Having spent the better part of the past three decades serving as a case officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), there are many things no one tells you. In fact, you learn these the hard way. Perhaps it helps create character? Not so sure I buy that.
1.0 Case officers are a breed apart
Extreme type A personalities, competitive, sometimes conniving, creative, bold, envelope-pushing, personable, articulate, and daring individuals. We often have to straddle ethical and legal lines. After all, our sole function is to steal secrets and conduct covert action against our adversaries (general illegal activities in the countries we are operating in).
We operate between the cracks and turn whatever foreign locale we end up in into our operational playground. We have illegal mindsets that we use for good. A colleague once told me that if the CIA didn’t exist, we would all be in prison. He was probably right.
This is a job like no other. You are a:
- salesman
- head-hunter
- politician
- teacher
- lawyer
- priest
- psychologist
- coach
- showman
- entrepreneur
- inventor
- actor
- artist
- academic
All wrapped up in one.
For those seeking a career as a case officer, here are some musings from a career in the field and things no one tells you:
2.0 Don’t Ever Eat Anything An Agent Brings to a Meeting
Seems obvious right? But this important piece of advice could save your life (or your GI tract). I swore to never eat anything from an agent. Over the years, I have received everything from booze to chocolates to kabobs.
2.1 Source-Involved Food Poisoning
Once, I paid the price for my lapse in judgment. I was meeting with my source – an individual who had enabled the most “jackpots” (use your imagination here) in the God-forsaken country where I was operating. Apparently, he hated CIA amenities because he always brought his own food to the meetings.
In his case, he liked fresh flatbread, hummus, and also chicken kabobs. He was an important source we had to keep happy and I constantly insulted him but not sharing a meal. After turning down the food he brought to our meetings for the umpteenth time, I finally caved and broke bread (literally) and… had one very small bite of grilled chicken.
Bad idea! After experiencing the worst diarrhoea on record, at the next meeting, my translator firmly admonished the agent and told him never to bring his “dirty kabobs” again. He didn’t. God only knows what other parasites he was carrying in his stomach.
3.0 Food as a Weapon 
Speaking of food, be prepared to use food as a weapon. That’s right, case officers are only authorized to carry firearms in dangerous places and also only for defence. Forget James Bond and his Walther PPK (Polizei Pistole Kriminal).
For case officers, food is the glue that makes operations come together. You will wine and dine your targets into submission. If you are working cases jointly with a law enforcement partner or foreign service, then they will relish the idea of a free lunch.
You are on the Uncle Sugar meal plan so take advantage of it. Do your research and find the best places to eat and drink in town. Compared to million-dollar cruise missiles, it’s taxpayer money well spent to find a source who can provide the goods.
4.0 Opportunity and Luck as a Case OfficerÂ
One of the most important lessons I learned as a case officer was when you put yourself out in front of others daily things happen. Sooner or later, you will be in the right place at the right time. You then have to be able to identify opportunities when they arise but more importantly, take advantage of them. Doing something about the opportunity is far more important than simply identifying the opportunity.
For the case officer, success begets success, and you need momentum. It’s a strange unworldly concept, but when you start to meet new people, you end up magically meeting targets of interest.
You also have to create your own luck – for the most part.
I was never one of those case officers who fell into a significant career-defining case. I always had to put in a spade of work to find and then meet targets. Other colleagues did have that luck and had senior officials walk up to them and volunteer at receptions.
Many officers will spend their entire career recruiting infrastructure sources and access agents and that’s fine. These are workhorses in your asset stable who enable the sexy operations.
5.0 Your Spouse/Significant Other is Your Greatest AssetÂ
In the world of operations, no case officer is an island. You rely on others to help you spot and also assess potential targets.
My mentor always said your spouse is your greatest asset.
During my first overseas tour in a European country, I attended a 4th of July party aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer. Describing the vessel as magnificently adorned is an understatement.
I had been trying to engage foreign counterparts all evening and had been failing miserably. Suddenly, I heard my wife calling my name. There she was chatting away with a target of interest. Making it look incredibly easy, she called me over and introduced me to her new friend.
6.0 Your spouse/significant other will know many of the sources you recruitÂ
Yes, you read that correctly. Using food as a weapon, you will have targets over to your house all the time. Their families will get to know your family. Your spouse will learn far more than you ever will about your target.
While the children are off playing and you are developing a personal relationship with your target, he/she will have unprecedented access to the target’s spouse. My spouse loved entertaining so it made my operational efforts much easier. We are a team. We were both fascinated by different cultures and loved meeting new people.
Without telling her outright, she always knew when I formalized the relationship with one of our dinner guests as they would make fewer and fewer appearances at our home.
Yet one more reason why we should make the investment to provide our significant others with clearances.
7.0 Operations are a Team SportÂ
I firmly believe the best operations happen when CIA overseas stations work together. The way CIA field offices share information and develop operational strategies is unprecedented in the private sector. In a unique hub and spoke system, information travels at the speed of light around the world.
Various stakeholders contribute intelligence or analysis based on their local expertise. There is no one officer who has complete knowledge of the world. Dividing and conquering, experts work in tandem to bring their knowledge, talents and also resources to the fight. The mission is everything. In this way, the CIA operates like a global Reddit platform, sharing knowledge, assessing each unique situation, and formulating the best path forward. This is part of the secret sauce that makes the CIA so successful.
8.0 Stress Management and Rewards for Case OfficersÂ
At one time, case officers had the highest rate of:
- divorce;
- alcoholism;
- heart attacks across the federal government.
Clearly, these are not statistics worth praising. Which begs the question, why?
Many officers have strong type-A personalities. They are driven people motivated by a mission like no other. Unlike the private sector, you do not get rewarded appropriately for your exceptional achievements.
For example, if you are lucky, you might receive an exceptional performance award for USD 2500 (half goes to taxes). Also, if you do a phenomenal job, you are generally rewarded with more work not less. The bar for success is higher.
For case officers, choosing overseas assignments is the coin of the realm. Good people want to work for good people, and good people also want good people working for them. So why do we push ourselves to the brink of physical and mental exhaustion focusing on the worst of the world’s problems every day?
Being a case officer is a challenge unlike any other. We don’t seek public praise, we are motivated by personal and professional fulfilment and the satisfaction of achieving a noble mission.
9.0 The Death Star
When I was a student way back at the CIA’s iconic training facility, our instructors would ask us, “What is Headquarters (HQS) good for?” We would all respond in unison, “praise, funding, and approvals.”
To some extent, these are still HQS ‘ primary objectives. After decades of experience, I would also add “support the field” to the chorus. Unlike the FBI, which is very field-centric, the power and influence of the CIA is in Washington, D.C.
As a seasoned case officer in the field, you can expect to be second-guessed by less informed, less seasoned experts riding a desk 4,000 miles away. We refer to this as the 4,000-mile-long screwdriver stretching out to fix your operation.
10.0 BossesÂ
In my experience, the Agency has some exceptional managers and talented officers. There are also some real duds. As a case officer, you will eventually come across these people. Your winning streak of great managers will run out.
There is an adage that great case officers do not necessarily make great managers of case officers. This is so true. Managing people and recruiting sources require two completely different skill sets.
11.0 Word Count
Forget a gun and martini, you will be writing your ass off. In the Agency, words are your bullets. Every action in the Agency revolves around something called cable traffic.
This is the formal memo for the record summarizing:
- Operational meetings
- Proposed plans
- Intentions
I often said, if I were paid by the word, I would be a gazillionaire. Before I retired, I calculated that I had written around 20,000 papers during my career!
12.0 Agents do Stupid S**tÂ
The people we recruit to be spies have access but are generally flawed in some way. They are generally thrill seekers and risk takers. However, they can also have some serious vulnerabilities. The short of it is that as a case officer, you will spend an immense amount of time, saving them from themselves. Early in my career, I recruited and handled a source outside his home country. Â
Preparing for his return home, we roleplayed potential security interviews. I asked him to empty his wallet and thumbed through the contents. Among the various business cards he kept in his wallet, I surfaced what appeared to be an oddly shaped card. He explained this was the business card an FBI special agent had given him when he had arrived in the United States.
He had used scissors to cut around the card’s border to remove the FBI seal. Apparently, he thought this would not raise suspicion.
Good idea… not.
Naturally, I made him get rid of the card and all the others as they would attract nothing but questions from security personnel-· As I said, agents do stupid s**t.
13.0 The Sweet Spot as a Case Officer
The best job in the CIA is a GS-13 case officer field position. Being a field supervisor is a great experience, don’t get me wrong, but working the streets is where the fun is.
Managers deal with headaches all day long and for no extra pay and no guarantee of promotion. If you are working for the federal government for the money, you are in the wrong place.
A wise colleague once explained to me that as a case officer, you receive 7-8 tickets to use for assignments anywhere in the world over your career – use these tickets wisely, do what you love, and you will never work a day in your life. He was right.
14.0 LawyersÂ
One of the most pleasant surprises I had as a case officer was the extent the CIA’s lawyers would go to, to get an operation over the legal threshold. Sadly, many officers have what I call the “red light mentality” – stop, stop, stop until you receive a green light to proceed.
I always went full speed ahead until I was asked to take a strategic pause. In some cases, HQS simply forced me to stop.
Something I always appreciated about our lawyers – they are forward-leaning, have a green light mindset, and help case officers creatively craft operations so they are legal under U.S. law.
For example, I was trying to work through a source to invite a senior foreign – official (a family member) to the United States for academic purposes.
After making some promising headway, I received a call from our general counsel. He informed me that what I was proposing would violate several Agency regulations and additionally, a few federal laws.
I felt like I had been punched in the gut until the lawyer then suggested some simple changes I could implement to make my operation legal. Thank goodness we have lawyers.
15.0 Get the Train Out of the StationÂ
If you wait long enough, someone at HQS will always find a reason to pause or second-guess your operation. As a case officer, your job is to act and get stuff done.
The world is a complete mess and there is not enough time in the day to complete your work. In fact, you will spend every day of your career focused on overcoming the worst aspects of humanity. HQS officers have time on their hands. They take their coffee breaks and spend time ruminating.
These are two diametrically opposed roles. As the case officer in the field, you are the expert on your area of operations and sources. As a rule of thumb, if things are approved and ready to go, then don’t stop and keep moving.
15.1 HQS Involvement
One of my officers was deploying to a meeting with an agent. He left the office and was on his way to the airport. After months of planning and preparation, everything had been approved and his operation was greenlighted by HQS. Shortly after he departed, my phone rang – it was HQS. They told me to call him back to the office. I asked them to explain their rationale and last-minute lip-sucking.
Their reason for stopping everything- a colleague was out of the office, and they wanted to get his thoughts. This individual had already been chopped off on the operation and had their chance to speak their peace and poke holes. I thanked them for their late-minute concerns but informed HQS that my officer was unreachable and was proceeding as planned.
16.0 Case Officers are an Endangered SpeciesÂ
Case officers are an endangered species. Spying is no longer en vogue. Like many industries, technology is replacing humans. Espionage requires risk and technology can mitigate risk. Artificial intelligence is the latest challenger to old-fashioned HUMINT.
Perhaps we can simply ask ChatGPT what foreign leaders are thinking? SIGINT (electronic interception) works great… up to a point. At the end of the day if a foreign leader meets with a handful of advisors, we need to get inside his head to understand what he is saying and thinking. Only a human can do that.
Although the world’s second oldest profession isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon, case officers have increasingly become more of “break glass in event of emergency” capability.
In the current climate where everyone at CIA thinks they are an operations officer; we need to recognize and appreciate the incredibly talented officers we have operating at the pointy end of the spear.
17.0 Hall Files and Proving Yourself Again and Again
Case officers, even the best ones, are never allowed to rest on their laurels. Our assignments run in multi-year cycles. As such, you must constantly demonstrate what you can do to incoming field supervisors.
People do amazing things, but amazing is the norm. CIA is an organization of last resort, where people come together to achieve the unachievable.
Often, the expectation at the CIA is what have you done for us lately? Get used to this.
When preparing for their assignment, incoming field managers will never read your personnel file and will instead typically rely only on your hall file. Your hall file or “trace request” starts immediately on the day you enter on duty. This is how people characterize you, your accomplishments, and your capabilities in a few short sentences–all off the record.
18.0 Case Officers are Characters in a StoryÂ
Case officers are not real humans, they are characters in a story. Every day, someone thousands of miles away arrives at work and while indulging in their first cup of coffee, reads about your exploits in the foreign field.
As a case officer, it is incumbent upon you to get as much facetime as possible with your interlocutors at HQS. Show them you exist. I have always believed a face-to-face meeting is equivalent to 10 phone calls and 50 emails.
These gestures will pay handsome dividends when you are several time zones away. Your HQS interlocutor will be your advocate in the CIA bureaucracy and can speak firsthand to your credibility, decision-making abilities, good deeds, and integrity.
As it has been noted, “To some, you’re a briefing point. To others, you’re a real person.”
19.0 In Sum
Being a case officer is an extremely rewarding career. If you love a challenge and creatively solving problems, this is the career for you. The work is phenomenal–every day is exciting and hosts a whole new set of problems waiting to be solved. Hope always springs eternal.
Keeping America safe by collecting secrets is the top priority, so stay focused. You are the sheepdog protecting the flock from danger. People are counting on you to do what they cannot do themselves.
