The Craft of Intelligence

by Allen W. Dulles

  An intelligence service, whether it be CIA or any other, will usually be made up of three broad categories of personnel, designated in popular intelligence parlance as the “operators,” the “analysts,” and the “support people.” The latter, not directly concerned with the management of intelligence operations or the analysis of information, are the men who maintain the communications or attend to the administrative tasks of finance, personnel, supply, transportation, etc. A large part of the security force comes under this heading also. Some of the work of this department is often not too different from what it might be in any complex modern bureaucracy except that it must be done under conditions of maximum secrecy and with a full understanding of the machinery of an intelligence organization. Special tribute is due these hard-working men and women who, while subject to the same restrictions and discipline as the others, necessarily miss out on some of the excitement and challenge the others experience. Of course, those in communications work often man dangerous and vital posts abroad and constitute the very lifeline of an intelligence system, since information is useless unless it reaches headquarters speedily and safely.

  The operators and the analysts are, respectively, those who gather and those who process information. The analytical process within an intelligence organization, ranging from the initial sifting and evaluating of information received to the preparation of high-level studies, calls primarily for a well-trained mind free of prejudice and immune to snap judgment. A man who is more interested in intellectual pursuits than in people, in observation and thought than in action, will make a better “analyst” than an “operator.” For this reason, it is no surprise that people from the academic professions fill many of the analytical jobs. The “operator,” or, as he is frequently called, the “case officer,” is the field man, the collector of secret intelligence from agents. It is he who locates, recruits and handles the primary sources of information. The operators are drawn from everywhere. There is really no norm and no pattern. The main thing is that they be lively, curious, tireless and endowed with a keen sense for people.

  People who try for intelligence jobs usually have a considerable background, as a result of their chosen studies, in international affairs, history or languages; not because they planned an intelligence career, but for the same reasons which would probably lead them to an intelligence career. However, the so-called “tradecraft” of intelligence is unique to a degree that there are few colleges which provide studies which automatically place one man in a more advantageous position than another. The only influence previous studies or experience has on a man’s career in intelligence is to direct him more toward the analytical or the collection side, as the case may be, or more toward one geographical area of the world than another, or, if he is a technical expert, into some specialized area of intelligence. However, while the analyst may devote himself to one such area or topic for years, the “operator” usually will not, because his abilities in the craft itself are more important than any specialized topical or area knowledge. He can expect to be moved around many times in the course of his career. He gets this knowledge of the craft from the training schools of the intelligence service, from working as a junior officer with his peers, and finally from assignments in which he is more or less on his own.

  Training schools in intelligence draw on many methods used in other professions in order to give the future intelligence officer not only knowledge, but experience and confidence. Intelligence, unlike many other professions, is not a business in which a few major or even small mistakes in the actual practice of the craft can be chalked up with a smile and wisecracks, such as “Back to the old drawing board.” It has this in common with the military profession. Intelligence schools will give many courses about areas and languages that are not too dissimilar from university courses except for the emphasis on those things of chief concern to the intelligence officer. It will also give courses on the substance of intelligence itself, how intelligence services work, how information is analyzed, how reports are written, etc. But the guts of such training is the practical business of field operations, and to teach this intelligence schools draw on the practice of law schools in using the case method, and of the military in creating simulated “live” situations in which the trainee is expected to behave exactly as he would if he were on his own in a foreign country.

  In the “case” method, past operations of American intelligence and of the intelligence services of other countries are studied. In order to confront the student with the exact circumstances and chronology of such operations, he is given replicas of files containing all the messages, reports, instructions, traffic between headquarters and outposts, agent materials, results of investigations and of surveillances in chronological order, so that he can see the day-to-day progress and conduct of the case, see it unfold before him like the rather complicated plot of a very long novel. Having the advantage of hindsight, he can see where mistakes were made, what the choices were, what was foreseen and not foreseen. The law student studying the briefs of the lawyers, the presentations of counsel for the plaintiff and the defense before the court, statements of witnesses, etc., can see in retrospect where one lawyer failed to ask a witness a telling question, where a summation to a jury failed to emphasize the most convincing evidence. Similarly, the student of intelligence, through a study of real cases in all their detail, will gradually begin to notice how the intelligence officer in a certain instance may have neglected to ask his agent a question which, as it later turned out, might have pointed to the latter’s duplicity, how he forgot to give him a danger signal to use in an emergency, how a too complicated system of communicating between agents fouled up an important channel of information because one man simply couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do in a certain situation. This study of cases particularly brings to light the human failures that mark the history of intelligence and implants in the young officer an appreciation of the many unpredictable elements which will play a role in his work and which it is his business to prepare for and to expect in every job to which he will later be assigned.

  He will study in minute detail most of the famous cases in the history of modern intelligence, some of which we have had reason to cite in earlier pages, with equal attention to the reasons for success and the reasons for failure. How did Redl, Sorge and other noted spies of the past get away with it for so long, and what brought about their downfall? How could the Soviets have compartmentalized the segments of the Rote Kapelle or of the Canadian network so that the capture or defection of one member would not have brought the whole structure tumbling down?

  In this pursuit of specific methodology, he also acquires a comparative knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the techniques favored by different national intelligence services. He will begin to see certain consistent national characteristics and aims displayed in these methods in somewhat the same fashion as the student of foreign policy or of warfare sees them in a study of nations at peace and at war. In some measure he will therefore learn what to expect from some of his future opponents.

  The “live” situations in the training school are intended to achieve somewhat the same end as combat training with live ammunition. Pioneer work along these lines was done during World War II in the Army schools which trained prisoner-of-war interrogators. The interrogator-trainee was put up against a man who was dressed like an enemy officer or soldier, acted like one who had just been captured and spoke perfect German or Japanese. The latter, who had to be a good actor and was carefully chosen for his job, did everything possible to trick or mislead the interrogator in any of the hundred ways which we had experienced in real interrogation situations in Europe and the Far East. He refused to talk or he deluged the interrogator with a flood of inconsequential or confusing information. He was sullen or insolent or cringing. He might even threaten the interrogator. After a few sessions of this sort, the interrogator was a little better prepared to take on a real-life PO
W or pseudo defector and was not likely to be surprised by one.

  This is the method essentially in use in intelligence training today. The situations are, or course, more complicated than those which confront an interrogator. Also, the intelligence school goes one step further in creating situations which can best be compared to the training of a psychoanalyst, who must first himself undergo analytical treatment in order to qualify fully as a healer of the mentally ill. The “live” situations in which the intelligence trainee is placed are not only those which he may someday meet as an intelligence officer. He must also play the role of the “agent” in them, not because he is likely to be an agent himself, but solely in order that he may begin to understand what it feels like to be inside the agent’s skin and to develop greater sympathy and understanding—empathy would be the right word—for the practical and emotional predicament of the people who are going to work for him and take orders from him and often risk their lives for him.

  The practical difficulties which a career in intelligence imposes upon a man and his family stem partly from the conditions of secrecy under which all covert intelligence work must be done. Every employee signs an oath which binds him not to divulge anything he learns or does in the course of his employment to any unauthorized person, and this is binding even after he may have left government employment. What this means is that an employee cannot discuss the substance of his daily work with his wife or his friends. Few have resigned or complained because of this particular constraint. Although it may sound like an almost paralyzing stricture to people who are unused to it, it does not work the hardship that may seem to be inherent in it. It may even have some social advantages in the sense that it forces people to be a little inventive, to develop hobbies and avocations and to take an interest in other things. I recall one outstanding intelligence officer (other than Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe) who made a hobby of orchids, others who wrote novels and mystery stories, still others, who, in their leisure, turned to music or painting. Most wives, after the honeymoon is over, easily tire of hearing their husbands talk about the office and the intricacies of their business, of the legal or governmental world in which they work.

  The makeup of the personnel of CIA is as representative of all classes and places in America as any other branch of the government or any large business organization, and more so than many. Some of its members never attended college or never finished. Many are first-generation Americans, who often bring with them knowledge of the more unusual languages, though this is by no means the only reason why they might be employed.

  An intelligence service in a free society is not only an institution in a democracy in that it is the creation of the Congress and subordinate to the executive; it also mirrors in its membership the society which it serves and inculcates in its officers the principle that the necessary strictures of secrecy make it all the more important that at all times the conduct and efficiency of its employees as public servants must be exemplary.

  If CIA recruitment fails to equip the Agency with the best minds to keep the country’s intelligence ahead of all its adversaries, including the Soviet Union, we are not properly taking advantage of the unique opportunities this country affords. Congress has appropriated adequate funds and has given CIA a comprehensive charter. The executive under four Presidents since its creation in 1947 has given CIA strong support. We have the greatest pool of human resources available to any country in the world—our 185 million people, our citizenry, come of almost every race of people on this globe. Furthermore, a hard core of highly skilled professionals from World War II days, both from the ranks of the OSS and from military intelligence work, have remained on or reenlisted in the CIA and furnish this country with a nucleus of experts, schooled in the hard experiences of wartime intelligence operations of every kind.

  In building an intelligence service, it is clear that one needs a variety of people: the wise and discriminating analyzer and collator of the raw intelligence collected from all the quarters of the globe; the technicians to help produce, marshal and monitor all the scientific tools of intelligence collection; the staff officers, case officers and liaison officers to direct into proper channels the overall search for intelligence. Each of these varied tasks requires high skills and careful training.

  THE AGENT

  The intelligence officer engaged in covert intelligence collection described above is a career staff member of the intelligence service, an American citizen, on duty in a particular place, at home or abroad, acting on the instructions of his headquarters. He is a manager, a handler, a recruiter, also an on-the-spot evaluator of the product of his operatives. The man whom he locates, hires, trains and directs to collect information and whose work he judges is the agent. The agent, who may be of any nationality, may produce the information himself or he may have access to contacts and sources “in place” who supply him with information. His relationship with the intelligence service generally lasts as long as both parties find it satisfactory and rewarding.

  If the staff intelligence officer succeeds in locating someone who is attractive to the intelligence service because of his knowledge or access to information, he must first ascertain on what basis the potential agent might be willing to work with him, or by what means he could be induced to do the job. If the agent offers his services, the intelligence officer does not have this problem, but he must still ascertain what brought the agent to him in order to understand him and handle him properly; he might, after all, have been sent by the opposition as a penetration.

  As motives, ideological and patriotic convictions stand at the top of the list. The ideological volunteer, if he is sincere, is a man whose loyalty you need rarely question, as you must always question the loyalties of people who work chiefly for money or out of a desire for adventure and intrigue.

  Actually, ideology is not the most accurate word for what we are describing, but we use it for want of a better one. Few people go through the analytical process of proving to themselves abstractly that one system of government is better than another. Few work out an intellectual justification or rationalization for treason as did Klaus Fuchs, who claimed that he could take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown and still pass British secrets to the Soviet Union because “I used my Marxian philosophy to establish in my mind two separate compartments.” It is more likely that views and judgments will be based on feelings and on quite practical considerations. Officials in Communist bureaucracies who are not utterly blind to the workings of the state that employs them cannot fail to see that cynicism and power-grabbing prevail in high places and that the people are daily being duped with Marxist slogans and distortions of the truth. Communism is a system which deals harshly with all but its fanatical adherents and those who have found a way to profit from it. Every Communist country is full of people who have suffered at the hands of the state or are close to someone who has. Many such people, with only a slight nudge, may be willing to engage in espionage against a regime which they do not respect, against which they have grievances or about which they are disillusioned.

  The man engaged in espionage on behalf of his own country is committing a patriotic act. The man who gives away or sells his own country’s secrets is committing treason. Today we frequently encounter quite another situation, in which it is usually unjust to speak of treason. The internal political conditions of the Communist nations, as was once the case in the Fascist nations, have caused thousands to flee their homelands, either to save their own lives or because of their vigorous disapproval of the government in power. If an escapee aids his hosts in the country of adoption against the country he has fled, he can hardly be said to be committing treason as that term is generally used.

  The ideological agent today usually does not consider himself treasonable in the sense that he is betraying his countrymen. He is motivated primarily by a desire to see the downfall of a hated regime. Since the United States is not imperialistic and mak
es the distinction of opposing Communist regimes rather than peoples of those countries, there can be a basic agreement in the aims of the ideological agent and the intelligence services of free states.

  The more idealistic agent of this type will not engage in espionage lightly. He may at the outset prefer to join some kind of underground movement, if there is one, or perhaps to engage in the political activities of exiles which aim directly at unseating the tyranny which dominates his country.

  During World War II, one of my best agents in Germany, whose information was of the utmost importance to the Allied war effort, never stopped trying to persuade me that he ought to be allowed to take part in the then growing underground effort to get rid of the Nazis. Every time I saw him, I had to point out to him that by doing this he would attract attention to himself and would only jeopardize his security, and that his ability to continue to get us much-needed information, what he was doing, was more valuable. It was obvious that he felt frustrated, that he wanted to get into the fight. He had another point, which was that his position after the war was over would be much better if he had helped bring down the Nazis. Nobody would make a hero of him for having supplied intelligence to the Allies. Unfortunately, he was right in this. Another anti-Nazi agent who collaborated with me at that time was willing to give every kind of information except the kind that might directly lead to loss of lives of his countrymen in combat. These are distinctions made by people of conscience.