How do people become spies…
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Red-Son — 20 years ago(May 05, 2005 01:03 AM)
I've been wandering about the same thing too. My guess would be they recruit them from the army like in the movie. Soldiers that show exceptional skills are picked out and reasigned, then given training, and then go on to become a spy.
"That which doesn't kill you, will most likely try again." -
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rufio1232 — 20 years ago(June 30, 2005 10:48 PM)
I'm pretty sure that if you guys just went to the CIA website all of your questions would be answered. their recruitment process is noting like the movies. they dont recruit non citizens, I can't believe someone actually said that. you have to be a citizen to do any work at the office let alone be a spy. the recruit is not even close, and why would you even say they recruit ex-cons. all of these answers are just stupid.
dont believe anything you hear about the topic because its not true, the truth is that no one knows how they recruit agents but the recruiters and other high ranking officals.
i think a trip to cia.gov would clear things up greatly for a few of you -
andreash-1 — 20 years ago(July 03, 2005 09:30 AM)
That wouldsomewhat. You can't expect an agency who plays The Great Game to be so open about their policies in a website everyone has access to.
However, it's quite true that ppl with totally irrelevant backgrounds work in the CIA. Like a general MD who became a case officer in East Germany way back in the 60's. There are even historians who work as intelligence officers!
Being a 'spy' or, more correctly, a field intelligence officer is very taxing and boring. Definitely not James Bond. -
gael-lancelot — 20 years ago(July 07, 2005 06:16 AM)
There's some amount of headhunting, too, as far as I know. Out of college and the like. Historians are prized for their document analysis capacities, and of course, people with a good knowledge of languages are always useful.
Wearer of the Red Straightjacket -
Ace_In_The_Hole — 20 years ago(July 16, 2005 06:30 PM)
Especially languages nowadays.
If you can speak Arabic well and fancy some adventure and/or interrogating in Gitmo. The CIA is right for you.
I read it in a news article a few days back, I'm not kidding. The CIA is in need for Arabic speakers nowadays. -
szisoman — 18 years ago(September 24, 2007 02:21 PM)
Ace, what moron would do that? getting into the CIA isnt flashy or hip, its dangerous, not just looking out for enemies everywhere, but also over your back, like that agent, whats her name..Plame, her identity was leaked so easily as if it was nothing & your dear president pardoned the fall guy.i would not just work in any intelligence agency, they all stink.
" I am talking about..ethics " -
marlin-21 — 18 years ago(November 02, 2007 08:03 AM)
It helps if you have a military background. A few years ago I was in the army when the government threatened to withdraw important overseas service cash allowances to troops serving abroad. My C.O. and several from other battalions/regiments strongly opposed this and sought the support of others.
A petition was drafted that i signed. This equated to a mutiny so I was arrested and charged both with mutiny and sedition. The army wanted to keep this quiet so I was offered the opportunity of resigning subject to being screened for a possible military intelligence role elsewhere. I accepted and was passed as suitable but told that it would be covert intelligence work abroad ( I speak Hindi/Pushtu and Arabic ). I hadn't the nerve to do this so I resigned, but was threatened with a Court Martial. Fortunately this threat never came to anything since the officers I served with refused to testify against one another. -
bogwart-1 — 18 years ago(October 18, 2007 07:14 AM)
'The Great Game' does not mean field intelligence work. It is a specific reference to the mainly covert struggle between Britain and Czarist Russia for control of Central Asia before World War 1. It is rather an insult to compare the ham-fisted nonsense perpetrated by the CIA to the events of a hundred years ago.
In fact it's rather redundant even to suggest that the CIA is an 'intelligence' agency. If you compare them to SIS (now MI6), the KGB (now mainly subsumed into the FSB) and the Mossad/Shin Beth/Aman you find that CIA is prone to far more blunders and mistakes than the others, mainly because of turf wars withh DIA and other agencies, and their close involvement with politics. -
joeriderxtreme — 17 years ago(July 23, 2008 05:33 PM)
Wrong the KGB is now known as the SVR. FSB is like the American FBI/NSA and MI5. Their CIA version is the SVR. It stands for Sluzhba veneshnostoi raboti. Litterally translated as the Service for Foreign Work.
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bikebryan — 20 years ago(September 08, 2005 01:11 PM)
Most of what you post I agree with, but do you really think the CIA doesn't retain foreign non-citizens? Come on, be real. They make not "officially" work for the Agency, but if the CIA is paying them for the HUMINT they provide, then they are at least contracted by the Agency thus they are employed by the CIA. They just, in general, don't work in the CIA offices either in the States or abroad.
I don't doubt for one second the CIA has paid killers on it's payroll either. However, I don't for one second think that ANY of them are ex-convicts. An assassin generally has to know why they are sent out to kill somebody, AND agree with the reason, or they won't be assigned to retire the mark. -
rocked-by-rape — 20 years ago(September 11, 2005 12:03 PM)
They have a position on the CIA.gov website that sounds like you do some killing because it requires that you have combat experience or military SF training to be considered. I think its a Specialized Skills Operations Officer if I remember reading it correctly. That might count as a hired killer or someone trained to kill.
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californiacotton — 18 years ago(February 23, 2008 01:35 AM)
They hire citizens (field ops officers) who thus "recruit" (ie. hire $$) foreign operatives to conduct surveillance and feed information to Washington through the operatives. These foreign recruits most often times are found in positions of some power in the home country.
Read Kessler's "Inside the CIA" for a good portrait of the operations of the CIA. One thing is for sure, US tax dollars are generously distributed to obtain information. -
jchamberlain-2 — 12 years ago(November 29, 2013 04:09 PM)
You are confusing some of your terms. The CIA uses case officers that are US citizens employed by the federal government to identify, recruit, and run assets which are typically local to the country where the I telligence activity is happening.
Now the CIA will recruit Americans to work for the agency in much the same way any other group does, through its web site, job boards, career fairs etc. the vetting process can be relatively complex depending on your background, work history etc. -
nitejrny282 — 14 years ago(September 26, 2011 11:03 AM)
When President Roosevelt established the OSS (now the CIA) in 1942, he expressly wanted it to be a non-military agency. And the man he put in charge of creating the agency, Major "Wild Bill" Donovan, was a bit of a snob, and focused on Ivy League schools. Professors, coaches, members of faculty were used to recruit students straight out of class and into the Agency. That's why the CIA had a rep - until the 70's or 80's - for being very WASPY. Especially compared to Hoover's FBI, which Donovan saw as a bunch of glorified cops. Blue collar agents to his white collar agents. If you watch MUNICH you'll notice the CIA men are all blond. Very good casting on Spielberg's part. As for today, it's probably more of a mix between college and military recruiting. For more, check out what's probably the best historical-fiction novel ever written on the CIA, "The Company" by Robert Littell. They made a mini-series, but it didn't even come close to the book.