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Working with the CIA
GARRETT JONES
© 2001 Garrett Jones
>From Parameters, Winter 2001-02, pp. 28-39.
Go to Winter issue Table of Contents.
Go to Cumulative Article Index.
In 1993, I had the privilege of being a CIA student at the US Army
War College. During the academic year, I had some frank exchanges
with my military colleagues about the intelligence community and how
those military leaders viewed it, rightly or wrongly. The two
principal conclusions I came away with were: (a) the intelligence
community does not know enough about the military and its operations,
and (b) the military does not know enough
about the intelligence community and its operations.
Immediately upon graduation from the War College, I was selected as the CIA Chief in
Mogadishu, Somalia. Within 30 days, I was on the ground there, trying to come to grips
with the quickly evolving crisis.
This article will not be about the policy disaster that took place in Somalia,
however. Rather, it will seek to illuminate the working relationship between the
military and the CIA, offering some of the knowledge I gained
in Mogadishu and over a career. In a way, it is the incoming brief I wish I could
have given to the Ranger Task Force commander and his senior staff when they arrived
in Somalia.
This article is geared to the military commander and his senior staff who will be
working closely with the CIA in the field, perhaps for the first time in their
careers. This is not a guideline on how to do things; it is
more a checklist of aspects to which you should give some thought. The article
emphasizes field operations because that is my expertise; the
headquarters-to-headquarters dance that occurs in Washington is a completely dif
ferent animal.
Mogadishu, of course, was an extreme case. While many of the instances of close,
tactical support of military operations by the CIA will in fact be in Third World
countries, you can't get much more rock-bottom than Mogadi
shu was in 1993.
Spies Come in Different Flavors
All employees of the Central Intelligence Agency may share some commonalities, but the
several types you are likely to encounter supporting you during an operational
deployment will differ widely in their training, experi
ence, and background. The type that military officers will most likely encounter
during their career is an intelligence analyst. If you have attended a briefing at the
Pentagon or another senior command that was given by
the Central Intelligence Agency, the briefer was probably an intelligence analyst.
An intelligence analyst is an employee of the Directorate of Intelligence. Analysts
generally hold advanced degrees in academic fields that may or may not relate to your
mission. They are selected for their clear analytic
al thinking, and they are trained and experienced in briefing senior decisionmakers
and writing for publication in finished intelligence reports. They may never have met
a real live "asset" (a spy), and they almost certai
nly have no experience in directing clandestine operations in the field.
The second type you generally encounter in direct support of your operations is a case
officer. Case officers are employees of the Directorate of Operations. They are the
people who recruit and run the assets. They are ge
nerally selected for their adaptability, street smarts, and ability to function
independently. They are all college graduates, and if they have on-the-ground
experience in your area of operations, they will be a wealth of
information on how the society and culture operate and what makes the locals tick.
They probably have never given a stand-up briefing to an assembled group such as your
command staff, and they generally would not know a
PowerPoint slide if it fell on them. Their most common written work product is the raw
intelligence report.
Which type is best for you? That depends on what you want. If you're looking for
research, the collation of published background material, or excellent briefing
skills, you're probably better served by an intelligence ana
lyst. On the other hand, if you're trying to find out whether a piece of information
can be obtained by human assets, or what's likely going through the head of an asset
who reported a piece of information, an experienced
case officer is probably your best choice. There are exceptional individuals who can
do it all, but it is really incumbent upon you to find out the background of the
individual that you just asked to make a judgment call
. Is this what he or she is good at, or did you just ask a plumber about paint
selection?
Like every other organization, the CIA is not going anywhere without its talented and
capable support officers. These individuals come in the form of logistics officers,
communicators, specialized technicians, and people
with every other arcane skill set you can imagine. Much like your support staff, these
are the people who keep the wheels on the organization so that the case officers and
the analysts can devote their time to their speci
alties. You should encourage your support personnel to meet with their CIA
counterparts early and often. Not only will this promote smooth liaison between
staffs, but CIA support specialists also generally have long exper
ience in dealing with the surprises that support and logistical operations in the
Third World can present. Your people may well learn something from them.
Spy Stations Come in Different Shapes
Okay, now you have your own personal nest of spies attached to your command. What does
this organization look like? As is usually the case, it depends. If you are at a large
command, like an area CINC, there probably is a
CIA office that predates you. An analyst usually staffs it, and it acts as the
clearinghouse through which the command receives intelligence and analysis directly
from the CIA as well as a conduit for the command's reque
sts to the CIA for information and analysis. It will also arrange the travel and
housing of any CIA experts or specialists brought in to support the command. It
normally has an existing place on the command's TO&E (table
of organization and equipment) and usually coordinates directly with the joint
intelligence officer, the J-2, or equivalent.
Moving from the least to the most ad hoc structures, the next one you might see is an
intelligence support element. This is generally called a National Intelligence Support
Team (NIST), though it has also been called an I
ncident Response Team and other terms. This is a team of CIA personnel put together to
support a command when a CIA office is not already in place. It carries out the same
functions as an established office, transmitting
your command's requests for information and distributing incoming CIA intelligence and
analysis intended for your command. The team will bring its own communications, but it
will rely on your logistics support for food, h
ousing, and office space. While the equipment and procedures are off-the-shelf items,
and efforts are made to man this team with individuals who have area knowledge about
your mission, it is very much a pickup team--you e
ssentially get the luck of the draw. Staffing will depend on the size and nature of
the US forces involved, the location of the area of operations, the amount and type of
intelligence available on potential targets, the p
resence or absence of a CIA field station, and other factors. In short, every NIST is
different. The personnel will be very competent at what they do, but they may or may
not have "on the ground" value-added for your part
icular mission.
The next sort of structure you might encounter is an established CIA station situated
in a foreign country near the country or area that is your intended area of
operations. Typically the station operates out of an in-cou
ntry US installation, with or without the knowledge of the host country. A good
example of this would be a situation in which your command deploys or stages to a
friendly country prior to conducting operations in a nearby
hostile country. This is also the first time you will run into a Chief of Station
(COS, pronounced like the initials C-O-S, not "coz"). The COS is the personal
representative of the Director of Central Intelligence, and
he is responsible for all civilian intelligence and counterintelligence activities
within his area of operations. In a country where a CIA station exists, the only
civilian official technically senior to the COS in the ar
eas of intelligence or counterintelligence is the US Ambassador. A good Ambassador
will generally rely heavily on the COS concerning intelligence matters and will rarely
overrule the COS's judgment.
This is also the first time you will run into case officers running assets in the
field. These officers have real live people spying for them, and they are responsible
for their assets' security and production. That said,
you should remember that the CIA station was almost certainly not established to
support your command or mission. The station's officers already have a full-time job
going after their assigned intelligence targets; your
mission is another full-time job they have just been handed.
Depending on the situation, the case officers may be able to immediately support your
command with intelligence obtained from the host country's service, if they have a
liaison relationship. Alternatively, some of their e
xisting unilateral assets--assets recruited to report on another target--might just
happen to have access to information that is useful to you. If you have been receiving
this type of intelligence before your deployment,
you are now face-to-face with the case officers who handle the assets and write the
reports you have been reading. If they do not have preexisting unilateral or liaison
assets who can report in support of your mission, th
ey will have scoured the local scene to find someone who can report on the subject in
an accurate and timely manner. Whatever the case, they will also transmit your
requests for information to the CIA while receiving and
passing along CIA reports intended for your command. Since they are already on the
ground and operating, they normally will impose no drain on your logistics--in fact,
they are frequently an excellent source of informatio
n for your logistics people on getting things done in the local environment.
The final configuration you're likely to see is a station that has been created
especially for your mission. This station has probably existed with your force in some
sort of informal limbo prior to your force's executing
its mission and entering hostile territory. Its officers generally will have been
running assets located in hostile territory or have a list of assets to reactivate
upon the arrival of US forces. The COS and case officer
s in this configuration generally will have a background in the geographical area in
which you are operating. Initially this sort of station will be a logistics burden on
your command, until you have established a viable
main supply route. Once the CIA's own logistics people can move in, the station will
generally be self-sustaining except for perimeter security and force protection
matters. From a force commander's standpoint, this is th
e best sort of station to have. There will be no Ambassador or embassy staff to divert
their focus, and they will share your mission goals from the beginning.
They Are Green Tab Commanders, Too
The Chief of Station with whom you're working in the field is every bit as much of an
operational commander (a green tab commander) as one of your infantry leaders or one
of the commanders of your aviation elements. He ha
s assets and case officers (Americans) on the ground and moving around in your
operational area. In fact, if he's doing his job, he has assets and case officers
focused in territory controlled by forces other than yours.
That's why he is there. Whether it's the enemy's plans and intentions or advance
warning concerning force protection, by definition the purpose of operational CIA
elements is to provide you with information that you canno
t obtain in any other way. The numbers and degree of intelligence operations in
hostile territory will vary from situation to situation, but you should keep in mind
that while the COS's operations can benefit you and your
mission, your response to his intelligence--as well as actions you take as a result
of other information input--can severely damage his ability to support you. The COS
has the same responsibility to protect his people as
you do for any of your soldiers. While both the assets and the case officers engaged
in supporting your mission are aware that they must take risks, like everyone in your
command they also want go home at the end of the
mission.
The ever-present dynamic of protecting sources and methods versus acting on
intelligence information will not go away on the battlefield. Whether you are
executing an attack based on direct information obtained by assets
in the field or responding to a threatening situation posed by the adversary, the
conflict of protecting sources and methods and carrying out your mission will be an
ongoing problem. The necessity for close liaison and co
mmunication with the COS and his officers is never more necessary than in these
situations. No COS wants to lose the ability of an asset or assets to report on a
target, especially when those assets have been expensive an
d time-consuming to put in place. That said, most COSs are mature enough to understand
that sometimes that needs to be done. Where these situations arise, the COS can almost
always recommend how you can go about accomplis
hing your mission while minimizing damage to the assets he will need to support you in
the future.
Perhaps the most dangerous situation assets and case officers find themselves in, when
they are operating in hostile territory in advance of US forces, is when they become
inadvertently involved in combat actions aimed at
the enemy. By the nature of what they're trying to accomplish, they are often near or
attempting to get near enemy locations--i.e., your targets. The COS and his case
officers have a legitimate need to preserve operation
al security as well as to retain sufficient flexibility in order to carry out their
jobs. You, on the other hand, have a legitimate need to protect your forces and carry
out your mission. There is no hard and fast rule ab
out how to resolve these often- conflicting needs.
Perhaps a good example of this sort of conflict, and its solution, is one that
occurred in Mogadishu when our case officers and assets were attempting to locate
Somali warlord Mohammed Farrah Aideed. Not surprisingly, thi
s required that our assets be located in positions frequented by Aideed's forces. The
warlord's forces were hostile to both the US and the UN's presence in Mogadishu, and
they regularly demonstrated their hostility by lob
bing mortar shells into UN positions. The US commander supporting the UN mission in
Mogadishu understandably responded to these attacks with counter-battery fire. Early
on, this led to some quite excited and graphic prote
sts from assets who were operating in Aideed's territory at the direction of our case
officers. Friendly fire being no more friendly to intelligence assets than anyone
else, this was a problem. Fortunately, an excellent r
elationship existed with the US military commander and his subordinates, and the
organizations were quickly able to establish a simple procedure whereby case officers
would be given a quiet heads-up should counter-battery
fire be authorized. This permitted assets to safely depart the area, while still
retaining for the commander the flexibility of responding as he saw fit to individual
threats. While there were occasional glitches, and ca
sualties did occur both to assets and case officers while operating in Mogadishu, they
were never related to friendly fire.
Ops Tempo Literally Kills People
One of the primary concerns of a commander facing a hostile force is that the
intelligence upon which he bases his actions, no matter from what source, must be both
accurate and timely. While accuracy when dealing with hu
man assets is often a function of the assets' training and their access to the target,
timeliness often becomes a real security concern for both the case officer and the
asset he is handling. Access to information is why
the asset was recruited. The case officer handling the asset usually provides training
in the clandestine arts. The skill of the people involved and the luck of the draw
will often govern these factors. A smart asset with
fair access can often through his own efforts outperform a not-so-smart asset with
good access.
In normal circumstances, the timing of personal meetings with an asset or the receipt
of impersonal communications from an asset is usually dictated by the level of
hostility present or the threat of detection in the loca
l operational environment. While meetings are on occasion dictated by events, as a
general rule it can be stated that every personal meeting or impersonal communication
holds the potential of compromising the security of
an asset; thus, they occur no more often than is absolutely necessary. That being the
case, the schedule of meetings or communications--i.e., the need for intelligence--is
carefully balanced against the threat of compromi
se.
You may take it as a given that the arrival of US forces in a country, or in any
nearby country, will generate an increased level of watchfulness on the part of both
friendly and hostile counterintelligence services. This
translates to a higher degree of threat for clandestine human operations. Your
command's need for intelligence will always result in a dramatic increase in the
frequency of meetings or communications. This increase in ri
sk, no matter how careful the operational planning, will sooner or later result in the
station or base "using up" its assets in support of your operations. While in a
philosophical sense that is what intelligence operatio
ns are ultimately for, from a practical standpoint this will sooner or later affect
you negatively. A source you find particularly useful may become compromised, access
to information may dry up, and the difficulty in obt
aining asset reports may increase. You should expect this. You should also expect that
new assets will be brought on board to provide new access to targets of interest, or
to replace assets who have been operationally spe
nt. With new people doing new tasks, there are going to be screw-ups, mistakes,
confusion, and missteps--one hopes they won't be fatal. Keep this in mind when dealing
with information from new sources, but rest assured th
at both the case officers and the assets are paddling as fast as they can.
On a final note in this regard, in most countries the punishment for espionage is
death or a long imprisonment for the assets, while the case officers are expelled if
they are lucky. Everyone involved knows that each meet
ing or communication is dangerous and that the downside for mistakes is huge.
Additional pressure from you or your staff is normally not constructive. Tell the case
officers what you need and where your decision points ar
e; extraneous screaming and yelling are counterproductive.
Combat Search and Rescue--We Need to Talk about it Now, not Later
No one ever wants to court misfortune, but Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) is a
subject that must be discussed in advance. Waiting to figure out how to employ the
CIA's human assets until you already have personnel on the
ground threatened with capture is truly a losing proposition. Every commander being
supported by a CIA element that has human assets in the field needs to address this
subject before it becomes a reality. As the force co
mmander, you can also expect to referee what will likely be the most emotional subject
that will come up in the course of your relationship with your CIA counterpart.
While each situation will be different, several common threads will run through almost
all settings. What do you tell the human assets, who among them do you tell, and how
much do you tell them? What do you tell US person
nel? Do you tell the assets to actively assist the US personnel to escape and evade,
or tell them to just report the sighting and monitor the situation? It seems
simple--you always have them actively assist, right? Not so
fast. Can they really help, or will their active search for your personnel draw more
attention from hostile forces than it will help? Does the asset in question have the
gumption to help without falling apart from fear,
or would he be more helpful providing you with accurate updates so that your own
command can stage a recovery? Even if he has the nerve to hide your people, what does
he do then? Try to pass them back to friendly lines, o
r hide them until you can get to them? How good is their security, and has the asset
been upping his "profile" by reporting on hostile activity for your command? How hard
are the bad guys going to look for your people--is
everyone within ten square kilometers going to be slaughtered because someone helped
them? Hard decisions are better made in advance, with time for reflection, rather than
on the tarmac while trying to get a rescue missi
on in the air.
Working out search and rescue procedures will be an emotional experience. Your staff
will be talking about rescuing their friends; the COS will want to help, but also will
be rightly thinking about his responsibilities to
his assets--people he probably knows personally. This can turn into a nasty "us
versus them" debate if you as a commander don't make it clear from the beginning that
everyone has real concerns and everyone is looking for
the best answer. Don't make the mistake of ignoring or taking for granted this
possible resource. Cooperative planning in advance will use up some staff time, but it
may save the life of one of your soldiers.
We Believe Each Other's Propaganda
Ever since the elimination of the military draft in the United States 30 years ago,
the population at large has grown less and less experienced with military operations
and the military life. This is true of intelligence
officers as well as the general population. Few of the case officers or analysts you
work with will have personal military experience as an enlisted or commissioned member
of the armed services. Their experience will be w
hat they have acquired during their careers with the CIA, and it may not have any
bearing on the mission you have before you as a commander. That being the case, you
need to ensure that they understand what you need and w
hy you need it.
In many cases the intelligence officers' pool of military knowledge is going to be
what they have seen or read of the military in the media. This means they may believe
that you are ten feet tall, that you jump from airpl
anes equipped with only thick rubber soles, and that your mere appearance on the
battlefield will suppress the enemy's fire. You should expect that you and your staff
will have to educate your CIA colleagues as to what yo
ur forces can and cannot realistically be expected to do, and most important, what
kind of information you need and why you need it in order to make intelligent
decisions involving the safety and success of your force. Wh
at you will have going for you in this situation is that the CIA personnel you will be
working with will be highly motivated to provide the information you need.
While we are speaking of misinformation, you should remember that you and your staff
are in most instances going to be no better informed about the details of the
intelligence profession than the general public. Few case
officers ever covertly break into an enemy installation à la James Bond, and even
fewer analysts ever get involved in field operations à la a Tom Clancy character. You
and your people need to educate yourselves by asking
lots of questions. Don't worry about asking about something sensitive--if you don't
need to know, they will tell you so. While we are on the subject, what should you as
the senior commander be expected to be told about an
intelligence operation or asset? Almost everything. This is not transferable to your
staff; you are the commander, and they aren't. The only information a case officer
will be reluctant to share with you is information t
hat will directly identify his asset. The asset's life generally rides on the
disclosure of this information, and the case officer would forget it himself if he
could. Other than this area, ask questions. You will be surp
rised by the detailed replies you will receive.
We Are Divided by a Common Language
Since you became a professional military officer, you have been befuddling and
bewildering the civilians around you with the use of initials, jargon, and slang. In
dealing with CIA case officers in the field, you have jus
t met your match. CIA officers routinely use initials, slang, acronyms, and terms that
have only the vaguest relationships with their standard English definitions. They do
it every bit as unconsciously as you do, and like
you, they slip into it quickly when they are discussing work-related matters. They
are no more trying to confuse you than you are trying to confuse the civilians with
whom you interact professionally. You will need to do
what I am sure has been done to you on more than one occasion. Stop them and make
them explain in detail what it is they are talking about. If you as an experienced
commander are a bit confused, your junior staff officer
--who is sitting at the table and may be involved in the execution of the matter under
discussion--probably got lost somewhere after the CIA officer said "Hello." With a
little goodwill on both sides, this can usually be
sorted out fairly quickly and a shared vocabulary developed, but never hesitate to
make the CIA officer explain, in English, what he is saying.
A good example of this lack of a shared common language occurred in my own experience
when a senior commander was informed that a CIA station was planning a "cross-border
operation" in his AO (area of operations). The com
mander, to whom a "cross-border operation" meant a raid by an armed force to destroy
or seize a target, was justifiably upset (an understatement) at not having been
consulted. He was considerably mollified when it was exp
lained that in this case what the CIA station had meant by a cross-border operation
was to give an asset bus fare to his home village with instructions to look around and
report back on what he had seen. Talk to each othe
r in plain English; it will prevent a lot of misunderstanding.
An Asset Is Not a Commando or Hero
If you are going to be the primary recipient of a human source, you need to understand
a little bit about what makes them tick. Before everything else, human assets are
recruited because they have access to secret informa
tion that can be obtained in no other manner. This means that not only may the asset
not be a nice person, it also means he was not selected because he was brave, smart,
or particularly hard-working. He needs to be fright
ened enough of the consequences of being caught at what he is doing to be careful,
while still being enough of a risk-taker to get his information to his case officer.
This requires a strong motivation on the part of the
asset, especially when the case officer is not close at hand to provide constant
reassurance. While money almost always plays some part in any asset's relationship
with his case officer, I have always found that the best
assets are at the bottom driven by revenge. Money is just a way of keeping score.
Whether he is getting even with his boss, secretly showing up his classmates, or
working against his government to avenge an old wrong, rev
enge is the flame that keeps the best assets warm at night. Thus, by definition, the
best assets are pretty strange people. The case officers handling these assets
normally develop a fairly complicated relationship with t
heir assets, becoming everything from father confessor to morale booster, from
disciplinarian to best buddy. Like sausages and laws, if you have a queasy stomach,
you don't want to see the case officer-asset relationship
up close.
What you cannot expect from an asset is that he is a junior model of one of your own
troops. He is not, nor was he ever selected to be, a commando. Unless he is a very
unusual asset, lying in the tall weeds and watching a
target all night is not going to be his strong suit. You need to remember that his
normal mode of spying is by repeating what he hears from people he meets or by
stealing documents that come across his desk. If you ask h
im to do something new and strange, he will react like most people. He will attempt to
get out of tasks he does not like, lie to his case officer if frightened, and
generally not show up if pushed too far. As noted earlie
r, existing CIA stations were not established in order to support your mission, and
existing CIA human assets were not originally recruited to support your mission. There
is going to be a learning curve, and you can expec
t a lot of frustration on both sides before the human assets finally get the hang of
what you want from them. The situation eventually gets better, but it takes a while.
Odds and Ends
What is an Ambassador and Why Should I Care?
You have your orders from the CINC and your mission is clear. You are staging from a
friendly country with an accredited and resident US Ambassador, but you can ignore him
or her; after all you have your orders from the N
ational Command Authorities. Right? Wrong. The US Ambassador is the personal
representative of the President of the United States. Ambassadors can't exactly give
you a direct order concerning your operations or force post
ure but they can have your orders from the CINC changed in Washington, D.C., quicker
than you think. The best thing for you to do as a commander operating in an
Ambassador's country is to consider him as a "four-star" who
lives and works in your area of operations and has the authority to look over your
shoulder. It is much better if the Ambassador is a friend, not an opponent. Most of
them are bright, hard-working people, and, considerin
g the way the United States selects its political appointees, they are generally
better people than we have a right to expect.
A few tips on getting along with Ambassadors: keep them informed, treat them with
respect, keep them informed, be polite with their embassy staff, keep them informed,
remember that embassy resources are limited, and, fina
lly, keep them informed. Keeping the Ambassador informed will make or break your
relationship with him or her. If the Ambassador is on your side, he can become an
advocate at the echelons that are inhabited by politicians
and Joint Chiefs of Staff. Conversely, an unhappy and vocal Ambassador can generate a
visit from a real four-star wanting to know what the problem is. You don't have time
for that sort of thing. The easiest way to handle
this situation is to assign to the Ambassador a personal liaison officer. Don't slide
this off to some junior officer who doesn't seem to be too busy. This is an important
relationship; treat it like one. You need a smar
t, experienced, mid-level officer who can answer questions and handle unusual
situations without becoming flustered. If you have a Defense Attaché assigned to the
embassy, this can be an excellent place to put your office
r, but do not rely on the Defense Attaché to carry your water. He has his own agenda,
his fitness report is written by the Ambassador, and he has a personal relationship
with the Ambassador you may or may not want to inhe
rit.
The presence of US forces in-country always results in a dramatic rise in workload for
an embassy. Having one of your officers in the embassy that is familiar with the
command structure and the individual units involved i
s a great resource for the embassy. Make sure your liaison officer understands that
helping the embassy deal with the presence of your command is part of his job.
Whatever else the liaison officer does, make sure he gets
in to see the Ambassador at least once a day, even if it is to tell him that there is
nothing important going on or planned.
Use the Same Maps or at Least Know What Map the Asset is Using
If you are fortunate enough to have human assets in the field reporting back on the
location of targets or items of interest, try to use the same maps, or at least know
what maps they are using to report or record the loc
ations. It seems like a simple thing, but often it is not. The asset must preserve his
own personal security, and running around in "Indian Territory" with a fistful of maps
produced by the US National Imagery and Mapping
Agency is not the way to do it. In the Third World, Michelin Tire Company's road maps
are normally widely available, innocuous, and about as accurate as the average guy on
the street can safely carry. If an asset is repo
rting back in person or by real-time communications, attempt to arrange to keep him
available for questions. Recent overhead, which you will generally be working from,
and commercial Third World maps, which he will genera
lly be working from, often take a little finessing to match up. A few short questions
early in the history of a report can often clear up any confusion. The case officer
handling the asset will always do his best to accur
ately convert his asset's report to standard grid references. However, details of
great interest to you--such as avenues of approach or the height of obstacles from the
ground--can often get lost in the process. Explain y
our needs: good case officers will take all the help they can get to turn out a better
intelligence product.
Station or Base--What's in a Name?
When you get involved with a CIA operational presence overseas, you will hear the
terms "station" and "base" tossed around without a lot of explanation and with no
apparent distinction. There is a difference, which may or
may not become important down the road. The station is the senior installation,
headed by a Chief of Station (the COS). A base is a subordinate installation, headed
by a Chief of Base (COB). While a base normally communi
cates directly with Washington, the COS, even if he is not collocated with the base,
is technically responsible for all of its communications and activities. The way this
normally works out in reality is that the COB runs
the base's day-to-day operational activities, with the COS reserving the right to
overrule him if he sees something he doesn't like. This can get sticky if a COB
commits to you as a commander on some subject and then the
COS has a different view. This doesn't happen often, but if you have this sort of
configuration in your operational area, you need to keep the possibility in mind. Very
rarely, a base will be supervised directly out of C
IA headquarters in Washington. As you can imagine, putting a headquarters in the
decision loop when it might be several thousand miles away is awkward, to say the
least.
Not All COSs Are Created Equal
Just as it is a political fact of life that all generals are not created equal,
neither are all COSs created equal. This will come into play when you or your COS is
attempting to get unusual or expensive support from CIA
headquarters. A more politically well-connected COS will have an easier time than a
less well-connected one, no matter the merits of their respective cases. You have seen
or experienced this in your own career; it is simp
ly an inescapable fact in any large bureaucracy. Try to get an understanding of your
COS's "throw-weight." When you think he is going in with a difficult request, a
pointed nudge through your own channels is often helpful
. Talk this over with your COS in advance; he may be able to suggest improved timing
or tactics.
Experience is Perishable
You are going to run into these folks on both sides of the operation: one of the
intelligence people will have served in the military at some point, or one of your
officers will have served with an intelligence organizati
on at some point. They are going to try to anoint themselves as resident experts.
Their enthusiasm is welcome, but their information and expectations are often obsolete
and more than occasionally flat wrong. Make sure you
r communications with the COS are direct and clear, not interpreted by a resident
expert on either side.
Conclusion
The purpose of this article is to give you someplace to start when working with the
CIA in the field. I am sure that since my retirement, efforts have been made to
institutionally address some of the problems I have raise
d. Unfortunately, I have found that "Murphy's Law" is a universal constant, and that
Murphy always gets your forwarding address.
Remember the points discussed above; they might help. Good luck.
Garrett Jones is a 1993 graduate of the US Army War College. He served as a case
officer with the CIA in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. He retired from the CIA
in 1997 and now lives in the northwestern United States
. The material in this article has been reviewed by the CIA. That review neither
constitutes CIA authentication of information nor implies CIA endorsement of the
author's views.
Go to Winter issue Table of Contents.
Go to Cumulative Article Index.
Go to Parameters home page.
Reviewed 19 November 2001. Please send comments or corrections to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
End<{{{
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
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"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
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not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
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"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
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Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
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--- Ernest Hemingway
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