Whether based on NOC or OC tradecraft, humint is no panacea. During the Vietnam War, for example, almost all of America's assets recruited to infiltrate the north were either killed or captured. Moreover, within closed societies like North Korea and Iran, local spies are difficult to recruit; and even if successfully recruited, they are often untrustworthy. Neither Boy Scouts nor nuns, they are known to fabricate reports, sell information to the highest bidder, and scheme as false defectors or double-agents. During the Cold War, all of America's assets in Cuba and East Germany proved to have been doubled back against the United States.25
A recent example of humint treachery is the German agent in 2002, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, prophetically codenamed “Curve Ball.” A former Iraqi scientist, he persuaded the German intelligence service (the Bundesnachtrichtendienst or BND) that biological WMD existed in Iraq. The CIA took the bait through its intelligence liaison relationship with the Germans. Only after the war began in Iraq in 2003 did Curve Ball's bona fides fall into doubt among German and CIA intelligence officials; he was, it turned out, a consummate liar.26
Further, it takes a considerable amount of time to train a clandestine officer before he or she is ready to recruit foreign assets – upwards of seven years. A case officer must learn the delicate art of handling an asset, a “very close relationship” that requires motivating the foreign local to engage in espionage, continue to produce valuable information, and maintain a double life in risky circumstances.27
Despite these drawbacks, humint can provide extraordinarily helpful information, as did the Soviet military intelligence officer Oleg Penkovsky during the Cold War. He was not recruited by a U.S. clandestine officer but, rather, was a “walk-in” who volunteered to spy for the British and the Americans. To prove his bona fides, he tossed classified Soviet intelligence documents over the wall of the U.S. embassy in Moscow. The American officials feared, however, that he was a “dangle” meant to trick the United States, so his overture was initially rebuffed. He then tried the British embassy in Moscow and MI6 quickly determined that he was a legitimate volunteer. Subsequently, the Americans accepted his services, too. In 1962, information from Penkovsky helped the United States identify the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, based on his information that missile bases constructed by the USSR at the time were frequently configured in a six-pointed Star of David design.
Based on occasional successes like Penkovsky, the United States and most other countries persevere in their quest for reliable espionage assets. Following 9/11 and the WMD errors in Iraq, the Kean and the Silberman–Robb Commissions criticized America's lack of assets in important parts of the world. President George W. Bush authorized a 50 percent increase in the number of CIA operations officers, leading in 2004 to the largest incoming class of clandestine officers in the Agency's history.28
In an appraisal of humint, former DCI Colby observed: “It's one of those things you can't afford to say no to, because sometimes it can be valuable.” He added: “You can go through years with nothing much happening, so then you cut off the relationship. Since nothing had happened there for ten years, we were in the process of closing the [CIA's] stations in El Salvador and Portugal – just before these countries blew up!” Colby's conclusion: “I think you'll always have some humint, and it'll pay off. And remember that the human agent is also available to somehow engage in the manipulation of a foreign government.”29
Former DCI (1991–93) and later Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates agrees that humint has been valuable. While acknowledging the contribution made by techint towards America's understanding of Soviet strategic weapons, he recalls that “a great deal of what we learned about the technical characteristics of Soviet conventional weapons we learned through humint.”30 He adds that when it came to probing into the Kremlin's intentions, not just its capabilities, humint provided important insights. Humint can address the matter of intentions in ways that are impossible for machines to achieve. A well-placed asset might be in a position to pose the question to a foreign leader: “What will you do if the United States does X?” As former CIA officer John Millis has written: “Humint can shake the intelligence apple from the tree, where other intelligence collection techniques must wait for the apple to fall.”31
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 as an Illustration of Intelligence Collection Challenges
Pilots of the high-altitude U-2 reconnaissance spy plane, built in record time by the CIA, the U.S. Air Force, and Lockheed Corporation in the 1950s, had come to know the contours of Cuba well during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In an operation referred to inside the Agency as Project NIMBUS, overflights across the island from west to east and back again had become standard operating procedure in the spring of 1962.32 Since the CIA's disastrous paramilitary attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro by way of the Bay of Pigs paramilitary invasion in May 1961, regime change in Cuba continued to be a high priority for the Kennedy Administration. Just as sabotage and assassination plots against Castro remained a part of Washington's secret agenda, so did America's surveillance of the island only ninety miles off the coast of Florida, which had become Moscow's favorite Marxist-Leninist showcase in the developing world – the only socialist revolution that had succeeded in Latin America. As rumors grew among the CIA's spies on the ground in Cuba about intensified Soviet activity on the island in late 1961 and early 1962, the frequency of the reconnaissance missions increased. By May 1962, a year after the Bay of Pigs, the number of monthly flights had doubled and would rise further as the year unfolded and the rumors continued. Most of the flights originated from Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas and Edwards Air Force Base in California. Designed to fly as high as 73,000 feet and equipped with high-resolution cameras, the U-2 was a major breakthrough in aerial surveillance, although the plane was thin-winged and fragile, difficult to steer, and vulnerable to turbulence.33
Reports from CIA intelligence sources in Cuba suggested the arrival of sizable numbers of Soviet troops on the island. More troubling still, the agents had spotted large cylindrical objects on the ground and new Soviet encampments being constructed in the palm forests of western Cuba. Senator Kenneth Keating (R, New York) had commented publicly about stories he had heard from some of his Cuban American constituents in New York, to the effect that the Soviets were importing missiles to the island. The CIA grilled its secret Cuban agents about these stories. The vast majority of the spies, though, were unreliable, offering conflicting and often fabricated reports – any “intelligence” to keep themselves on the Agency payroll.
Yet a few of the more trusted agents also claimed to have seen odd activities throughout the island, including the unloading of large objects from Soviet freighters in the port of Havana. In response to this humint, the Agency stepped up its U-2 surveillance flights. Bad weather intervened, though, and prohibited reconnaissance throughout most of August 1962. Even more important than the unpredictable weather was the political opposition in the Department of State to further U-2 surveillance of the island.34 Secretary of State Dean Rusk and others thought the flights were too risky: a conventional surface-to-air missile (SAM) in Cuba might be able to down one of the reconnaissance aircraft and escalate the pressure in the United States from the Republican party to invade the island. Caution prevailed in the Kennedy Administration. Not until October 14 – after a full month of U-2 surveillance abstinence ordered by President Kennedy in deference to the State Department – did the spy aircraft take flight again over the island, snapping hundreds of photographs of the terrain below each day.
These fresh images were transmitted quickly to specialists in the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center. The black-and-white lines on the photos, difficult for the untrained eye to interpret, provided unmistakable clues to expert eyes: the Soviets were indeed constructing missile bases in Cuba. Shockingly, the photos (“imagery”) revealed the presence of WMD. Agency analysts had forecast that the Soviet Union would never be so rash as to introduce such weapo
ns into a country so near the United States – although the CIA's director at the time, John A. McCone, a successful California businessman turned spy chief, had predicted, on the contrary, that Moscow might attempt this provocative move. According to his reasoning, President Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union might try to redress the lop-sided intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) advantage enjoyed by the United States at the time – an estimated 17:1 edge – by placing shorter-range nuclear missiles close to North America. Further, Khrushchev was apt to do what he could to protect a Marxist ally and protégé from a possible full-scale assault by the U.S. military, as foreshadowed by the Agency's Bay of Pigs operation.35
Ominously, the U-2 photographs taken on October 14 over Cuba showed a Star of David pattern on the ground near San Cristobal, just like the one Penkosky had warned about. The reality was both clear and disturbing: the Soviets had taken the fateful step of introducing missiles into their Caribbean satellite – and not just any rockets. These were medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) capable of striking targets in the United States anywhere east of the Mississippi River, carrying nuclear warheads.
The next day, October 15, the CIA informed the White House about the presence of sophisticated Soviet WMD in Cuba. Now the U-2 surveillance trips over Cuba shot upwards in frequency, to several each day in the search for other missile sites. Low-level photography taken by Navy and Air Force aircraft complemented the U-2 imint and, together, they revealed more missile trailers, erectors, vehicles, and tent areas in the Star of David design.
The reconnaissance missions yielded thousands of feet of film, some of which President Kennedy later presented to the public as evidence in support of his allegations against the Soviet Union. Reports on the ground in Cuba from agents remained unreliable for the most part, but here was hard imagery of Soviet mischief – irrefutable empirical evidence in the form of photographs. The film pinpointed forty-two Soviet missiles in all, as well as the presence of Ilyushin-28 (IL-28) medium-range bombers, MIG-21 fighter aircraft, anti-aircraft missile batteries, and short-range battlefield rockets.
The U-2 photographs were a blessing to the President; it was a “moment of splendor,” recalled a senior CIA analyst.36 The images made it clear that the missiles would not be operational (that is, ready for firing) for some time – perhaps as long as a fortnight. Kennedy could now resist pressures from the Pentagon for a quick invasion; he had breathing room to consider other options. Had the United States, fearful that the Cuban rockets were ready for firing, sent in a land force in the early days of this crisis, the Pentagon and the White House would have discovered that – however vital it had been – the intelligence from the U-2 flights and agent reports had dangerous gaps. After the end of the Cold War, conferences on the Cuban missile crisis held with U.S. and Soviet participants disclosed that, unbeknownst to the CIA and the White House at the time, the Soviets had more than two hundred tactical nuclear warheads on the island; atomic bombs inside the cargo hatches of the IL-bombers; and five times more troops than estimated by U.S. intelligence (some 40,000 rather than 8,000). Moreover, early in the crisis, the Kremlin had given local Soviet commanders discretionary authority to use the tactical weapons and release the bombers for flight to the United States if an American army invaded the island.37
Reflecting back on these tense days, former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara expressed his belief that an invasion would have triggered a nuclear war in Cuba, which would have led to a strategic response between the two superpowers – in other words, a thermo-nuclear Third World War that would have destroyed much of the United States and the Soviet Union.38 The Cuban missile crisis was a fine example of how important intelligence can be to presidential decision-making, but it also stands as an illustration of how even saturated surveillance coverage of a target can miss significant information.
Strengthening Intelligence Collection
“Many elements make up a decision,” Secretary of State Rusk once told an interviewer. “First, though, one must grapple with the facts. What is the situation?”39 In determining the situation overseas, no single int is sufficient. Success depends on all of the collection disciplines working together, just as an engine performs best when all of its cylinders are firing. Employing a different metaphor, intelligence officers sometimes refer to this synergism as the “Black & Decker” approach: every tool in the box is used in the search for useful information. Woolsey offers the example of North Korea: “That nation is so closely guarded that humint becomes indispensable to know what is going on. This humint then tips off sigint possibilities, which in turn may suggest where best to gather imint. These capabilities, ideally, dovetail with one another.”40
At the end of the Cold War in 1991, efforts were made in Washington, DC to trim the defense and intelligence budgets. Some made the argument that intelligence capabilities associated with the various ints could be surged from one location to another, depending on where the latest crisis emerged. Others, though, maintained that intelligence had to have a global presence; only in this way could potential crises be anticipated. This surge-versus-presence debate led most participants to conclude that, yes, saving money was important and some technical collections systems could be moved (surged) from one hot spot to another; however, analysts were considered far less fungible. Moreover, operations officers who might have expertise in Latin American affairs, and were able to speak Spanish or Portuguese, could not perform effectively right away in Kabul or Islamabad. Thus, whereas the Intelligence Community needed global presence when it came to human assets, it could more easily surge drones, listening devices, and satellites.
Both survey data and case studies of collection operations indicate that humint can be particularly important when targeting terrorists, narcotics dealers, and weapons proliferators.41 Much can be done, however, to improve both techint and humint. Technical intelligence collection must constantly overcome advances in deception and denial activities carried out by adversaries, such as the camouflaging of their weapons facilities and the encryption of telephone calls.42 Humint, though, is most in need of reform. Even observers sympathetic to this approach have serious reservations about its effectiveness. The United States has a “moribund Clandestine Service,” concluded one experienced field officer; and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence warned that humint is headed “over a cliff” as a result of poor management.43
An agenda for humint reform in the United States would embrace these initiatives:
an increase in the number of case (operational) officers in key parts of the world, especially those under non-official cover (NOCs);
the development of additional cover arrangements overseas, to reverse what DCI William E. Colby once referred to as the “melting ice floe of cover”44 – that is, the increasing unwillingness of the State Department, U.S. newspapers and magazines, universities, and religious groups to provide shelter and false identification for U.S. intelligence officers, for fear of jeopardizing the safety of their own genuine employees (while the prohibition against using official media and academic cover continues to make sense in the democracies, other groups – especially U.S. businesses abroad – will have to shoulder more of this burden);
the holding of more frequent tasking meetings between consumers and humint managers;
a boost in the entrance requirements for operations officers, making this career as demanding and prestigious as a diplomatic career;
the improvement of language training for operations officers – a challenge made all the more difficult because CIA managers have been unwilling to allow officers to concentrate on just one language with continual service in the country or countries where the language is spoken, preferring career pathways that place officers in a variety of locations around the world throughout their careers;45
a more extensive study of the history and culture of other societies, which is limited by the career rotation policy mentioned above;
the recruitment of more citizens with ethnic backgrounds relevant to the strategic “hot-spots” of the world, such as the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and the encouragement of diversity generally throughout the humint services;46
the establishment of easier access to U.S. embassies abroad – which often look like forbidding fortresses – to encourage walk-ins (like Penkovsky), relying on perimeter physical searches and metal detectors as a means for thwarting terrorist attacks against these facilities;
a reduction in the size of the humint bureaucracy at headquarters, with increased reliance on a small, more nimble clandestine service that focuses on high-priority foreign targets;
the basing of promotion decisions for case officers serving in particular hard targets (such as Russia and China) on the quality, not the quantity, of assets they recruit;
the encouragement of closer cooperation between the CIA's Directorate of Analysis (DA) and the Directorate of Operations (DO) – a co-location experiment in partnership begun in 1995 (discussed later in this chapter) – with more rapid promotions as a reward for those who participate in this activity;
an improved sharing of humint findings across the Intelligence Community;47 and
strengthened intelligence liaison relations, both humint and techint, among all regimes and international organizations that are determined to defeat terrorists, drug dealers, and other international criminals – although with a closer vetting by the United States of shared sources to avoid future “Curve Balls.”48
The processing of intelligence
In the third phase of the intelligence cycle, the collected intelligence must be decoded if encrypted, interpreted if a satellite photograph, translated if in a foreign language, and generally put into a form that a president or a prime minister can readily comprehend. This is known as processing: the conversion of “raw” (unevaluated) intelligence, whether photographs or email intercepts, into a readable format.
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