message about their perceptions I was ditching their surveillance.
That evening at home the maid shared that she had gone to the local police office in our ward to talk about the event. They professed no knowledge of the incident and expressed sorrow that such an event might sully our view of their nation’s hospitality. Furthermore, they noted that if I needed to replace my side view mirrors, I would probably be able to do so in the “thieves market” a few wards over.
Off I sent the maid with a handful of local currency and sure enough, she was able to get replacement mirrors. Well, I should say, purchase my mirrors back. I had the only model of my car in the entire country, there were no parts suppliers there. The mirrors she bought in the thieves market were the mirrors actually stolen off my car.
And so began a pattern. I settled down on my driving habits and kept the surveillance teams nice and bored. And they left my vehicle alone. They’d eventually rotate on to someone else until it was my time under their microscope again.
But periodically, I would offend one or the other of them and then they would exact their revenge, breaking in to the courtyard and stealing my mirrors again. And again we would dutifully report it to all parties before heading down to the thieves market to buy them back and have them reinstalled. And I would be reminded by my boss not to piss off the surveillance teams again.
And the game of cat and mouse would slowly continue through the humid heat of this 3rd world capital. I often wondered if the gentleman I sold my car to when I left suffered the same. I guess I should have told him in advance where to buy his replacement mirrors.
]]>I was living and working in a known high threat environment. My predecessor had been recalled when his true name ended up on the targeting list of a local terrorist group with a penchant for killing American intelligence officers. On top of that, this little city had a fair amount of other unsavory folks from various terrorist/fundamentalist/facist groups all trying to raise money, train operatives and execute ops in support of their various causes. It made for a sporty operating environment, where the USG vehicles were all up-armored, the case officers were always armed, and we had active counter surveillance support from some of the best former operators out there.
In any event, I was tasked with meeting a former asset who was professing to have regained access to information of important value. He was a soldier from a Middle Eastern country with whom we were on a war footing. He had been previously terminated primarily for loss of access, but also because he brought with him some handling challenges.
So, after grabbing supplies, some light disguise materials, and a pile of cash, I headed out on an extensive surveillance detection route (SDR). The details are irrelevant, but, with the traffic in that city and tools and training I had, I was 100% certain I was black (surveillance free).
The established plan was to meet, establish bona fides and then enter a local watering hole selling bad food, booze and bar girls. These types of establishments often are well suited for these types of meetings. Many of the other patrons are there for less than noble reasons and so are ignoring the others and likewise hoping to be ignored. They tend to be dark and out of the way as well. And folks come and go through out.
In any event, as we were not back on a full clandestine relationship with this gent, we treated it more like an advanced developmental meeting. Low profile, but not willing to blow some of our clandestine resources until we determined whether or not he had regained access.
As I entered the establishment, it took a while for my eyes to adjust to the dim, smoke filled interior. Unusually, this was a later afternoon meeting, unlike my normal late night working hours, so the place was almost deserted except for the asset and a few bar girls moving languidly on stage. Oh, and a 5 year old boy. Sitting at the table next to the asset.
What??? I’d spent hours making sure I was surveillance free only to get blown to the asset’s son? And as it turns out, this was one of his favorite bars, a place where he was quite well known by the employees.
He’d seen me walk in and approached me by the door, apologetic about showing up at the meeting with his son, explaining that child’s mother (his wife/girlfriend – I wasn’t sure which) had to work and was unable to watch him. It was clear he’d been there awhile already and was a couple of drinks in. I handed him some cash, told him to pay one of the bar girls to order some food for his son and watch over him at a nearby table while “Daddy and his friend talked.”
It rapidly became clear that the not only had the asset’s opsec (operational security) depreciated noticeably, but he really hadn’t regained any access of note. He was in desperate need of funds, caught between two worlds - no longer on the inside in his host nation and living in a nation not his own with virtually no skill sets of note, a drinking problem and a bad habit of hanging around in girly bars.
As quickly as I could, I terminated the meeting. I paid him a small fee, for which I had him sign a receipt and had him sign a quit claim with the Agency. I advised him to not put us through another incident like this and got up and left. As I left, I noticed he just sat there, shoulders slumped, caught up in his own poor circumstances.
Irritated and stressed out, I began the process of heading back home. Over the course of several more hours turning myself back in to who I normally was, before crawling in bed late long after midnight, spent. The evening felt like a waste, though I guess there is always something to learn in this business. And sometimes all you learn is that assets are human and make bad decisions.
]]>Detailing the exact job description for PMOOs is problematic because of the sensitive nature around their work. That said (work with me here), if Case Officers are somewhat related to DoD HUMINT collectors then PMOOs would be similar with Special Forces officers, working very much the same kind of missions as they might work. Looking back at OSS operations in WWII you can see where both groups heritage learned to work in austere environments, with little support. OSS officers had to recruit their own sources for their own protection, gathering intelligence on various groups and Nazi sympathizers, building relationships with local fighting forces and providing mentorship and other support to their efforts. Just like their OSS predecessors, this has led far too many stars on the CIA Memorial Wall in the Original Headquarters Building lobby.
I detail all this in this way because some of the most frequent questions I get are from current or former military officers who are interested in the intelligence community and eventually work up to asking about SAD. They want to know if they’d rate, and if they’d have any shot at a PMOO position. I relate the odds this way: you are already focusing on a very very small target. Most people who apply to the Agency don’t even make it to a phone interview. Think about that for a second then realize you won’t get the interview without going for it. On top of that small target you have to be interested and comfortable with the idea of working as a case officer in austere and hostile locations. A PMOO will be running their assets related to counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, specific area offices and whatever specific collection requirements they have for the specific programs they are working on.
But why limit yourself to just a PMOO position? I can think of a number of other jobs I’d rather have within the Agency, right off the top of my head. The last 16 years haven’t seen PMOOs working too many other places (at least on PM tours) than war zones or conflict zones. I know it happens, but why further restrict an already small target?
As for if someone’s specific skill set will set them apart within the PMOO recruiting cycle, that’s a more difficult question to answer. Its important to realize that at this point in time, after those 16 years of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), there are an unsurprisingly large number of former military personnel with marketable skills to match positions within SAD, making it easier for SAD to be highly selective with whom they recruit. If the main goal of an operational SAD branch is to provide a service in support of a covert action program, obviously having a desire, ability and proven track record in providing similar skills from military experience would be the best fit and probably get someone noticed. That experience may not come from just Special Mission Unit (SMU) experience and plenty of people I met in my travels within the Division gained their experience in other parts of the military. As with anything, its also not entirely your experience but how you relate and explain that experience to others that matters. You could be the most trained and experienced SMU “operator” but if you can’t relate to people you will ultimately fail at one of the core missions of a PMOO, recruiting.
Looking at my time in the Division, my advice for someone interested in that area, but with no military experience, would be to just get your foot in the door at the Agency. Get in and then worry about all that later, and know that the more time on target the better the chance. What I mean is, if you do end up with an Agency job, make a great reputation for yourself, make as many connections in the office (goes the same for any office you are interested in) and be patient. You might find that the more exposure you have to some place like SAD, the less interested you will be in the long term. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Agency veteran stories about just accepting any job management thought you were right for and letting that decide your career path. I found it conflicted with their other lines about being your own “HR officer”. I had greater success by making connections with people. Showing an interest in them and explaining my interest in the office or job I wanted. Some might say it was sort of like “CO’ng” them (case officering - common term used among Agency officers when trying to manipulate another officer) but without the sleazy used car salesman approach.
When thinking about a career in someplace like SAD, keep in mind that a lot of us saw the deployment cycle wearing officers thin. I think there is also a psychological component to being less of a HUMINT collector and more of a service provider to other offices. Covert action can be a fickle thing. New administrations or a change in political climate often means a loss of money or priorities that adversely effect covert action programs (the life blood of SAD). There’s also something to be said for getting experience in other areas or centers to be more well rounded. Maybe its an older example, but you could look at people like Dick Holm as someone who came up through the paramilitary ranks during and proceeding the Vietnam war and covert action programs in Africa, and then transitioned into more ‘traditional’ intelligence work. To be fair, you can obviously work covert action in any other area or position. Jack Devine is a good example of someone who came up in the Agency working covert action (one of the largest CA programs in history, the Afghan effort against Russia) and working all levels of Agency operations without a paramilitary background. It shouldn’t be surprising that the most successful officers, in or out of SAD, are good at adapting.
I met a large number of SAD “bodies” who had rotated out of SAD into other areas. It was a common practice to have PMOO’s taking “traditional” case officer tours in other offices. Some left SAD and had no intention of coming back. Others left to get more experience before moving up the ranks into the front office of SAD. After being gone from the Agency now quite a few years, I wonder how many people actually stay within the Division. I can still see the deployment board for my office when I close my eyes. I can’t imagine keeping those TDY cycles up for a career. Rotating into another area office or center would seem like a welcome break from that life, but that’s just my view from my short time there.
To close out, my advice for anyone getting into this line of work is first, research as much as possible. With respect to the Agency and SAD, take what you read with a grain of salt. The popular memoirs (Hunting the Jackal by legendary Billy Waugh, Jawbreaker by Gary Berntsen, First In by Gary Schroen, The Craft We Chose by Dick Holm) will give you some good views of what a paramilitary life can be like. Information I have seen online, save for Sean’s posts here and here, come from people with less direct knowledge or none at all.
Remember the end goal of the Special Activities Division is to provide a service to other area offices and centers. They execute special programs, and as a service provider, are often the red headed stepchild of the CIA. Journalists like to paint a picture of direct action missions and Hollywood will always paint them as knuckle dragging gunslingers, but in reality, paramilitary operations officers are specialized operations officers with specific skills and abilities. They do amazing work for sure, and many of the stars on the Memorial Wall signify a sacrifice by one of these brave individuals.
]]>The Operational Collection
The Operational Collection includes intelligence-themed paintings and sculptures that record the experiences of intelligence officers in both peace and wartime. The Agency uses these artworks to strengthen and communicate its identity and corporate culture, providing a link for incoming officers to connect to the history of the organization.
As of 2016, 22 paintings graced the hallways of CIA’s Headquarters complex, most of them in the ground floor hallways on OHB and NHB. 21 of them are action scenes, and one is a still life. The idea for an intelligence gallery conveying the operational history of Agency operations was born in 2000, when Erik Kirzinger, a civilian, attended the annual Memorial Service and listened to Director Tenet share the stories of those whose service was only then being recognized. After a 2002 employee art exhibit, the 7th floor began to get behind the project in earnest.
The paintings are by 8 artists, 6 male and two female. Two artists, Dru Blair with 6 paintings, and Keith Woodcock, with 5, represent over half of the paintings. Two of the paintings are by an undercover officer, acknowledged on the Agency’s website as Deborah D., her pieces among the more recent acquisitions. Most of these pieces have been donated by the owners, although several have been commissioned by offices within the Agency to convey a specific piece of that Directorate or Office’s operational heritage. Many of the donors have personal connections to the Agency, some of them children of former Agency officers and contractors.
14 of the paintings can currently be seen on CIA.gov. Another 6 or so can be found on line on artist web pages or various news stories. The last couple, you have to really dig for to find…
In future articles, we will display an image of each of the paintings and a blurb about the history behind the tale. I will touch here upon two, one well known image from the Agency’s genesis in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and another, from a more recent famous success in the Agency’s history.
"Les Marguerites Fleuriront ce Soir" by Jeffrey W. Bass (2006) (Image courtesy of CIA.gov)
"Les Marguerites Fleuriront ce Soir" was painted by Jeffrey W. Bass in 2006 and was donated by Richard J. Guggenhime. It is oil on canvas and portrays a then 35-year-old Virginia Hall in the Haute Loire region of France in 1944. Hall, previously a member of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), had recently joined the Office of Strategic Services as a radio operator and had returned to occupied France. Well known to, and actively hunted by the Nazi Gestapo, Hall was a very effective OSS operative. In the painting she is seen transmitting a message on her suitcase radio while her partner powers the radio’s generator using a bicycle crank. Hall would receive the Distinguished Service Cross for her efforts against the Germans and would continue to serve her nation for many years in the CIA.
The name of the painting, "Les Marguerites Fleuriront ce Soir" means “The daisies will bloom at night” and is a reference to the coded messages she would transmit and receive from London.
ARGO – The Rescue of the Canadian Six by Deborah D (2014) (Image courtesy of CIA.gov)
ARGO, The Rescue of the Canadian Six was painted by CIA officer Deborah D. and unveiled in March of 2014 on the 33rd anniversary of the operation that became known as “The Canadian Caper”. After the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, 6 American officers escaped and made their way to the Canadian ambassador’s residence, where they would remain for 79 days. The painting, commissioned by the Directorate of Science and Technology (DST) depicts two officers preparing alias documents to be used in the exfiltration operation. It pays homage to the often unsung role of the tech officers who enable the success of so many operations worldwide.
Below is a list of the currently known paintings in the collection, as well as the artist’s names:
Statuary and Models
Not all the art is on the walls. There are sculptures and models as well. The best known are the statue of Nathan Hale between the Bubble and entrance to OHB, General Donovan’s statue inside the OHB lobby and Kryptos, inside the NHB courtyard, but there are others.
These three are in the NHB atrium, below the overhanging models of the U-2, A-12 Oxcart and D-21 reconnaissance aircraft.
The Day the Wall Came Down by Veryl Goodnight, Bronze (2004) (image courtesy of CIA.gov)
The Day the Wall Came Down is a ¼ size bronze by Veryl Goodnight. It portrays a herd of horses bursting through the Berlin Wall, which is covered with slogans relevant to the Agency’s employees, and a star, to remind us of the foreign agents whose lives have been lost in our nation’s service.
Windwalker, a 48 inch bronze by Kitty Cantrell, portrays an eagle, representing vigilance, alertness, strength, courage and freedom. It was donated by a family of immigrants to the US whose company contributed to the building of NHB and whose children had served in the Agency as well. They wanted to recognize “the courageous work of those who serve the CIA, acknowledging that, through this work, the Agency helps protect citizens of the United States and the immigrants who look to this country as the land of opportunity.”
Intrepid, a 22 inch bronze by Leo Mol, portrays Sir William Stephenson (code-named "Intrepid"). Stephenson was the key liaison officer between US and the British intelligence services in World War II and highly regarded by the Americans who worked with him. In 1946, General Donovan awarded Sir William the Medal for Merit, the highest civilian decoration awarded by the United States (and never before awarded to a foreigner).
Kirzinger, is the nephew of an Agency contractor who was killed on a mission in 1952. Erik became the driving force behind the collection’s genesis and throughout its first 10 years of existence. He developed the vision for the project and even scoped the initial project concepts. He also connected artists and donors with the Agency. In 2010, the Agency honored him for his work on the project by presenting him the Agency Seal Medal, as had been done with Melzac in 1982. His efforts brought the first 18 completed paintings in to the collection, after which the Agency brought the whole effort in house.
He has since produced a series of calendars and day planners displaying the paintings and conveying the history of the operations they portray. A coffee table book is in the works as well. Sadly, the Agency store refuses to carry the calendars and planners for unknown reasons.
The Operational art program is ongoing still, and we hope to read of, and see, future paintings portraying Agency successes around the globe. If you are fortunate enough to visit HQS and see the artwork, stop in the gift shop. Occasionally you will find limited edition prints on sale there, and a few other items with some of the artwork on it.
Cast of a Few, Courage of a Nation originally by James Dietz(Image courtesy of the CIA gift shop)
]]>As I mentioned previously, I was lucky enough to serve an operations rotation in an unnamed SAD branch very early on at the Agency. I’m not exactly sure how I worked my way into it, though I began to network from day one in my entrance on duty (EOD) class. One of my classmates was a new PMOO and had already spent several months in his office getting the lay of the land. He was a goldmine of information. Early on in our first couple of weeks of training we had a mini “job fair” in the Agency cafeteria mezzanine where officers from all the area divisions and centers stood behind tables and answered questions about their respective offices. I had an interesting conversation with an SAD officer about my time in the US Customs Service and she thought maybe I’d find some interest with regards to my experience in port operations (enter my BS skills), but the other PMOO’s standing around barely made eye contact with me.
One day after training class I decided to jump on instant messaging and send a message to the SAD personnel officer to inquire about meeting in person and talking about SAD. He suggested coming in on a Saturday to chat when he would have more time. I was nervous as hell so I grabbed Sean and said we were headed to SAD PEMS to discuss doing a rotation there. He was game and met me in the parking lot (you can actually get pretty decent parking if you come in on a weekend!) and we worked our way to the PEMS office.
I don’t remember much of the conversation. I think I gave my general BS speech of I’m a hard worker and can fit in anywhere. I was really eager to learn about this side of the Agency and hoped to get a Staff Operations Officer rotation. Sean, for his part, was supposed to be an internal SAD hire from the get go, but somehow slipped through the cracks. I won’t ruin his story for later, but will say it was a great meeting and turns out not a lot of people are willing to go that extra mile to meet in person and talk their way into a rotation. This tactic helped me in later offices and positions. I actually use it still today, biting the bullet and just going for it has proved useful in all aspects of my life.
I was told I was only the 3rd or 4th Staff Operations Officer (SOO) to do a rotation in in SAD Ground Branch. It was a concept they had only recently taken a liking too. Unfortunately for me, even as a previous Federal Agent and tactical team member I was not allowed to go through any advanced training on my rotation due to a previous rotational officer’s unsafe activities at a firearms range. Instead I was given the chance to conduct certain operational work for the PMOOs, and even had the honor of writing up a recommendation for the Intelligence Star for two PMOO’s which was approved. The insight I gained into the real tip of the spear (what’s the tip of the tip of the spear called anyway?) was invaluable.
With that said I’d like to share some information about SAD’s purpose, based on ever present misconceptions I keep reading in social media. Sean has covered some of this already in his well received pieces (SAD 1 and SAD 2, check them out if you haven’t already), so some of this is my take on the information based on my experiences in a different branch.
The first time I ever heard about SAD or PMOO’s was because of the tragic death of SAD PMOO Mike Spann on 25 November 2001. The idea that the Agency had sent officers into Afghanistan before the Department of Defense was a revelation to me personally. I just hadn’t ever thought about it before. What did PMOO’s do? How did you become a PMOO? All the questions I get in my direct messages and email now where popping into my head back then.
A Paramilitary Operations Officer is nothing more than a specialized subset of Operations Officer. They obviously possess paramilitary skills as do other Operations Officers, but their primary role is utilizing those skills as a service provider to other offices at the Agency. They trained local forces prior to and during the Vietnam war, as an example. So it would make sense that most of the officers recruited into the PMOO ranks have a lengthily background in things like Foreign Internal Defense and other missions that involve the skills they already posses from Special Operations Forces like selecting host nation fighting forces, training and mentoring them in relevant operations. PMOOs and Army Special Forces officers are direct descendants of Office of Strategic Services officers who conducted the same missions in WWII with resistance forces throughout Europe and Asia. PMOOs are Case Officers, first and foremost. They recruit and write reports as well as all the other duties that other Case Officers have. When a CO works their day job, a PMOO would be in a more austere environment working with local forces. Their work would involve the same recruiting of assets as any other CO, but more directly related to the environment they are working in. As a service provider to other offices, divisions or centers, they would do not traditionally hold assets but work them for other places.
Our next piece will cover more details on the PMOOs, their deployments and mission and what it takes to get recruited into an SAD branch. Sign up for our cable releases if you want to make sure not to miss it.
]]>Of course, I traversed the hall containing the Directors’ portrait gallery countless times. And I remember lots of old school anti-communist propaganda posters in various hallways and vaults and various homegrown intelligence themed “art” in scattered cubicles.
Found in a 90’s era cube at the Agency, “Artist” unknown
(courtesy of the Author’s collection)
There was as well the then fairly small intelligence history museum that took up a corner of the New Headquarters Building (NHB) lobby. And we all took turns staring at Kryptos, the encoded bronze sculpture in the courtyard, full expecting it to be solved by the resident brainiacs in short order (spoiler alert 27 years later, 3 of the 4 panels have been solved, one remains).
I didn’t even know there were folks who paid attention to what art should hang on the walls. But apparently, folks have been doing that since the 1960’s. According to the Agency’s website “CIA’s fine arts program—administered by its Fine Arts Commission since the 1960s—has benefited over the years from donations of sculptures and paintings that celebrate historical accomplishments in intelligence. The commission reviews donation proposals and, when it finds them appropriate, officially recommends works for acceptance. Before any work is accepted, however, Agency financial and legal officers, the Office of Security, and the Office of Public Affairs all consider the recommendation. The CIA Museum and History Staff of the Center for the Study of Intelligence advise the Fine Arts Commission on historical content.”
I know, shocking, that the Agency would have to have financial and legal officers review the works, not to mention the Office of Security. End snark.
There are two art collections that line the walls of the CIA. An abstract collection, currently comprised of 11 paintings, and an “operational” collection of another 22 pieces.
The Abstract Collection
In 1988 11 pieces of abstract art from the Vincent Melzac collection representing Washington’s Color School were bought, and another 18 were borrowed in 2000. Melzac was a well-known, if controversial, business executive who was acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent collectors of the Washington Color School. Melzac had loaned paintings to the Agency as far back as 1968, always without the knowledge or permission of the original artists. In 1982, then Director William Casey awarded Melzac the Agency Seal Medal, awarded to civilians who have made significant contributions to the Agency’s intelligence efforts.
According to the Agency’s website, “Every day, Agency employees walk past several abstract paintings that hang throughout the Headquarters buildings. These paintings do not just break up the acres of wall space. They represent an elemental approach to art, a swashbuckling donor, and a connection to the architecture of the [Old Headquarters Building].” It is believed that these paintings were selected because they matched the architecture of OHB (built in 1961) and focused on the only art movement generated in Washington DC. Others speculate that the collection was chosen because “the Washington Color School’s clean lines constituted a pro-American aesthetic” and thus, would symbolize a bulwark standing against Communism’s spread across the world.
Black Rhythm Gene Davis c.1964 (image courtesy of CIA.gov)
This is the Agency’s only work by Gene Davis, one of the most noted of the Washington Color School artists. In a conscious effort to “purify” his work, he reduced painting to the fewest possible elements, that of equal-width stripes. He felt that this matrix allowed him to emphasize color orchestration, saying: “I paint by eye as a jazz musician plays by ear.” The stripes, like a drummer’s beat, provide the unity through which colors interact. Such a painting cannot be grasped all at once: Davis suggested that the viewer follow one color across the composition, seeing how the intervals work, what the rhythms are like between related colors. He described it as a kind of syncopation. A Washington native, Davis was a sports writer and a White House correspondent before he dropped that career to become a painter. (text from cia.gov)
The abstract art serves as more than just decoration however. One Agency official, Carolyn Reams, has said in other press accounts that the Agency encourages officers to “come down here and do a critical analysis of the paintings” in the hope that such a creative exercise may help those officers solve other problems (ISIL perhaps) with renewed creativity.
“Untitled” Howard Mehring (1959) (image courtesy of CIA.gov)
The Agency’s support for Abstract Expressionism developed far earlier and deeper than the loan of a few paintings in the 1960’s. A 1958 exhibit called The New American Painting had been financed covertly in part by the CIA and by displaying paintings that showcased American values and freedoms served in marked contrast to the school of Soviet Social Realism. More about this, however, in another article.
Part 2 will detail the Operational Collection made up of intelligence-themed paintings and sculptures that record the experiences of intelligence officers in both peace and wartime.
]]>TOPS officers are tech ops officers that PCS (permanent change of station) to a station and are considered the subject matter experts in all things DST. They receive training and familiarization on many pieces of the DST pie, and handle most of the technical needs in the station’s AOR (area of responsibility). They also call in other specific TOO’s to cover things that are either too involved or complicated for them to handle in the field. In my view, being a TOPS officer would be the pinnacle of technical operations at the CIA.
The amazing thing about DST is that it’s full of some of the smartest and most creative nerds you could imagine. At the same time, there are officers throughout its history that have touched every major event the Agency has been involved in since its inception. There were OSS officers involved in R&D that went to work as the CIA when it was formed, establishing a clear lineage for US technical innovation in the greater intelligence community. “Spycraft" by former Director of OTS Robert Wallace is firmly planted as one of my favorite CIA related books of all time. If you haven’t read it yet, do yourself a favor and get started. Wallace not only details the history around the formation of the Directorate and OTS, but also some of its most infamous and legendary officers. From Pat Jameson, a TSD and OTS technical operations officer who was a key character in Laotian/Vietnam covert action and many findings after that time, to the brave TOOs that deployed with the Jawbreaker teams to Afghanistan after September 2001 and the TOOs that utilized groundbreaking DST engineering creations to find and track Al Qaeda operatives and others in the decade since. I’m not doing these officers justice, but the amount of history there is staggering.
I began my Agency time forging ahead with the Targeting Officer route I came in on, not exactly sure if I wanted to angle for a TOO spot, or even how to get started. Throughout my first new officer training course the instructor cadre pushed the idea of building contacts throughout the Agency, finding personal and informal mentors and connecting with the HR representatives within each office we were interested in being home-based (permanently assigned) in. All new Directorate of Operations officers go through a series of interim assignments before their “final” position specific training cycle. They usually run between 3 to 4 months in length and for the most part consist of sink or swim type of work on as desk somewhere. I can think of quite a few fellow officers who worked as “acting” deputy branch chiefs (which isn’t saying much, but for some of these people right out of college, it was a healthy dose of real responsibility), I don’t remember ever having that role, but sure do remember the sink or swim nature of some assignments. I was lucky enough to cultivate a good contact within the Special Activities Division and land a rare interim spot in an ops shop of one of the SAD branches.
Along the way I lucked into some minor operational work and got to know the Paramilitary officers in the branch. Almost to a tee they all questioned why in the world I would have given up working as an ICE special agent to be a Targeting Officer, sitting behind a desk and sending leads off to never hear of them again. At one point during an operational task an officer got in a car with me, small talk ensued about where I use to work. Hearing about my previous special agent career he turned and looked at me, shook his head and said “you’re a fucking idiot….” My only response was nervous laughter, until more people got in the car and he told them what an idiot I was and then everyone laughed at me. At first I brushed it all off, then started to realize the real message being imparted was I was on the wrong track, at least within the targeting position in the Agency as a whole. There are certain offices where Targeting Officers do more, and are more involved. There are some slots that will PCS you (permanent change of station, i.e. - deploy you overseas, to you know, do on the ground intel work, like I had imagined) and even some targeters that went through Ops Certification at the Farm. The truth being that as you followed the thread down, the target got more and more narrow, and my likelihood of actually doing the work how I had imagined it much more difficult. If Targeting Officer was my primary, I needed on alternative plan, and needed it quickly.
My interim in SAD gave me a very unique look into the Agency, one that even other agency officers I met along the way had never had. In this role I happened into DST positions once again. The TOOs that worked with SAD were all going through the same courses, doing the same deployments and pretty much working the same tip of the spear as SAD. I started chatting with TOOs on Sametime messenger pretty much daily. I saved extra training slots for them and met them for coffee to get “facetime”. I had found my niche, and just needed to find the actual position that would get me in the door.
Wallace’s “Spycraft” book is great in many ways, though one of my favorite bits of information is how he details what the technical operations officers were actually like. If the Operations Officers were the white collar people working the diplomatic circuit, playing tennis and schmoozing it up, the TOOs were the blue collar folks. This resonates strongly with me because it relates to another part of my previous work experience. I originally wanted to work for the US Customs Service because I saw them as the blue collar agents, and the FBI as the white collar ones. I guess I just see myself as the blue collar type, or flannel collar, or just not the suit type. I would guess I only wore a suit 3 times while working as a TOO. Once for my first day in my new office and two other times for coordination meetings with DO offices. It doesn’t seem like it should be an important thing, but I think it speaks more to the overall cultural differences.
In “Spycraft” Wallace tells how TOOs were always seen as the cheapest officers around. Cheap or frugal, depending on how you look at it. They would often stay in the rattiest hotels on deployments, eating the cheapest food and drinking the cheapest beer just to save up per diem. They also got more done with nothing than anyone else around. I think of most TOOs as the ultimate problem solvers. I’m terribly biased, I know. That said, I’ve seen other TOOs have technical problems that stopped forward progress, and they all just rolled up their sleeves and figured out how to fix their issue, work around it or find another solution all together. This is something I try to emulate to this day.
After finding that the Targeting Officer route was not looking like the correct fit for me, along with it looking like my time in DC was possibly going to come up short due to approaching family concerns requiring frequent trips back to California, I had to make a quick decision about what position I wanted to certify in. I was ultimately hired as a Headquarters Based Officer. This encompasses Targeting Officers, Content Management Officers (reports officers based at Hqs) and Staff Operations Officers. None of this was told to my EOD class (entrance on duty) until our first day at Langley. We had all been hired under an individual role, but were changed to HBO’s once we started our first day. There was no way I wanted to be a reports officer, I have a hard enough time editing my own cables. I ended up choosing the Staff Operations Officer (SOO) route because quite honestly it had the closest certification course date compared to targeting. I had also been courting SAD heavily and was confident I would be home-based back there once I completed my course.
When I look back on my time at the Agency I am reminded of a circus juggler, or plate spinner. I feel like I had so many things going at once it was hard to feel settled. Close to the end of my SOO certification it became clear I would have to get back to California in some capacity, and likely not return to DC. My family had already made the move, and now with a 2nd child added to the mix, it was much too difficult to be a geographical bachelor/husband/father. I guess it says something about my networking abilities that my efforts to be home-based in SAD seemed to have paid off. Fearing I would get there and then have to leave, I took an offer with OTS instead and embarked on becoming a TOO with the remaining time I had at the Agency. I also felt like I had a better shot at finding some sort of way to be based out of the West Coast within DST, because it certainly wasn’t working out with connections I had made within the DO. Getting a domestic PCS, even when I had a home still in California and could save the Agency a lot of money, was pretty much impossible.
OTS was a welcome change to my every day experience at Hqs. My first week I was already training officers for deployments, and learning how our technical tools worked. It really was hitting the ground running. I had been given a surprising level of autonomy in previous assignments, but this new position felt more natural, maybe it was more autonomy coupled with less persistent demands from managers. We scheduled our own meetings with DO officers, and they wanted to meet us to get their training and equipment. It set a different tone.
Months into my new assignment my looming family responsibilities and stress from trying to maintain a bi-coastal family life started to become a bit too much. I had set a drop dead date for departing DC life, but hadn’t yet figured out where I’d land for work. I also found out that I’d be coming up for PCS possibilities, but would first have to do a year long war zone rotation. Looking back on it, that might have not been too difficult, as I’d been away from my family pretty consistently for over a year, but I ultimately made the decision to move back to California. I ultimately ended up back in Federal law enforcement. I’ve found since that the experience and training I received while in the DO and DST forever changed my perspective on how I approach professional endeavors. If I’m honest with myself, I wanted to be a TOO the second I heard about them, but with so many opportunities it was hard to focus on what to pursue.
My entire time at the Agency seemed like a big networking session trying to find out where I’d land once I realized that recruiting had sold me what appeared to be a bag of goods. It was a whole life’s worth of lessons tangled into an intricate mess that I’m frankly still sorting through. Being a tech ops officer is all about problem solving. In my experience, that includes pulling from the experience of others, working with any tech or tool necessary and sometimes yanking the ripcord and coming in for as soft a landing as possible. So far I think I’ve done alright. I might not be a tech ops officer still, but I’m finally able to be more of a generalist with what I’m doing. And I still don’t have to wear a tie.
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I didn’t give much thought to positions within the CIA when I applied and went through recruiting. The vast majority of books on the Agency only cover broad history, operations or are memoirs by former Case Officers. That’s a pretty minute picture of a large agency. With the exception of Anthony Mendez’s memoir, “Master of Disguise” and the more recent “Spycraft" by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton (I’m leaving out “The Wizards of Langley” because I haven’t read it yet) there are very few works related to the officers I like to think of as the real “James Bond’s”, the Technical Operations Officers of the DST.
So, no shit, there I was….the first day of the CIA’s new hire training. Basically a Human Resources indoctrination: death by PowerPoint. The main goal being tackling a mountain of health care, direct deposit and countless other forms for all new Agency employees. The course coordinator was a crusty GS-15 with quite a sarcastic sense of humor and a gravel-filled delivery showing off years of chain-smoking and, I’d guess, interest in whiskey. Upon finding out I use to work as a criminal investigator at another Federal agency he relentlessly poked at me about why I left, asking if I just got tired trolling Home Depot parking lots for cases. I found it quite amusing.
“You were an ICE agent huh? Why did you leave ICE?” He asked me as I handed in one form or another.
“Did I mention I was an ICE agent?” I said with the stiffest deadpan I could muster.
He laughed. Good sign I thought, this boring course might bearable after all.
When I told him about my Internet sector background, he asked me what had led me to choosing the Targeting Officer path I was on. He just nodded knowingly when I explained I had just applied and went with whatever the Directorate of Operations (DO) recruiting folks said I might be interested in. In truth, it was all interesting to me.
Over the week he subtly suggested that given my previous “big time Federal heat” background I might be more than a little bored as a Targeting Officer, and then mentioned maybe I should check out some TOO positions. He was the first to point out, as an obvious joke, that James Bond would have been a Tech Ops Officer. After all, they got all the gear and gadgets; they broke into buildings and defused bombs. Though they usually drank cheap beer in seedy hotels, didn’t wear tuxedos and quite a few were divorced from their “Bond girls”….but I digress.
I found this new information fascinating. The whole experience was like drinking from a firehose at that point, but DST in particular was especially refreshing. Hearing how TOOs were involved in most of the major Agency events since its creation, including the then recent operations that utilized TOOs to include capturing key Al Qaeda members, the hook was set.
Fast forward to a later training course where I met another TOO who was getting ready to go on a DO operations tour. Little did I know that the Agency sends quite a few job specialties through the Farm to get operations certification. Bill (not his real name, or is it?!?) had been on multiple war zone TDYs (temporary duty assignments) as a TOO. Enough in fact that his management asked him what he wanted to do in his next assignment. Bill said he wanted to get ops certified and try his hand at recruiting agents. He got his wish and was preparing for his slot at the Farm.
So not only did I find that TOOs got to get out in the field and involved in all levels of operations from a very early stage, but they could also get ops certified and recruit assets. This opened up a whole new world.
None of this would have meant anything if I hadn’t had an interest in tech work to begin with. At my previous agency I had already conducted technical surveillance for multiple cases, out of necessity more than anything else. I had rewired an old surveillance van, configured a few home-brew wireless and wired camera systems and even taken part in technical acquisition through researching various surveillance products for task force purchases. Small potatoes but enough to know it was an area of interest.
The Office of Strategic Services was officially created on 13 June 1942. Consisting of five branches, the OSS was a civilian intelligence agency serving during wartime. The Directorate of Science and Technology most readily finds its roots within one of those branches, Research and Development. R&D was charged with developing the tools, devices and weapons used by OSS officers and their agents to enable intelligence gathering, conduct sabotage and defend themselves.
One of the best, if not only lasting positive things to come out of working in CIA Hqs is the access to the various museum displays and photo walls throughout Langley’s NHB and OHB (New Headquarters Building and Original Headquarters Building respectively). I spent many hours wandering the OSS museum (back when it was tucked under the NHB atrium/escalators) just looking at collages of OSS detachment photos, captured crypto machines and Research and Development created gadgets. Sticky bombs, grenades, stamped single shot handguns (a gun used to get a gun), and lock pick sets among others. It wasn’t until I met more TOOs that I realized where my chosen path’s history branched off from. The same ingenuity that thought up sabotage kits was now at work within DST creating modern day devices used in operations around the globe.
The most recent incarnation of the Directorate of Science and Technology was created by then Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) John McCone in 1963. The history is a bit murky, given each divisions uneasiness with giving up their individual responsibilities and holdings. In essence the 7th Floor ended up combining the Directorate of Research, the Office of Special Activities, Office of ELINT (electronic intelligence) and the Office of Research and Development under the guise of the Deputy Directorate of Science and Technology. Albert “Bud” Wheelon was appointed the director after former Deputy Directorate of Research head Herbert Scoville resigned out of frustration with the whole reorganization. The Office of Scientific Intelligence and Office of Computer Services were then moved in as well and finally in 1965, the whole mass was renamed the Directorate of Science and Technology.
It wasn’t until 1973 that my old office was formed, when Technical Services Division was moved from within the Directorate of Operations (DO) to the DST, and renamed the Office of Technical Services. OTS provided technical support to CIA case officers in the field. This was done through the development of audio and later video devices, weapons, disguises and forged documents.
Current day DST is composed of many offices, each one providing a multitude of services. Within each office are engineers, researchers, targeting officers, a full staff of support officers and Technical Operations Officers that each provide specific skillsets to solve any operational problems or collection gaps the agency faces. One “center” that was in the news recently, Information Operations Center (IOC, though I believe it has since changed names and grown once more) is actually a DST component that includes officers from DST, DO and the Directorate of Intelligence. As the recent news would show, IOC focuses on HUMINT enabled cyber or Internet operations. During my time they also housed another group of TOO’s who were specialists in physical access to facilities, devices and pretty much anything with an alarm or a lock or seal of some kind. I heard one rumor that one TOO from that group had been the winner of a public safe cracking contest, which seems entirely believable having supported their officers when I was a OTS tech ops officer and witnessed what they were capable of.
Quite frankly, you could get down in the weeds with a lot of detail on what each office is responsible for, but the primary concern is providing tailored technical services to enable the collection of intelligence for policy makers. My OTS office was charged with providing HUMINT enabled technical services to DO operations. What does that mean exactly? Basically we deployed DST technology to CIA officers (and other US agency officers) and their recruited assets. That included building out their tools, teaching them how to use them properly, teaching them tradecraft around the tool use, trouble shooting their systems (in the field or back in Hqs) and handling information they sent back to get it going to where it was intended.
We had all sorts of “Q” branch type tools and concealments. In fact, I almost ended up taking home one device entirely on accident when I was cleaning up my desk before my final day in the building. Around the time I started in my OTS office an older (mid to late 70s) DST engineer came into my bullpen area and asked me if I wanted to see a secret writing device he had worked up. Of course I jumped at the chance and he showed me how it worked. Then he said “I’ll just leave it here for you to mess around with. See if any of your officers are interested in using it” and then he left the thing on my desk. It was one of those small “pinch me” moments I use to get when I’d meet some huge figure in the community, or work on something mind boggling, or in this case, get to play around with some cool tech that only a handful of people had ever seen.
OTS wasn’t entirely unique in its approach, there were many other offices in the Directorate that approached technical operations and support to the DO in the same fashion. There are offices that conduct audio install operations, basically planting listening devices, or training officers and their agents how to plant them. Same for video devices. There are offices that conduct tracking tagging and locating operations, track mobile devices, exploit communications systems, implant measures and signatures equipment, forge all manner of electronic and paper documents, create disguises and train on their use, create tailored internet access, work with explosive devices and gain access to facilities (physical access). I am missing quite a few offices there, but once I started looking into it, there seemed to be an office for just about any technical thing you could think of.
In the next installment I’ll share more about DST history, positions and the winding path that led me to working as a TOO.
]]>At events like the Manchester attack, we tend to think we are safe. The arena has security, no weapons are allowed, it’s a fun crowd out for a fun evening. Attackers know these thing too and they tend to look for the weak points in security. In this case, the attacker choose a transitional space, a natural funnel between a primary exit from the arena, and the nearest public transport, the Manchester train station. He knew traffic flow from the concert would be heavy and concentrated. He knew the only likely security in the transitional space would be CCTV cameras (great for post mortem, not so hot for prevention). And he knew that by the nature of the transitional space, no one would think twice about someone loitering (waiting on friends? A train?) carrying luggage (it’s a train station entrance after all).
In 2003, The Station nightclub caught fire and was engulfed in smoke and flames in 5 ½ minutes. Of the 462 people in a club with capacity for only 404, 100 died and 230 were injured. When the fire began, people panicked and fled blindly, trying to exit through the one door they had entered, ignoring other potential exits.
A framework can be helpful in this process. Largely, the model below is familiar to most military or first responders as it is similar to the traditional OODA loop, or Observe, Orient, Decide, Act model of decision making. But, sometimes jargon gets in the way of understanding. So here is some simpler language.
Pay attention
For some reason, when we get around our friends, in a social situation, excited about our plans as they unfold, we stop paying attention to the world around us. When we are alone in public, we tend to pay far more attention to our surroundings. We feel alone, which often makes us feel insecure, less safe, but heightens our focus. Being in a group brings an often false sense of security, and a fair number of distractions.
Don’t let your guard down. Stay vigilant and pay attention to the world around your group. If something seems out of place, or makes you feel off, there is probably a good reason for it. Security professionals often call this situational awareness, which is a fancy way of saying understanding the environment and events you are in, in relation to time and meaning, what is normal and expected, and thus what is out of context and therefore noticeable. And if you notice something that looks out of place, or your spidey senses start tingling, an unattended bag or individual dressed in appropriately for the environment and looking uncomfortable, etc. let someone in authority know.
Know the layout
There is a reason flight attendants show passengers where the exits are. Statistics point to a significantly increased probability of surviving a plane crash if you know where the exits are. Virtually any public venue you go to will have multiple entrances/exits. Don’t just remember the one you went through to get there, learn where at least one of the others is.
In 2003, during The Station nightclub fire, a 100 people died, 40 of them in the doorway they had entered through. There were three other exits in the building, and an entire front of windows that could have been broken to create egress points. People are creatures of habit, they like to go and the way they came.
Take a few minutes, look for the exits, talk it over with your group and have a plan in case you get separated or things go south.
Take a moment to assess what’s happening
If you are in situation where an event has happened (active shooter, plane disaster, ied), don’t panic. Stop, take a moment to assess the situation. Where is the threat? Is it ongoing? What are my escape options (remember, you already learned where the various exits were)? What is the crowd doing? Is there cover available to me? Or just concealment? Can I leave? Or is hiding my only option?
In the early days of active shooter training, the mantra was Run, Hide, Fight. Today that has been replaced with Avoid, Deny, Defend. In either case though, you need to take a little time to assess what is happening. Don’t freeze however, this is an active assessment informed by your previous knowledge of the area. You are making decisions about your next steps.
Take action
With your assessment in mind, action is now required. Can you safely and quickly leave the area? Which way? What is the crowd doing? There can be significant risk in following the crowd. Crowds can lead to deadly bottlenecks. In the case of a terrorist attack, one tactic we have seen applied is an initial attack designed to stun/assault a crowd, followed by a second, potentially larger attack, designed around a bottleneck of fleeing victims and/or first responders.
Are you responsible for others? Are they with you? Can you communicate with them? Did you set up a meeting place in case you got separated? Now is the time to execute on the plan you worked through earlier (We are going to head out that emergency exit on the north side of the stage. We will make our way back to our vehicle in section X of the parking lot. Etc.) Once you leave, get away from the threat zone. Remember, debris from an explosion can travel long distances. Don’t linger in the area.
Finally, what to do if you or a friend are injured?
Do you know CPR? ABCs (airway, breathing, circulation). Are they conscious? Talking? Take another moment now to assess their injuries. Have you taken any medical training or first aid courses? Do you know what to do if they are bleeding (apply pressure)? Do you have a med kit? I highly recommend you get one, get trained on using it, and carry it. Call 911 and, if necessary seek medical attention as soon as possible.
Look, I don’t want you to live your life in fear. That’s what the bad guys want, whether a bully, criminal or terrorist. Go out with friends. Attend concerts and movies. Travel. Live your life. I am only advocating that you go out in that life a little more prepared. A slightly harder target than the average person. Someone more likely to survive when faced with a deadly threat. Because you have taken the time to pay attention, assess, build a plan and be prepared to execute on it.
]]>Mine began while a comfortably middle class, average student with good language skills at a large state university in the south. A typical frat guy, I had spent far more time drinking beer and chasing girls (not always in that order) than I did on my academics (fortunately I got the chance to redeem myself in grad school later). As my time in school began to draw to an end, I all of a sudden had to start thinking about what to do with my life in the real world.
I dutifully went down to the career services interview to begin signing up for interviews that would likely have me stuck in a cube wearing a tie for the next 30 years. And all I really knew I wanted was to do something international, using language skills, and that would allow me to build an identity unique from my father’s (not that his was bad, it wasn’t, I just wanted to become my own man and do things that he hadn’t done).
So in between the Bechtel and Coca Cola interview sign-up sheets, I saw one for the CIA. Huh, that’s interesting I thought. My grandfathers had both served in the US military in WWII; Top Gun had got me thinking about the military. Maybe there was another way I could serve. I had no real idea what it meant or involved (this was pre-Google), but thought it sounded pretty cool so I signed up for an interview.
A few days later, I found myself sitting in front of a real live CIA officer. I was underwhelmed. He looked more like an academic than a bad ass. And as he reviewed my resume and transcript, he too was underwhelmed. He looked up at me over the pages and said, “You really aren’t qualified for many of the roles we are hiring for. I’m looking for strong analysts and scientists, folks with more experience and maturity. In fact, the only role you might be qualified for is as an operations officer. You know, the guys who have to go out and collect information, recruiting spies etc. Are you sure you are really interested in that?” I thought to myself, “That sounds like the only job I’d be interested in, the rest of those jobs sound boring.” What I said to him was, “Sir, I’ve wanted to do that my whole life.” Ok, so maybe I was stretching it a little, but what the heck, it was a career that would rely upon my ability to lie.
He said, “I’ll put you through to the next stage, but since you signed up for a public interview, and the role you are applying for is a [REDACTED] role, we need to send you a public rejection letter (I still have that letter). That way, if anyone asks, you can tell them you applied on a lark, and it ended quickly. But in the meantime, be at this address in another city, at this specific time and date, and we will start your [REDACTED] process then. Don’t tell anyone, including your family or girlfriend. The process is long and you likely won’t make it through. Good luck.”
Thus began a roughly 10 month process of interviews, tests, trips to the DC area, psych exams, polygraphs etc all to see if they would select me. I finished up school, graduated and took another job, having heard nothing but that the process was continuing forward. I knew it was getting close though when they started my background investigation, as they had mentioned that as the last step. I got a little nervous when I heard they sent two investigators to my fraternity house to interview the brothers about me. Fortunately, the investigators kept an appropriate sense of humor as they were told stories about my purported closeted deviant sexual behaviors, support for various and sundry international workers causes and association with shady underworld figures. The tales were so outlandish I have no idea how the investigators kept straight faces.
But in the end I made it through, and reported to NoVa to begin my entry on duty (EOD) and initial training. My mom asked me the other day what the Agency saw in the then 21 year old me and how I managed to keep it all from the family, including the travel, until time for the background investigation. I wasn’t sure at the time really, and still wonder myself sometimes, but at least part of it was my ability to go through it without their knowledge or help. It turned out to be a pretty good fit though and for the next decade through multiple tours abroad was some of the most fun and fulfilling work I would do.
The path into the Agency today is much more easily understood and followed. The Agency continues to send representatives to career centers, trade shows and hiring fairs. For most applicants, however, their process now starts with a trip to the CIA’s career page on cia.gov. Whether a student looking to learn more or explore internships, or a college graduate with many years of experience, your path in starts here. There is a wealth of information, not just about what specific opportunities are available right now, but about the Agency in general, the various types of jobs, life inside etc.
By the way, networking can be helpful in the information process. There are many former CIA officers (and other members of the Intelligence Community) active in public forums such as Facebook and Twitter. There are few better sources to learn from than those who have done the thing you aspire to. Reach out to them and ask. But be respectful, do your diligence and don’t ask them for info you could get yourself in a Google search. Don’t expect them to be able to help you get in however. The days of the old boys club shepherding folks through the process are long gone, and that is largely for the best.
The Agency rightly notes that the application is long, arduous and intrusive. They attempt to answer questions about the background investigation (yes a polygraph is mandatory), previous drug use (hint: your state’s stand on legalization is irrelevant, federal statute trumps) and even applying from overseas (don’t, just wait until you come home), among a myriad of other questions you might or will have. Even your consumption of movies and music can matter (yeah, years of illegal downloading on BitTorrent and other P2P sites might prevent you from getting a security clearance).
Are there any absolute musts to get in to the Agency? Yes, you MUST be a US citizen and you MUST be over the age of 18. It is worth noting that while not always mandatory, for the majority of Agency jobs, a college degree is required. That specifically includes most overseas and analysts positions. In fact, for those roles they often prefer advanced degrees.
Additionally, you cannot serve out your US military service obligation at the Agency, nor is the Agency a veteran preference agency. That said, many Agency officers have military experience and it is a well-trod, well understood skill set needed within the Agency.
Once you explore all the career information on the CIA’s website and are ready to start, you will submit your resume and application online there. Do not follow up with hard copy, faxed or emailed resumes. It won’t help your application in any way. Make sure you follow all the instructions in detail, remember, you are hoping to make yourself stand out, don’t let typos or failure to follow instructions take you out of the running.
Getting in remains as selective as ever, if not more so. The CIA receives more than 10,000 resumes per month, including many from individuals who are equally or better qualified than you might be. They are often unable to get back to each individual so they note that if you have not heard back from them within 45 days after submission of your application, they will not be pursuing an offer of employment with you. If this is your case, well, don’t get too discouraged, if your education or experience changes in significant ways, you can always reapply.
If there is interest, you will get a follow up email (from a .gov email address) or phone call (usually from someone with only a first name and no named Agency referencing your application). In this case, you will be at the front of a process that can take up to two years, but averages 9-12 months.
And if you make it through that process, well, we welcome you to a unique opportunity to serve your nation in the shadows on her first line of defense. It is fulfilling, challenging, engaging and sometimes risky. And as Al Pacino noted in The Recruit, “Our failures are known…our successes are not.” Our nation needs her best and brightest to step up to that challenge.
Good luck!
]]>I cringed as I read through Morell’s opinion piece, wishing he had stayed neutral in his political leanings, as he stated he did during his career. Not because I disagree with a lot of his points, in fact I think he makes some pretty good ones with regards to Putin and Trump, but because the irony of his position on Clinton with regards to his time working within the classified world of National Security seems to have totally been lost on him.
Morell is cherry picking time spent in the same room with Clinton to state that she has the experience we need in a president. He’s lending creditability to Clinton based on his three decades in the CIA. The one ironically glaring omission in his recollection are the undisputed facts brought to light in the Clinton email investigation conducted by the FBI. How could Morell honestly back someone who knowingly mishandled classified information? I won’t run through the evidence discussed by FBI Director Comey in the last month, but its clear to anyone who’s ever held a security clearance that what Clinton and company did is at the very least mishandling classified information. More directly, if Mr. Morell had done anything similar to what Clinton did, with regards to handling classified information, he would be writing his opinion pieces from inside Federal Correctional Institution Loretto, and rightly so.
Which brings me to Morell’s comments on Trump with regards to Russia. I happen to agree with him that it appears Putin is influencing Trump. Directly or not doesn’t really matter, as it’s a concern either way. To say that “that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” however is making a factual jump that just hasn’t been found. This is why career intelligence officers (or ones who even just spent time at the CIA, a-hum) cringe when the big heads start pushing their versions of the “facts” in the media. I cringe the same way whenever Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn writes an opinion piece.
I'm disappointed in Morell for stooping into the political fray, but even more so for his dipping into religion AND politics. Do we really need to bring up former Chief CTC’s religion to make a political point? Isn’t it more succinct to state that he’s an American, working an extremely difficult job, regardless of any personal religious beliefs? How base do we have to get to make out point?
]]>She commented that her biggest memory of the event was being bewildered at how shaken up her fellow officers were back at Hqs, even weeks after the bombing. Her particular feeling being it was terrible, but we had already lost so many in conflicts and it was time to pull it together and move on, instead of feel sorry for yourself.
On the surface this might seem insensitive and harsh, especially towards the memories of those lost, but it was an important reminder for me in particular. I have been extremely lucky in my service to have not had to attend lots of memorial services for fallen colleagues. Its entirely likely I am in the minority here though. And though its important to always remember those who gave all to our country, its equally important not to get bogged down in that and drive forward. So I write this here this morning in memorial to my lost colleagues from 30 December 2009, to remember their sacrifice but also to remind myself there is still work to do and its my responsibility to do it, looking forward, not back.
What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
* Recently I was fortunate enough to have a few hours to kill in NoVa, so I stopped by Arlington National Cemetery. Regrettably I missed Darren LaBonte's grave, but did my own tour of the Agency officers I know of buried there. I've included the shots of Elizabeth Hanson and Jennifer Matthews here, as they relate. We are putting together a cleared tour of former Agency officer's graves at Arlington that will be coming in a future post.
]]>She commented that her biggest memory of the event was being bewildered at how shaken up her fellow officers were back at Hqs, even weeks after the bombing. Her particular feeling being it was terrible, but we had already lost so many in conflicts and it was time to pull it together and move on, instead of feel sorry for yourself.
On the surface this might seem insensitive and harsh, especially towards the memories of those lost, but it was an important reminder for me in particular. I have been extremely lucky in my service to have not had to attend lots of memorial services for fallen colleagues. Its entirely likely I am in the minority here though. And though its important to always remember those who gave all to our country, its equally important not to get bogged down in that and drive forward. So I write this here this morning in memorial to my lost colleagues from 30 December 2009, to remember their sacrifice but also to remind myself there is still work to do and its my responsibility to do it, looking forward, not back.
What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
* Recently I was fortunate enough to have a few hours to kill in NoVa, so I stopped by Arlington National Cemetery. Regrettably I missed Darren LaBonte's grave, but did my own tour of the Agency officers I know of buried there. I've included the shots of Elizabeth Hanson and Jennifer Matthews here, as they relate. We are putting together a cleared tour of former Agency officer's graves at Arlington that will be coming in a future post.
]]>Section 59 Site 346
Section 35 Site 156
Section 8 Site 10177
Section 34 Site 2359
Section 60 Site 8621
The next time you are near our nation's capitol and can stop in, stop by and spend some time walking Arlington National Cemetery. Its quite a place to take in.
Thank you all for your service.
Section 59 Site 346
Section 35 Site 156
Section 8 Site 10177
Section 34 Site 2359
Section 60 Site 8621
The next time you are near our nation's capitol and can stop in, stop by and spend some time walking Arlington National Cemetery. Its quite a place to take in.
Thank you all for your service.
To the non-practitioners of our line of work, particularly those who like to read the more salacious authors of the genre, termination of an asset carries a particularly nefarious connotation. It is assumed to mean the actual killing and/or some other means of disposing of an asset. We all know that this is one of those instances where a word is just a word, nothing more.
I was a first tour officer, a baby-faced 23 years old and newly certified from the Farm. I had been assigned to a country in Asia where I spoke only one of the languages common there, and looked nothing like a native. I know I was technically an adult and was well trained, but I woke up every day hoping no one would realize they had made a terrible mistake hiring me to be a case officer. Don’t get me wrong, I was having a blast! I still couldn’t believe I was getting paid to do this.
As a new officer in a post with a wide range of targets and threats, I had a chance to pursue just about anything I wanted to do. Jumping out on the social circuit in search of developmentals was a natural starting point. I realized quickly, though, that the shotgun approach to spotting and assessing was not very efficient, nor did it carry a high likelihood of a return. Fortunately, I had good senior officers who helped direct my efforts and temper my neophyte’s enthusiasm. Oh, and I also learned, it was kind of like courting a beautiful woman. Sometimes, the more you showed interest, the more the target pushed you away.
While fumbling around trying to find my first developmental, the station management made sure that I, like all new officers, was also given established assets to handle.
I’ll never forget my first asset. There was nothing high speed about him but I didn’t really know that yet. He worked on the periphery on one of the station’s primary mission areas of focus. He seemed old to me at the time, but he was probably only in his late 50’s.
On the night of the turnover, his handling officer drove on our surveillance detection route (SDR). It was my first SDR through this crowded Asian city, all the smells and sounds and sights overwhelming me as I tried to process how two white guys were going to prove they were clean in this environment. I was definitely not in northern Virginia (NoVa) any longer. I was excited, nervous, confident and thousand other conflicting emotions.
I don’t remember much about the actual meeting. It was relatively non-eventful as he had been an asset for a long time and been handed over before, and his handler had transitioned other assets many times as well. He was a golden boy in the then-DO who later went on to the 7th floor and as Chief of Station (COS) of multiple large stations in hard target environments. I was the only one new at this game and I think they were both amused by my wide-eyed naïveté. The turnover was successfully made. I had my first case.
We met for about a year. I realize now that he was the perfect first asset. He knew what he was about but never over-valued what he did. He was careful with tradecraft, as the risk to his safety was real, and expected me to be the same. Much later on it occurred to me that he was training me as much or more than I trained him. I was able to apply the full spectrum of skills we had learned at the Farm, and in particular, learned to task and collect intelligence, then draft and re-write intel reports, and lather-rinse-repeat. It was a discipline that served me well for the rest of my time in the Agency.
He provided some good intelligence, but nothing stellar. It remained on the periphery of our primary targets, but never crossed in to the real meat. At one time, it seemed, he had had that access and provided that reporting, but no longer. We were also entering an era where interest in his primary areas of access was becoming less pertinent to analysts and policymakers. It was one layer deeper than press reporting, and just about as exciting.
At this time in the Agency’s history, we had no real hot wars and eventually, budgets came under scrutiny across the globe. In the end, his reporting was deemed to fall below our risk/budget/need trade-offs. My branch chief called me in and said I would need to terminate him (i.e., end our relationship).
I went back to the file and pulled his original agreement from his recruiting officer. According to his file, we had agreed to pay him one month’s salary for each year of service as termination pay. As he had been an asset for almost 20 years, it was not an insignificant sum.
I drafted the termination plan, including the proposed termination payment in accordance with the agreement, submitted it to Headquarters and continued about my day-to-day responsibilities. A few uneventful days passed and I received my response. In no uncertain terms, my request to honor the terms of his recruitment was denied. I was only allowed to pay him 5 months’ pay, not the 20 he had been promised.
To me, the biggest shock was that we as an organization would intentionally decide to disregard our own commitment to an asset. A promise we had made, in exchange for his risk and provision of intelligence. A risk that would continue long after the termination. Any exposure of his previous involvement with us would result in grave risk to his life. The difference in money wasn’t really that much in Western terms, but huge in the Third World.
Wouldn’t this undermine every promise made to any asset we recruited? That we could, at a whim, renege on our promises. Our reputation was all that we had. We were the good guys, we didn’t do this to our people.
I was mad. I went in to my branch chief’s office and argued, yelled, cajoled, trying everything I could to make my case. The branch chief and station management agreed that it was wrong but they also said we had no other choice. No room to maneuver. It was my job to sell the change to him in the termination, leaving him happy with us and the amount.
In the end, I did it. Or maybe he made it easy (continuing his own training of me as a case officer). Probably both. I sat there and watched his twinkling eyes and smiling face as he listened to my tortured logic about both the termination and the payment. I thanked him for his many years of service (this was the first time I had ever fired anybody) and that we just couldn’t, well, work together going forward. I even got him to sign the quit claim, acknowledging that we owed him nothing more. And we parted ways.
We all lose a little of our hope when we see some of the shine of our Agency dulled by decisions such as these. I guess I needed to grow up some. And I learned lessons I would apply throughout my time in the DO, chief among those not to make promises that I couldn’t keep.
]]>I’m all about information. With a career in the investigations and intelligence world that should not come as a surprise to anyone reading articles on Inglorious Amateurs. One caveat is that I really dislike ambiguity, hedging, conjecture and embellishing with my information. Simple enough, right?
That is why sources matter. Sources add not only context but also authority to information. Along with sources come motive and intent. That is where things start to really go grey. The key to deciphering the true intent of disclosures of course is knowing the source so you can better assess the motivation and intent driving the disclosure of the information at hand.
In my current and former work protecting sources and methods is one of the first hard and fast rules I learned. If you can’t protect your sources you risk losing them as well as any credibility and safety you projected. So when a journalist cites an anonymous source (usually with a “not authorized to speak…” line in there) I can sort of get it.
Here’s the problem as I see it though. If every story cites one or more anonymous source, the reader is left with unknown motivations and intent behind the disclosure of that information. When a “Senior Intelligence Official not authorized to speak” is cited it projects authority, but it also says that their information was unimportant enough personally to that individual that they felt comfortable breaking the law (disclosing classified information) and sharing it with a journalist. It also puts the journalist in the unfavorable position of witting or unwitting propaganda go between.
In today’s connected world media users expect information instantly. Media outlets exist to spread information, and this is a good thing. Without applied critical thinking and a firm ethical stance on what is and isn’t damaging to disclose, media outlets have become content with holding the gun while unethical policy makers and unscrupulous National Security professionals shoot themselves in the collective foot.
Sean Naylor’s recent book, Relentless Strike is just one example of a collected work that contains a bevy of items not cleared for publication. While its hard to hold Naylor totally at fault, mostly because people talking to him do know better, it still leaves me wondering is the loss of sources and methods as well as personal security worth letting Naylor publish his book?
The same could be said for any number of national security related stories that pop up in media outlets almost daily. Each seems to contain at least one caveat for anonymity by a key source in the story. People like to complain a lot about the CIA putting stories in the media for influence, even if it’s in jest, but I doubt most really understand how unlikely that truly is. The amount of oversight over Agency operations mingling and influencing western media is pretty crazy. In fact, pretty much all operations at the Agency have many levels of approval and oversight. I cannot imagine any large government bureaucracy without some level of oversight, especially related to items that would most certainly reflect negatively on them.
Which brings up the all too popular topic of whistleblowers and the media. A recent online story on former CIA officer turned felon John Kiriakou really sat wrong with me regarding its tone and overall conceit. This is especially true in light of the previous well-researched article by Steve Coll for the New Yorker. I don’t intend to retread too much ground here.
Kiriakou is an odd case in that he seems almost bi-polar in his love/hate with the CIA. It could be explained away by his legal troubles, if it were not for all the inconsistencies in his story. In speaking with Robert Grenier, the former Chief of Islamabad Station, and head of the Counterterrorism Center (among other things in a long and distinguished career at the Agency) it was apparent that some media “truths” about Kiriakou aren’t truths at all. Kiriakou was never the head of counterterror operations in Pakistan, and he was not even in the same city as Abu Zubaydah when he was captured in 2002. That’s just the tip of the iceburg is seems.
So is Kiriakou a whistleblower? As background, the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended by the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 provides employees and contractors of intelligence agencies with a mechanism for reporting alleged wrongdoing in IC agencies and associated programs to Congress. Under the ICWPA, IC employees have the right to engage in whistleblowing activity relating to intelligence matters of "urgent concern" and to be free from retaliatory actions for such reporting.
Every new employee at say, the CIA, gets briefed on how to report illegal activities or raise concerns. There is a clear path, which just about everyone hired by such a place can easily understand and follow. No doubt its been used in the past, and will be used in the future. People like Kiriakou and Edward Snowden are not whistleblowers because what they did falls outside the scope of the protection act. Divulging classified information couched under the pretext of being a “whistleblower” is just plain illegal.
Based on the biographical articles I’ve read, Kiriakou’s start in the Directorate of Intelligence was fairly uneventful and productive, but his move to the Clandestine Service and his first overseas assignment in Athens, Greece comes across as a nervous officer stricken with a case of the shadows. So much so, as Coll notes, that his constant rear view mirror gazing (not recommended in surveillance detection by the way) had him bumper tapping other vehicles in Athens traffic. This too is something to be avoided by CIA Officers overseas, for a multitude of reasons.
His personality reads as someone prone to compulsive reactions and flights of ego. Couple that with the fact that he left the Agency in 2004 under what appears to be somewhat less than stellar circumstances and you have what might be a ripe target for recruitment. In his contacts with the media circa 2007 Kiriakou seemed to almost “recruit” himself into giving classified national security secrets to journalists. Those same journalists gave some information to defense attorneys representing Al Qaida members being held at Guantanamo Bay.
Though Kiriakou’s sad story is one of a known source, the journalists he was in contact with apparently never considered his motives. The lasting damage done by disclosing the identities of Agency personnel to AQ detainees and anyone else does not seem to have been considered by the journalists or even Kiriakou. The story breaking into the news cycle led to ruining at least one Agency officer’s career and jeopardizing many more careers and lives.
Now Kiriakou has taken up the lauded whistleblower status, as if this were his original intent all along. A simple timeline shows he never considered this until he was getting charged with at least one count of 18 USC 1001, making knowingly false statements, or lying to federal investigators.
It seems Kiriakou’s motive in this case was to bolster his own ego and sell his memoir and Agency experience. It worked for a time, but seems to have fallen apart now. Had the journalists in contact with him delved deeper into his motivation for talking to them, they might have discovered this and assessed that using his information would also open themselves up to the legal problems they later found themselves in. In other words, if not for the security of their nation, reconsidering disclosing classified information might have saved them personal legal troubles.
I agree with the likes of Aki Peritz and Kevin Strouse of the Overt Action blog and their August 18, 2015 DefenseOne article “The Intel Community Needs A Better Media Strategy”. They did an ample job of highlighting a huge problem in our current day-to-day national security structure. We try to pretend way too much is classified. This naturally leads to almost anything becoming a potential leak.
I remember those heady days of working in Langley, lunch time fast approaching and shooting off a quick Lotus Notes message to a few colleagues to see where we were meeting up to eat, and then having to put some kind of classification marking at the bottom of the email. It was nuts to me that we put markings on everything. At one level I get it, at another, if everything is classified, doesn’t that make really damaging information less readily identifiable?
Here’s another thought. If the national security community classifies everything, and leaks still happen, how long before a new secret classification system is put in place? How long before people start utilizing their OWN separate messaging networks to pass information. Too late I guess…
It might seem to go without saying, but we desperately need government professionals to embrace the “SHHH”, at the same time we need media professionals to honestly assess the need for a good story with the security of the nation that gives them the freedom to run with such a story in the first place. It really is that simple. SHHH.
]]>Virginia Hall had many names in her distinguished career with the SOE, OSS, and later the CIA. She was known by “Germaine”, “Diane”, “Camille”, and my favorite: “la dame qui boite” (the limping lady). The last was the result of a hunting incident in which she accidentally shot herself in the leg which was later amputated. She was given a wooden prosthetic she nicknamed Cuthbert. Later she commented to the SOE that she hoped Cuthbert wouldn’t give her trouble in the French countryside and they responded that, if he did, she should “eliminate him”.
Virginia’s determination, intellect, and perseverance is what kept her alive and earned her an honorary member of the Order of the British Empire and the Distinguished Service Cross. These characteristics are what keeps her in the fore-front of my mind as I raise a daughter today. Virginia Hall, with a wooden leg, was sent behind enemy lines in France (supposedly Hall parachuted back into France with her prosthesis in her pack) to coordinate air drops, train guerillas (she helped train upwards of three battalions of the French Resistance). She knew full well that any allied spies who were found by the Germans were shot on site, at best.
The reason I keep Hall in mind when raising my daughter is that I, for one, want my daughter to become a strong independent woman that, like Virginia, decided she wanted to do something and she did it as good as, if not better, than her male counterparts. She wasn’t arrogant, definitely confident, but not arrogant. When President Truman wanted to award her the Distinguished Service Cross publically, she requested it stayed private so that she could get back to the field instead of receiving much deserved public praise. Today is April 6th, the day Virginia Hall was born (very close to my own daughter’s birthday) so I felt it was important to share why “Marie of Lyon” is such an important figure in our house and why if you have a daughter (and even if you don’t) Virginia Hall should at least be part of the discussion on defining women in history.
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As backstory, a CI Case Review or file review is a comprehensive investigation and analysis of an operation or recruited asset. It involves sitting down with (depending on your vintage) large case file folders of documents or sitting in front of a computer sifting through electronic case files in the Agency’s system. The goal for the reviewer is to pull out the main parts of the case, detail them, reviewing them to make sure they make sense, then in the end to come up with a clear point of view on the subject. IE – is this a valid recruitment and are they giving us good intelligence or have they been fabricating their information?
In his new book Baer draws from his own decades old stack of notes on 3x5 cards (his own case file, as it were) to tease out a narrative around the life and “works” of Imad Mughniyeh aka Hajj Radwan. Mughniyeh was a mysterious member of Hezbollah and agent of the Iranian government. That description isn’t really explaining enough about him, but needless to say he is believed to be the driving force behind the many Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad Organization bombings and kidnappings carried out from the 1980s until his death by car bomb in Damascus, Syria in 2008.
Baer has long claimed to be deeply affected by the 18 April 1983 suicide bombing of the US Embassy in Lebanon, Beirut. This is quite understandable, especially given the damage it, along with the later barracks bombing and kidnappings did to the CIA’s mission in Lebanon and his ties to the mission there. I was not connected to Khost, Afghanistan, but the 2009 suicide bombing at Camp Chapman has had a lasting effect on me. It happened to my colleagues, some I knew or knew of. So I get the purpose of the book and its sole focus on who Baer believes masterminded Hezbollah’s terror campaigns and assassinations.
I find myself split on the book, however. It has so many caveats about his memory, his points of view. Baer freely admits to changing parts of the narrative to protect sources and methods ostensibly to appease the CIA’s Publication Review Board (the board that reviews all works by former CIA officers, including this review I might add, to ensure no classified information is released) but I can’t help but feel quite a bit of the intent behind this is actually to help bolster the existing narrative and direction of the book. That’s fine in a sense, but it detracts from an otherwise authoritative discussion on the topic of political killings, seen through the eyes of Mughniyeh and Baer’s search for him over two decades.
In one sense The Perfect Kill is a big mess that just seems poorly edited. In another it reads a bit like an operational report from a Case Officer in the field. Unpolished reporting that contains useful information among the verbal detritus. The 21 rules should be enough of a guide to keep Baer on track, but at times they seem like an unnecessary diversion. Even Baer admits that he has no clue if Mughniyeh followed such rules. Its hindsight that seems to add the context, for all we know Mughniyeh could have just been extremely lucky.
There's a certain charm to it that is no doubt my own personal bias coming into play. Having been on the inside and around such personalities (though he was gone before I arrived) I admire parts of his personality but dislike the ego. Which brings me to another point on caveats. They are an easy out to cover for unnecessary chest puffing. This is a criticism I’ve felt applies to Baer for some time now. In The Perfect Kill he goes so far as to freely admit, as if almost bragging, that he comes to his conclusions without the assistance from Officers still within the Agency. He states that since leaving in 1997 he hasn’t kept in contact with anyone on the inside, and he comes at these conclusions based on his years of experience and open source research. While this seems logical, his previous experience often times gives the public and media he appears with the impression that he does have contacts inside Langley. Anyone with recent experience can easily see where he gets it wrong with regards to the current internal CIA climate, for example. Ego and chest buffing is no substitute for cold hard facts. The whole idea that Baer so freely tells of actively working to personally target Mughniyeh is troubling to me. Obviously I can’t say if it’s legitimate or not. And that’s the point; in the spy world (as in life) perception is reality. That reality is then something you can market to sell books. Somewhere along the line truth itself becomes victim to creative assassination.
It was interesting to see his point of view soften towards Jennifer Matthews, one of the victims of the 2009 suicide attack in Khost Afghanistan. I remember reading his GQ editorial at the time where he rails against the Agency for sending someone so unqualified to the Chief of Base position in Khost. Now it seems he’s focusing more on the intended damage by al Balawi. I’m sure he still believes that the National Clandestine Service is lacking in seasoned operations officers, its only a shame he didn’t see fit to stick out roaming the halls for long enough to repair his “Hall File” (Agency speak for reputation) after being investigated by the FBI. That retelling is one of the better highlights in the book, if I do say so myself. I hadn’t been aware that the Gollum-like figure of Ahmed Chalabi was involved in that debacle as well.
All in all I stand with my original assessment. The Perfect Kill is not unlike a published, yet unpolished version of a CI Case Review. An airing of details as he knows them followed by his personal view that the United States is bad at political killings because they don't know targets intimately enough. His contention is that political killings should always be local affairs, used to cut out a malignant cell, rather than trying to crush an ideology. He believes that this is something Mughniyeh understood, and we likely never will. I can't find a fault in that really. Looking at the drone program I am not sure it’s done anything to actually help us. It’s apparent that Baer would agree, though he’s unlikely to agree with me that he’s not quite the resident expert on the world that he would like us all to believe.
]]>On 12/30/2009, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor and al-Qaeda triple agent detonated a suicide vest at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman near Khost, Afghanistan. The detonation killed 7 Americans, a mix of contractors and CIA Officers, 1 Jordanian Intelligence Officer and an Afghan contractor. 6 other CIA officers were seriously wounded in the attack. The attack was the single largest loss of life by the CIA since the 1983 US Embassy bombing in Lebanon and carried a severe emotional toll through the Agency and the broader US intelligence community.
Al-Balawi had been arrested earlier in the year in Jordan, and reportedly had been turned as an agent against al-Qaeda. After several months of sharing information on al-Qaeda. Al-Balawi requested a meeting to share information on a senior al-Qaeda leader. That meeting was set to take place at Camp Chapman, Khost, Afghanistan, which would have been the first time the CIA had interacted directly with al-Balawi. Shortly after arrival at Camp Chapman, according to Washington post reporter Job Warrick in his book Triple Agent, after passing through 3 separate security checkpoints without being searched, al-Balawi’s vehicle arrived in the middle of the base where it stopped. As he exited the vehicle, he was approached by some of the waiting American officers to be searched. He detonated the bomb he carried prior to them reaching him.
Much has been written about the lead up to the attack, the attack itself and analysis of the various decisions made by those on site. I’ll not go in to those here except to say two things: First, it is easy to Monday morning quarterback an operation gone wrong when you were not there and with the totality of information available after the fact. It is much harder to truly say you would have made different decisions on site in the same time-frames with access to the same information at hand. Secondly, after action reports, especially in cases like this, can be invaluable as learning tools to protect our people in the future. That process though need not be a public dissection of the folks involved and their decisions. There is no legitimate public benefit served in that. The public need only know that the community is committed to learning from those mistakes and failed operations and that they will always carry a significant risk to the lives of our officers, a risk they themselves choose to bear in order to do the difficult jobs America asks of them.
Image courtesy of Bend Bulletin
Jennifer Matthews was the 45 year old Chief of Base for the CIA’s location in Khost. She was a long time CIA officer with significant experience on the al-Qaeda target. She was also a wife, and mother of three young children, an incredibly difficult balancing act for anyone in the Agency, much less someone devoted to chasing al-Qaeda in war zones. Jennifer had been married to her college sweetheart, Gary Anderson, since 1987.
Jennifer joined the Agency as an intelligence analyst the same year I did, 1989, though we only knew each other in passing. Friends who worked with her spoke very fondly of her. She was both the perfect candidate as an analyst, and an unlikely candidate at the same time. Bright, she had degrees in political science and journalism from a small Christian college in Ohio. Definitely not the stereotypical Ivy Leaguer recruited by a former OSS Officer now serving as an adjunct professor.
A co-worker who worked with her in her early role as an imagery analyst said, “Jennifer was a sharp, witty and incredibly strong-willed woman who was a natural leader in our branch. I remember fondly our daily morning meetings with Jennifer at the forefront of discussions about the overnight intelligence or the latest cable traffic. Her insights were invaluable to our team and she pushed us all to be better analysts. Passionate in her beliefs, she was especially driven by the challenges faced in protecting our national security. Most importantly, Jennifer was a good person who was devoted to her family and faith.”
Jennifer had been committed to the al-Qaeda target since the 1990’s, working for Mike Scheuer and later as one of the first members of Alec Station, in various capacities of increasing responsibility. The bombings of the US embassies in Africa in 1998 intensified her efforts to chase down the al-Qaeda threat. By the late, 1990’s she had become one of the most knowledgeable experts in the Agency on al-Qaeda. Learning about the 9/11 attacks while on vacation in Europe, her zeal for chasing down al-Qaeda was redoubled. Nada Bakos, an al-Qaeda targeting officer, described Jennifer as ”dedicated to her job, focused on finding Bin Laden and adamant that she would stay on the team until it was done.” Another CTC analyst who worked with Jennifer, Cindy Storer, called her “very intense, very focused, passionate from the beginning.”
Her experience was most firmly rooted in analysis and helping teams connect the dots in the al-Qaeda networks worldwide. She had experience overseeing operations from a distance, or through foreign liaison contacts, but had little direct operational experience herself. She has been described by co-workers as a “passionate analyst”, very bright with an “agile mind” and aggressive in her pursuit of terrorists.
Coming off a relatively comfortable assignment in Europe, Jennifer sought and was selected for the Khost assignment, an unaccompanied tour in a war zone. One likely driver for her to seek the assignment was to atone for earlier missteps in her career, but equally valid were changes in an Agency culture that, among other requirements, meant to get promoted to the senior Agency leadership, operational tours in a war zone were now required.
Less than 6 months after getting the assignment, Jennifer Matthews was mortally wounded when al-Balawi detonated the suicide vest he was wearing when he exited his vehicle at Camp Chapman. She died in a medevac helicopter on route to a hospital. She left three children and a husband.
Image from Orgonian article and courtesy of the Paresi family.
At the time of his death, Dane Clark Paresi was a security contractor working on site at Camp Chapman. Dane had, in 2009, retired from a 27 year career in the US Army. After 12 years in the regular Army, Dane made the jump over to Special Forces, spending the rest of his career (almost 16 years) in assignments in both 1st and 3rd Special Forces Groups, deploying multiple times to Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He had received the Bronze Star and Meritorious Service Medals, as well as the Combat Infantryman Badge.
After retiring from the Army, Dane, married and a father of two, joined XE, a private military contractor formerly known as Blackwater. Dane loved the Army and his family, as well as his home in the Pacific Northwest. His long experience in SF gave him skills well suited to supporting Agency operations in a war zone.
Isaac, who served with Dane in 1st Special Forces Group in Iraq, said, “my interactions with MSG Paresi were among the most significant in my life. He was a well-regarded, larger-than-life character. Dane was a very senior operator who made himself accessible dispensing countless nuggets of advice, covering everything from kit setup to dealing with certain personalities within the company. MSG Paresi really did his best to ensure that we were as prepared as possible. MSG Paresi was 100% mission-focused and he did not allow himself to be constrained or limited by the dictates of propriety. I did not know him well, but he played a central role in my initiation as a warrior, and his passing in 2009 left a considerable hole in the community. To me, Dane was the consummate operator and I was fortunate to have encountered him at the beginning of my career. His dedication, intensity, and directness are worthy of emulation and he is sorely missed.”
While public details are sparse about Dane’s actions that day, even senior Agency leadership said Dane’s actions spared the lives of many others when al-Balawi exited his vehicle and detonated his vest. The Agency’s Director of Security, Mary Rose Mccaffrey spoke at his memorial service. Matt, another officer at Khost that day, said he “and others owe our lives to the quick thinking and quick reaction of Dane” and two other officers.
Based on my analysis of family comments reported in the press and Washington Post articles reconstructing the attack, I believe that Dane and the other two officers recognized in al-Balawi’s demeanor, words and actions as he exited the vehicle that he posed a threat to the post and began to close on that threat in order to mitigate it. While they were unable to stop al-Balawi from detonating the vest, I believe their actions likely forced al-Balawi to detonate at a less than optimal time/distance from other officers, thereby protecting them from the full force of the blast. Had Dane and the others not taken action, it is quite possible that many others would have died.
Dane was a passionate athlete, who stayed in shape even in Afghanistan by jogging. Matt described him as compassionate, a strong leader and inspiration to others. Known for his zest for life and smile, Dane leaves a wife and two daughters.
Both Jennifer Matthews and Dane Paresi received stars on the Memorial Wall at CIA Headquarters and their names are inscribed in the memorial book underneath. Serving as an intelligence officer carries risks, doubly so in a war zone. As then Director Leon Panetta said, “The main lesson from this attack is that, like our military, CIA officers are on the front lines against al-Qaeda and its violent allies. They take risks to confront the enemy, gathering information to destroy its networks and disrupt its operations. This is a vicious foe, one that has struck our country before and is determined to do so again.”
We all understand those risks when we sign up for the job and we take them on willingly. We do our best to mitigate those risks, but sometimes events happen beyond our control, and other times, we make mistakes. These 7 officers died serving their nation as best they knew how, far from home, in incredibly difficult and dangerous circumstances. We thank them for their sacrifice and honor their service.
]]>33 (acknowledged as of Nov. 2014)
That is 33 out of a total 111 stars on the Memorial Wall at Langley. That is astonishing.
As Doug Patteson details in his post on the Book of Honor the memorial was built in 1974, and first displayed 31 stars, dating from 1950 to the early 1970s.
The marked increase since November 25, 2001 cannot be ignored. To me it details an Agency made up of dedicated and courageous Americans who lost their lives working to protect a nation they dearly loved. Some were lost to terrorist attacks, paramilitary operations and other events we can’t detail here. Some are named and others will likely be names past down only to those within the circle of the Agency’s silent sentinels for decades to come.
We got the idea to put together some kind of memorial piece of our own some time ago. In one sense it is odd to produce a product to sell that honors those lost in a clandestine service. That oddity is not lost on us, but we feel this is a legitimate way to honor our fallen brothers and sisters.
Image courtesy of the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation website
November 25, 2014 marks the 13th anniversary of the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi and the date of the first American killed in what became Operation Enduring Freedom. Johnny Micheal Spann was not only the first American killed in the conflict, but also the first CIA officer killed since 9/11. I won’t attempt to detail Spann’s story as quite a few other sources have done a much better job of it.
I don’t remember what I was doing when the news broke that an American had been killed. I do remember that was probably the first time I really took notice of the Agency however. The idea that civilians were engaged in a war overseas just stuck with me. I remember a few years later when I read Gary Schroen’s “First In” and then Gary Berntsen’s “Jawbreaker” back to back, totally blown away by what these Agency officers were taking part in. It just hadn’t been a part of my world previously.
33 lives lost, for a civilian agency is quite significant. I know I’ve read plenty of news stories about a risk adverse Agency culture. Its either that or they are gung-ho cowboys. When I was in I remember having an easier time letting those jabs glance off than I do now that I have the luxury of actually getting upset and trying to respond to them. After all, I was usually reading them in the internal news and could only comment to friends via SameTime.
Now that I am out I think it is important for those of us who understand and appreciate the sacrifices that these 33 have made (as well as the previous 78 mind you) to honor them in any way we respectfully can. One way other fellow officers have honored the fallen is by creating the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation "The Foundation was established in December 2001 to provide educational support to the children of CIA officers killed in the line of duty. In May 2006, the Foundation's Board of Directors voted to expand its mission to include providing educational support to the spouses of CIA officers killed in the line of duty, and the children and spouses of officers who die on active duty as a result of accident, illness or other causes." We couldn't think of a better way to complete our honorarium than to donate all of the profits from this upcoming project to the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation.
We picked November 25 for its obvious significance. I didn’t know Mike Spann, though I did have the honor of working with a few of his colleagues. They all spoke fondly of him and the others lost since 2001. We should remember these officers and the sacrifices they made for our nation.
]]>The whole quote could be the entire pretext for Stein’s stance that the Central Intelligence Agency has issues with vetting recipients of material support in Syria. Except that it’s more used in a dismissive manner, without any understanding of what Faddis is truly saying. When he is quoted as saying, “We need to have people on the ground. We need to give them serious money and weaponry,” he is laying the very foundation for the type of Covert Action the Agency is likely being asked to conduct in Syria. And as Faddis says, you can’t do this without wading in to the mix.
I think most within the CIA would be the first to point out that executing any Covert Action program that includes the arming and training of a foreign fighting force is a sketchy endeavor. Its also at the core of what the Agency was enacted to do, and takes its queues from its predecessor, in the OSS arming and training of resistance fighters during WWII. In short, this is not a new problem.
At issue for me with Stein’s approach is not the belaboring over the administrations use of “moderate” to describe the desired recruits. After all, what would you expect? Not so extreme? Super duper nice? Moderate actually seems like an accurate term for who is needed.
No, the real issue I have is with the thought process around describing what our Intelligence service and DoD would be doing with the term “vetting”. I find it inaccurate and misleading. A vetting process is a one-time act. A background or once over to ensure due diligence is taken. This is not what the Agency does, and I’d be surprised if any of Stein’s “anonymous” sources were not aware of the distinction, given the professed years of experience they have.
What really is at work here would be a term called “asset validation”, which rather than a one-time process like vetting, is actually a continuous process with multiple layers. Portraying assets as being recruited simply from a list of names given to the Agency from another source who are then run by fresh out of college contractors reads almost like willful or deliberate inaccuracy. During my time working at the Agency I can’t think of meeting more than a small handful of Officers who were freshly out of college. And those were in specific recruiting programs designed to bring young officers in and train them over a longer period of time. Yes, they ran traces, they were also damn smart and received the same thorough training on running traces of “Middle Eastern” names as the rest of us. Not to mention it seems Stein’s source has been out a while, because I recall using tools to get around the non standard names (gotta love technology!).
Stein details some Cold Warrior reminiscing in the Agency’s use of vetting systems during four decades of cold conflict, and then a paragraph later claims the Agency in Syria has now fallen back on the very same system it used in Afghanistan to aid in pushing the Soviets out in the 1980s. In truth, none of this is really new. As I said before, the OSS provided foreign resistance support in WWII, the Agency provided the same behind the iron curtain, in Vietnam (which I’d assume Stein would be well aware of), and elsewhere. Why would they keep doing such a thing? Mostly because its directed by the President via a Covert Action finding, and these operations generally require people to be on the ground giving aid and training, collecting human intelligence and assessing as part of asset validation (are they doing what we expect, what we ask, what we need?) This doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
Former CIA officer and “operative” experiences aside, I can’t see anyone arguing that a country in the midst of civil war, with untold outside and internal influences would be an especially easy place to recruit agents and fighters. This isn’t a vetting issue as much as the reality of recruiting in a war zone. In a sense, same as it ever was.
Stein also attempts to draw a correlation between the CIA’s “vetting” process (his word) and apparent Officer unease about meeting recruited agents in Iraq. Taking things further off course he throws in the Camp Chapman suicide attack of December 30, 2009 by triple agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. First al-Balawi had claimed to have access to Ayman al-Zawahiri. Second, using al-Balawi to support the claim that the Agency cannot properly vet potential assets (recruited by them or another service) is inaccurate. Balawi would have been continually validated; the operational risk was assessed and accepted. The case is far too complicated to relate to validation alone, as well as none of the facts can be shared publicly.
True the Agency used a source recruited and handled by a liaison partner, [deleted]. It should also be noted that relying on the Jordanians alone to validate al-Balawi is also inaccurate. I don’t know of any Agency manager that would sit back and ‘coord’ on that operational cable. Trust but verify, with much more emphasis on the latter.
At issue here is how the Agency will successfully recruit assets to then fund, arm and train. It is scary that they may turn against our interests. It is scary that they may actually be bad people, and they may lie. This is not new either. It is the reality that our intelligence professionals work in every day. Remember, a Covert Action finding for material support takes more into consideration than assumptions and “good enough for government work” mentalities, as Stein’s anonymous “operative” sources would have you believe. That sort of plan just would not make it past the first line of coordination with legal, yet alone a good group chief.
The Obama administration does not pick and vet or validate the recipients of foreign aid exactly. This is another assumption. Very plainly, the administration requests the Agency to find groups to provide assistance to and takes their recommendation. That would include pro/con of giving aid to one group or another and any means of other more detailed information. In short, the decisions don’t happen in a vacuum.
So we are left with the quote from Charles Faddis and his urging that now is the time to act. This reminded me of that famous Abe Lincoln quote, “Things come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
Time to hustle!
I end this article with something Jeff Stein left out of his use of the Khost bombing to try and prove his point. The names, titles and age of those killed by the suicide attack at Camp Chapman on December 30, 2009:
Original sign from the CIA's first building on E Street in Washington, DC. Source: CIA
A keystone of our nation’s intelligence heritage is at risk of being lost to development. The original headquarters of both the OSS and the CIA, where the first nearly 20 years of formal intelligence collection was forged, may be developed by the Department of State. Action is required to preserve the site and buildings for the history they represent.
Prior to WWII, the US had no coordinated effort on the intelligence collection front. The FBI was responsible for domestic security and domestic counter-intelligence operations. The Army and Navy had separate code breaking efforts (the Signals Intelligence Service and OP-20-G), the Department of State had a previous code breaking group called MI-8 and many of the executive branch departments had some form of intelligence collection effort, most actively at the War Department but even at the Treasury Department.
In 1941, as our nation was preparing for the eventuality of war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, began to worry about weaknesses in our nation’s intelligence collection efforts. He tasked Colonel William “Bill” Donovan to create of a single US intelligence service based loosely on the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI-6). This effort, “The Memorandum of Establishment of Service of Strategic Information”, lead to Donovan’s new role as Coordinator of Information (COI), leveraging primarily British intelligence collection efforts initially. Approximately 11 months later, Roosevelt established the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), headed by now Gen. Donovan and absorbing the COI staff on the COI’s dissolution.
One of the earliest problems the COI/OSS faced was establishing a headquarters location. An almost 12 acre site, deeded to the US Government in 1791 and known alternately as Navy Hill or Potomac Annex, at 2430 E. Street NW in the District of Columbia proved to be the perfect spot. A collection of disparate buildings and architectural styles, the site had served as the home of the Old Navy Observatory from 1843 to 1893. The Navy retained the compound in various capacities (the Naval Museum of Hygiene and the Naval Medical Hospital, among others) of active use until 1942.
In 1902, the US Public Health Service (USPHS) built the first of the Navy Hill buildings, the North Building, as their Hygenic Laboratory. It was torn down in the 60’s to make room for the construction of the E Street Expressway. The Central building was built in 1922 and the East and South buildings were built in the 1930’s. The Central, East and South buildings that remain are one of Washington’s last significant WWII era sites.
OSS/CIA Headquarters Source: CIA
From 1942 to 1947, the E Street Complex, as it is now known, served as the Headquarters of the OSS. Now General Donovan’s office was #109 in the East building, quickly nicknamed by wags “The Kremlin”. He had been promoted to General with the establishment of the OSS, as it was agreed the agency’s head needed to be a military officer. While it is no longer furnished in a manner Donovan would recognize as his, much of the original molding and paneling remains. A small display remains in his honor though, including a photo, statue of General Donovan, an OSS flag and some of his medals and ribbons.
In addition to Donovan, other future legends of the intelligence world would walk these hallways training for assignments, analyzing data collected abroad, encrypting or decrypting communications. Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, William Casey, were all OSS officers long before they would become Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCI), the OSS’ successor organization. Many other officers would form the backbone of the future CIA, such as Hugh Montgomery, John Waller and Virginia Hall, often toiling in lesser renown in spite of heroic achievements during the war.
And finally, there were those who were famous in their own right, but whose involvement with the OSS remained secret, only becoming known in some cases as late as 2008. Among these were historian Arthur Schlesinger, Hollywood director John Ford, Nobel Laureate Ralph Bunche, baseball player Moe Berg, actor Sterling Hayden, and of course, Julia Child.
These and thousands of others like them passed through the doorways of these buildings. Here missions were planned and training was given. Intelligence was analyzed and sent to policy makers. Communications to and from the field were encrypted and decrypted. Technologies were developed and tested. And even the mundane clerical work that often drives the infrastructure of intelligence collection (payroll, banking, personnel records, and other administrative tasks.)
After the war, the OSS was disbanded and the CIA was established as its successor organization. Headquarters would remain on Navy Hill until 1961, when it moved to Langley, Virginia. According to the General Services Administration, the CIA continued to use Navy Hill until 1987, after which the GSA took control of the site and the Department of State began to use the three buildings.
The site is at risk though, and many of the veteran OSS and CIA officer who spent so much time on Navy Hill are coming back to fight for her preservation. Ambassador Hugh Montgomery, an early member of the OSS, with distinguished careers at both the CIA and State, is one of the more vocal proponents for the site’s preservation. He has spoken at several DC Preservation League meetings to that effect and is encouraging others in their own activism.
Today, the GSA is undertaking a master plan for the site, combining Potomac Annex and Navy Hill in to one site, Potomac Hill, under the control of the Department of State. The Potomac Annex Historic District, is already under some protection as it is listed on the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites and has been deemed eligible for listing on the National Register as a historic district. The original Naval Observatory is a National Historic Landmark as designated by the National Park Service.
While both State and the GSA profess a desire to preserve the history of the site, it is also apparent from their statements, “Potomac Hill represents more a collection of buildings, pavement, and green space than a unified, functional federal campus meeting the modern needs of the government”, that some part of their plan will likely result in the removal of some of the Navy Hill facilities which provided the base for the seminal years of the CIA’s formation.
The GSA is currently scoping the project through July 21, gathering information and public comments on the site development plan. Now is the time to let your voice be heard for the preservation of this historic site. Please reach out to the GSA to ask them to preserve the site.
The OSS Society has partnered with the D.C. Preservation League to nominate Navy Hill as a landmark of both the District of Columbia and the United States. Filed with the District of Columbia Office of Historic Preservation Review Board on November 19, 2013, the 99 page nomination is the first step on the complex path to the National Register of Historic Places. The OSS Society’s nomination’s first objective is for the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board to amend the complex’s historical name and extend its official “period of significance” to include its service as OSS and CIA headquarters. With this accomplished, the D.C. State Historic Preservation Officer can recommend that the National Parks Service list the campus on the federal National Register of Historic Places in a way that recognizes its significance as OSS and CIA headquarters. Because local preservation law does not govern federal properties and the National Register does not forbid demolition, these listings will not be an absolute safety blanket. However, once a site is formally deemed eligible for a National Register listing, it falls under the protections of Section 106 of the Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which for multiple reasons creates a significant barrier to the buildings’ destruction.
You can help to by sending your comments by email to potomachill@gsa.gov (Subect: NEPA Scoping Comments) or mail to:
Jill Springer, NEPA Specialist
U.S. General Services Administration, NCR
301 7th St. SW, Room 4004
Washington, DC 20407
Please also consider writing your congressional representative and both your senators to ask for their help in securing both a prompt hearing before the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Office and appropriate historical recognition for OSS headquarters. To avoid confusion, your letter or email should mention that the D.C. Historic Preservation Office lists the headquarters site under its current official name, the “E Street Complex.”
Join us in helping honor the sacrifice of so many of our OSS and CIA predecessors by preserving this important piece of our nation’s intelligence history.
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