What types of individuals would make for the best CIA case officers
In your view, what types of individuals would make for the best CIA case officers? What bureaucratic and cultural barriers impede them from working for the CIA? And what steps might be taken to overcome these roadblocks?
Background:
“Sherman Kent is widely regarded as the “father” of intelligence assessments in the American intelligence community. He was brought into the intelligence community from a professorship in history at Yale University and laid the standards for performing strategic intelligence assessments as long-time head of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and its post-World War II predecessor. Kent argued strenuously that the best intelligence analysts are also first-rate scholars.
And many observers today commonly assume that the CIA continues in the Kent tradition by hiring, nurturing, and retaining analysts with doctorates. For a variety of bureaucratic and cultural reasons inside the CIA, however, that is not the case. In fact, despite the public perception, the CIA harbors informal biases against hiring and keeping Ph.D.s, as we will examine this week.
On the other side of the intelligence coin, many outside observers assume that the CIA maintains a cohort of case officers—who work abroad, undercover to spot, assess, and recruit foreign agents—who are regional area specialists. And it is reasonable to assume that successful work overseas entails expertise in regional politics, history, culture, language, traditions, and societies. The reality inside the CIA, however, too often is the opposite. As we also will discuss this week, CIA bureaucratic and security barriers often stop the most culturally and linguistically expert candidates from becoming CIA case officers.”
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APA
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