

Copyright May 1994 by John Macartney, 72262,660
Washington, DC
                                                                  
          
                          INTELLIGENCE AND THE CIA

INTELLIGENCE is MISUNDERSTOOD.  Forget James Bond.  US
Intelligence exists for just one purpose, to support US foreign
policy.  Basically, intelligence is an information support
service for government policymakers.  (Similar to a news bureau
or think tank.  More PhD's than cloaks and daggers).  But unlike
those others, intelligence deals only with foreign information,
especially threats and other bad news.  Also, intelligence
tailors its products for specific customers. 

. Contrary to fictional caricatures in books and movies, neither
Russia or the KGB is the "enemy" of the CIA or other US
intelligence agencies.  They deal in information and their
"enemy" is ignorance, uncertainty and misunderstanding. 

. Within the US foreign policy process, intelligence plays a
vital role.  The intelligence officer is a "producer," who
supplies relevant information about foreign matters to
"consumers," the government policymakers, planners and operators
who make, plan or carry out US foreign policy.  Increasingly in   
recent years, US intelligence is also supporting consumers at the
UN, the IAEA and other international organizations.  (At the same
time, the UN and the IAEA and other IGO's have been setting up
their own in-house intelligence capabilities.  But they still
rely primarily on information supplied by member states,
especially the USA.)

. Intelligence supports policy makers, but is not allowed to make
(or even comment on) US policy 

. Two major divisions within the intelligence business are
collection and analysis.  
     Collectors specialize in either technical sensors, such as
spy satellites, or in human intelligence, spies.  The techint
collectors are mostly engineers and scientists.   Humint
collectors, on the other hand, have engaging personalities and
are skilled in handling people.  They serve, for the most part,
overseas where they recruit and handle agents, or spies, the
foreigners who provide information to the US government.         
Analysts are basically intellectuals, very much like a university
or think tank faculty.  Employment in the US Intelligence
Community is very competitive much like the State Department's
foreign service.  As a result, intelligence officers, especially
CIA officers, tend to be sharp.  And very well educated.  (PhD's
abound out at Langley.)  

. Most intelligence information comes from open, unclassified
sources, although secret agents and elaborate systems of high
tech sensors play a very important role, especially when foreign  
 governments or groups try to deceive us, or conceal hostile or
illegal activities such as surprise attack preparations, nuclear
proliferation, human rights abuses economic analysis, drug
smuggling, unfair trade practices, ecological threats, bribes or
kickbacks, terrorism, treaty verification, support to
peacekeepers and other UN operations, arms control support, and
so on.              

. There are two basic categories of information, "secrets" and
"mysteries."  
     A secret is an item of foreign information that exists, but
has to be uncovered or stolen.  Example: Does North Korea already
have nuclear weapons?  
     A mystery, on the other hand, is a question about the
future, the answer does not now exist; it can only be estimated. 
Example:  What will Russia's inflation rate be next year? 
Policymakers need answers to both types of questions, and
intelligence tries to provide both.  

. Intelligence serves three categories of government consumers:
national policymakers, planners and operators.  
     NATIONAL POLICYMAKERS include the President and scores of
senior government officials, most of whom are based in
Washington, like the Secretaries, Under Secretaries, and
Assistant Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs and other Pentagon brass, senators and congressmen,
and the deputies and staffs of all of the above.  They need broad
geopolitical information.  
     PLANNERS are those junior and midlevel government officials,
mostly in the military, who write and maintain the hundreds of US
contingency plans.  They need masses of detailed and continuously
updated installation data (What is the emergency refueling
capacity at the Islamabad airport?  What is the daily offload
tonnage capacity at the port of XXX.  Is there refrigerated
storage there?), planners require by far the most intelligence
support.       
     OPERATORS (or implementors) are the diplomats, trade
negotiators, commercial attaches, immigration and customs
officials, attack pilots, soldiers and sailors who actually carry
out US foreign policy.  They need immediate "tactical"
information.  (How well does my counterpart negotiator speak
English?  What is his or her personal relatonship to their Prime
Minister?  How much authority does does he or she have to make an
agreement?  What is their fallback negotiating position?  How
many enemy tanks are behind those trees?  What are the air
defenses in the target area?  Where is the ship suspected of
smuggling illegal immigrants?  

. Again contrary to spy fiction, CIA officers do not themselves
steal documents, crawl in windows, or break into safes.  Instead,
they recruit foreign "agents," or spies, who do that.  The
relationship between an intelligence officer and his or her agent
is very much like that between an investigative reporter and his
or her "confidential sources."  

. US intelligence officers have no police or law enforcement
function, no arrest authority.  They seldom, if ever, carry
firearms.  (They would do so for self defense when operating in
chaotic and lawless environments, like Somalia.)  Sorry, James
Bond.  This is very different, of course, from some foreign
countries where intelligence and police functions are
intertwined, as they were, for example, in Nazi Germany and the
USSR.

.  Because the future is basically unknowable and intelligence
analysts have no crystal ball, we should not expect so much of
their estimates.  

. Congress puts intelligence into two categories: intelligence
(as an information support service, discussed above) and
"intelligence related activities," counterintelligence and covert
action.  

. COUNTERINTELLIGENCE is protecting US government secrets from
espionage, or leaks.  It includes physical or procedural
safeguards, like locks and security clearances.  It also involves
counterespionage, which is trying to defeat or penetrate foreign
intelligence services.  This is more law enforcement than   
intelligence and the FBI has overall responsibility.  

Aldrich Ames Case:  Why didn't they catch him sooner?  We don't
know the whole story, but here's some things to keep in mind. 
The CIA is not a law enforcement agency and it is against federal 
privacy laws for the CIA (or any government agency) to check up
on any American's personal finances without written permission. 
Asking permission, of course, would have tipped off Ames he was
under suspicion.  (Legislation to fix this for CIA employees has
failed several times in recent years, but will almost certainly
pass now.  Also, spies are very difficult to convict and in order
to make a solid case the Justice Department believed they needed
to catch Ames in the act of communicating with, or passing
documents to, his Russian handlers.  But Ames was an expert in
tradecraft and they never did catch him at it, although they had
him under physical and electronic surveillance for about a year. 
(That's what delayed his arrest.)  Fortunately, as it turned out,
he left masses of incriminating evidence in his home, so
conviction was not a problem.)

. Covert action is really policy rather than intelligence.  One
of six major foreign policy tools, CA is used by most
governments, especially ours.  Basically, covert action is one of
the other five FP tools, like diplomacy, public diplomacy, or
foreign aid, done covertly.  Examples: Secret diplomatic
contacts; causing favorable stories to appear in foreign press;
smuggling money, fax machines (or guns) to foreign governments,
or dissidents; foiling illegal arms transfers, and so on.  Covert
action gets a great deal of press and congressional attention,
but is less than 1% what US intelligence does.             
     The hand of US govt is not to be revealed or acknowledged,
ever.           
     The CIA carries out but does not make CA policy.  Senior
policymakers in both the Executive and Legislative branches do
that.  There is a formal review process and orders (findings)
must be signed by the President and briefed to Congress.  

ORGANIZATION.  The CIA is just one part of our "Intelligence
Community," which is headed (really coordinated) by the DCI. 
Each of the armed services has its won intelligence organization,
as do the State, Energy and Treasury Departments.  All together,
intelligence reportedly costs about $28 billion a year and
employs some 150 thousand military and civilian personnel,
including many women.  The CIA is believed to account for about
15% of those totals.  Like defense, Congress has been cutting
back on intelligence funding and personnel since the Cold War
ended, despite the fact that Bush tried to hold spending level
and Clinton actually tried to increase it this year.

Culturally, intelligence officers, especially the CIA analysts,
tend to be intellectualsintrospective, scholarly, tweedy, and
often rather liberal (as compared to their counterparts in the
Pentagon and the State Department).  

INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT.  Contrary to Hollywood legend, CIA
officers (and other US intelligence personnel) are not above the
law.  They must obey all US laws, and they are scrupulous about
doing so.  (Their jobs, of course, may involve violation of
foreign espionage laws.)  Nevertheless, secret agencies are hard
to monitor and there can be (and have been) abuses.  Since the
1970's, an elaborate array of oversight mechanisms has been in
place including various Executive Branch legal counsels,
inspectors general and review committees, as well as the very
active Senate and House select committees.  Then there is the
unending scrutiny of the press.  

.....................................

Comments welcome and encouraged.

John Macartney, June 26, 1994
