CIA to New Hires: Analyze This

June 10, 2002 -- Want to combat terrorism for the CIA? Then fill out your application. Your graduate school application, that is.

As America beefs up its intelligence-gathering capabilities in an attempt to snuff out future terror attacks, an increasing premium is being placed on hiring experienced analysts — many with lengthy academic CVs — who can help anticipate the nature of those threats.

To be sure, the CIA is working to collect more leads about terror groups by adding field agents to work abroad and ramping up its various eavesdropping technologies. But the challenge faced by the CIA (among other agencies) when grappling with the likes of al Qaeda is not only to collect raw data about potential terrorist threats, but to interpret it — as the congressional inquiry into America's pre-Sept. 11 intelligence coordination has demonstrated.

That's why many of the people now joining the agency's anti-terror efforts don't fit the popular-culture image of spooks lurking undercover in far-flung corners of the globe. Some of the CIA's key people may, in fact, more closely resemble newly minted Ph.D.s than, say, Jack Ryan, protagonist of the Tom Clancy spy novels.

The More Experience, the Better

Take the job of counterterrorism analyst, for instance. These are the people who synthesize raw information and draft reports assessing the threat posed to the United States by terror groups. Analysts also can help shape U.S. policy by briefing government officials from outside the agency.

"Analysts will be responsible for imagining the worst and planning to counter it," President Bush said Thursday in his speech calling for the creation of a new Cabinet post to coordinate security measures.

So who is being hired to fill this kind of crucial role? While the CIA continues to recruit undergraduates on college campuses, a more typical analyst hire is someone with years of academic study on — and preferably time on the ground in — the Middle East, Asia, or even in other areas of international affairs, including security.

"For the analytical side, they'll be recruiting some college grads, but more typically master's students with area studies backgrounds, and people with language training," says Tim Lomperis, a professor at St. Louis University and former military intelligence officer. "They're going to be looking for people with critical thinking skills, social science people."

As the CIA's own description of the position notes, "Competitive candidates will have a master's degree or Ph.D. in foreign area studies, international affairs, or national security." It adds: "Foreign language proficiency and foreign area knowledge through study, travel, or work abroad [are] preferred."

And the CIA can afford to be selective. Nine months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, resumes continue to pour into its Virginia headquarters. The CIA has received more than 100,000 since September, about three times many as in the same period a year ago, according to Tom Crispell, an agency spokesman.

"A lot of the applications are a direct result of the attacks," says Crispell, calling the pile of resumes "a growth industry."

The Spook as Research Student

The qualities that make an analyst effective in many ways resemble those of a good doctoral student in academia. Analysts patiently look at information from a variety of sources and sift through it to write concise interpretations of the data at hand.

"The skills students have for the CIA is, they've written term papers," says Lomperis. Analysts' intelligence research reports, he adds, "really are nothing more than glorified term papers."

And — as former agents critical of the CIA have charged repeatedly in recent months — American intelligence became far less active in trying to unearth information in the field during the 1990s than it previously had been, de-emphasizing so-called human intelligence.

That means at times, analysts may be using the same kinds of information as corporate researchers, journalists or students.

"In general, the majority of the information is open-source information," says Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist at the University of Baltimore who studied terrorism for years. With this in mind, Ross says, a good intelligence analyst "knows how to interpret the data better."

The premium on good analysis may only get more intense as Congress continues its inquiry, says Lomperis.

"These agencies are getting slammed for [the recent disclosures about] raw intelligence, but it's the job of these analysts to put all this into these intelligence estimates," he says. "The analyst's job is to master the pattern of their subjects."

And in an agency with many competing voices, says Ross, a good analyst "is capable of being heard."

The Language Instinct

An added bonus for analysts, as with graduate students, is fluency in the language of the area of study. That goes double for field agents. It is especially here that CIA critics have ripped the agency for not having enough workers with knowledge of Middle Eastern or other Asian tongues — a situation that cannot be changed immediately, either.

"These language skills don't come overnight," says Lomperis.

The global nature of the American campaign against terrorism means the agency is looking for intelligence analysts or, especially, field operatives who are, collectively, fluent in a wide array of languages.

That's easier said than done, especially considering the near-impossibility of mastering a language without spending years living in a place where it is spoken. As Lomperis says, many U.S. intelligence officers in Vietnam — where he served in the 1970s — were deemed fluent in Vietnamese by the government after a year or more of training, but had nowhere near the proficiency needed to carry on sophisticated conversations in Vietnamese or the local dialects.

For that they relied on local translators, a practice that increased the chances of U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts being discovered.

Then too, greater linguistic flexibility will be necessary for the CIA and other agencies as they expand their joint intelligence efforts with dozens of other countries.

Interactive: International Intelligence Agencies

On behalf of the agency, Cispell says CIA recruiters "are having luck in recruiting people with native or near-native capabilities" for the agency. But he also acknowledges the long-term nature of the process: "It is something we're going to focus on for years to come … You have to broaden your capabilities and you're not going to do that in eight months."