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The CMO in the CIA's National Clandestine Service Joseph W. Wippl & Donna D'Andrea Version of record first published: 17 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Joseph W. Wippl & Donna D'Andrea (2010): The CMO in the CIA's National Clandestine Service, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 23:3, 521-533

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JOSEPH W. WIPPL with DONNA D’ANDREA

The CMO in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service

Once, on a visit to a foreign liaison service, I was chatting with a senior case officer (CO) of that service about data collection on issues of mutual interest to our two countries. His service was having difficulty collecting intelligence and presenting it to his nation’s policymaker. ‘‘You see,’’ he said, ‘‘we don’t

Joseph W. Wippl, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at Boston University, is a retired Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. During his thirty-year career with the Agency’s National Clandestine Service (NCS) he served overseas as an operations officer and manager in Bonn, West Germany; Guatemala City; Luxembourg; Madrid; Mexico City; Vienna; and Berlin. On assignments at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, he was Deputy Chief of Human Resources; Senior NCS representative to the Aldrich Ames Damage Assessment Team; Chief of the Agency’s Europe Division; and the CIA’s Director of Congressional Affairs. Prior to his arrival at Boston University as a CIA Officer in Residence, he occupied the Richard Helms Chair for Intelligence Collection in the NCS training program.

Donna D’Andrea retired from the Central Intelligence Agency after twenty-five years as an intelligence collector with the National Clandestine Service and its predecessor organization, the Directorate of Support, spending over a decade overseas in Latin America and Europe. As a senior Collection Management Officer (CMO), she met with individuals with access to vital foreign intelligence, and conceptualized and generated intelligence reporting programs to meet U.S. government requirements. Ms. D’Andrea is currently Chief Operating Offer of the Crumpton Group, Arlington, Virginia.

International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 23: 521–533, 2010

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0885-0607 print=1521-0561 online

DOI: 10.1080/08850601003781050

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have these people you have.’’ When asked, ‘‘Do you mean Reports Officers?,’’ he replied, ‘‘That’s right, that’s what we need but don’t have.’’ For a CO in the National Clandestine Service (NCS), the first and greatest

rush comes from recruiting an agent to provide intelligence (i.e., information) of value to the United States government. The next greatest rush comes from handling an agent who provides intelligence of policy importance. I have fully enjoyed both those experiences, and I cannot overemphasize that seeing one’s name in pseudonym on an intelligence report is wonderful. In the field and during periodic trips to headquarters, I found myself spending much of my time discussing cases with people whom we used to call Reports Officers, but are now called Collection Management Officers (CMOs). Every moment of these conversations was exhilarating. CMOs were less interested in the operational details of how often I met an agent, and under what security circumstances than they were in learning what the asset was reporting, what forces were influencing foreign government decisionmaking, and how U.S. policymakers could deal with ever-changing political landscapes. In other words, they were interested in the substance. Some of the very best officers I have met in the Central Intelligence Agency

(CIA), and certainly some of the most versatile, were CMOs. One of the best of the best, Donna D’Andrea, has helped me describe what a CMO is and does.

THE FUNCTIONS OF OS

The CIA, a relatively small organization, is made up of four directorates: the NCS, the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), the Directorate of Science and Technology (DST), and the Directorate of Mission Support (DMS). Of these, the NCS receives the most political and media attention because its legal charter requires it to engage in espionage, covert action, counterintelligence, and special operations activities. These activities are inherently controversial, interesting, and essential. The NCS is charged with strengthening national security and foreign policy

objectives through the clandestine collection of human intelligence and the conduct of covert action. The NCS defines two job categories—COs and CMOs—as the ‘‘core collectors.’’ These officers, though a fraction of the staff, are at the heart of the NCS. By combining their skills, the CIA reaps great advantages in achieving its intelligence collection mission. According to the CIAWebsite, CMOs ‘‘oversee and facilitate the collection,

evaluation, classification, and dissemination of foreign intelligence developed from clandestine sources.’’ The CIA credits CMOs with playing a critical role in ‘‘ensuring that foreign intelligence collected by clandestine sources is relevant, timely, and addresses the highest foreign policy and national security needs of the nation.’’ Who, then, are these officers?

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Much has been written about the CO—often enough referred to in literature as the ‘‘spy.’’ Former COs even appear periodically in the media as experts. Popular films portray the job of the CIA’s CO in an action-packed fashion through such characters as Jason Bourne or, heaven help us, Jack Bauer, while the British MI 6 has given the world the ultimate operative: ‘‘Bond . . . James Bond.’’ While the fictional Bourne, Bond, and Bauer attract the spotlight, Hollywood, popular and academic literature, and the U.S. news media tend to overlook the CMO. Even within the CIA in general, and the NCS in particular, some do not understand what a CMO does. Yet, as any thoughtful NCS manager knows, CMOs are as indispensable to accurate intelligence collection as COs, and have made essential contributions to every successful U.S. intelligence operation.

THE CMO’S ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The professional specialty of the CMO is unique to the NCS. The intelligence organizations of other countries certainly employ people with the skills and talents of CMOs, but do not define a separate career path for them. In the broadest sense, CMOs, like COs, are involved in the clandestine

collection of information needed to inform, and in the successful distribution of that information to the policymaker. They identify intelligence gaps, find the best source of needed information, spot intelligence fabricators, and can hold a CO’s feet to the fire to collect information that is truly secret rather than merely nice to know. CMOs are trained in operational tradecraft, but in most situations are not directly involved with handling agents. (CMOs have sometimes handled agents in the past and the tendency in CIA today is toward giving CMOs more responsibilities in this area.) CMOs serve as a driving force behind critically important intelligence

reporting streams and recruitment operations. By viewing the full collection spectrum—from open source to the most sensitive clandestine collection—and using their networks to understand the interests of policymakers, CMOs assist in directing and managing the collection operations in the field station to which they are assigned. CMOs draw upon their contacts in other U.S. government entities to

verify, test, or check facts. They are responsible for gathering feedback on CIA reporting and using that feedback to improve clandestine collection, whether by cutting off reporting streams that no one wants, needs, or cares about, or by ensuring greater depth and fidelity in streams having greater importance to the policy and planning elements of the government. CMOs are frequently assigned to overseas NCS units, and are always

posted to headquarters NCS units, often called branches or sections. Their

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assignments reflect, in part, linguistic and regional specialties, as well as career choices emphasizing second or even third specialties. For success, an NCS unit must have a balance between COs and CMOs:

both are essential to creating a credible intelligence product.

Management of the Intelligence Product

The National Clandestine Service provides foreign intelligence to help inform U.S. policy deliberation and formulation. Within the NCS, the CMO’s primary responsibility is to ensure the quality of the Agency’s intelligence product: the clandestine intelligence report. This report is the only product many consumers or users of intelligence see, and their only source of knowledge about the Agency. While the CMO is far more than an editor, and each CO is responsible for the accurate presentation of intelligence, the CMO reads each report to determine whether it makes sense and if it is important. Any inaccurate, poorly written, or unclear report, and any implicit asset fabrication, can have significant policy ramifications of a very negative nature. Such faulty products reflect poorly on the CIA and undermine the credibility of other critical pieces of intelligence. The CMO has numerous responsibilities as raw information is shaped

into an intelligence product. The CMO’s first, and most critical, task in reviewing intelligence is to make absolutely sure that the reporting is clear and precise. For example, no CIA station wants to send out a report that omits the word ‘‘not’’ when discussing whether or not North Korea is going to attack Seoul. The report must make sense substantively and be clear to the reader. No system of checks and balances is absolutely reliable, and no one

intelligence report can answer every policy question. Still, the CMO can take steps to ensure that the intelligence given to the reader meets five basic standards. First, the intelligence must focus on an issue outside the United States. Second, it must relate to a topic of U.S. policy interest. Third, it must present previously unreported information. Fourth, the information must be of a secret or confidential nature. Fifth, and finally, the intelligence must be authoritative.

Meeting Standards

The CIA’s collection management officers must actively seek to meet these criteria: (1) Intelligence that the NCS collects and disseminates to policymakers with

the required security clearances must be foreign and never domestic. Its report may cover a subject that has no U.S. content, such as ‘‘Cuba plans to release ten political prisoners.’’ Other reporting may touch on the United States from a foreign perspective: ‘‘A Foreign Leader’s reaction to the U.S. Secretary of

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State’s November 2009 Visit.’’ However, the NCS would never issue a report on, for example, ‘‘Plans of the U.S. Secretary of State.’’ (2) Deciding whether or not a report is of policy interest requires the CMO

to apply a subjective standard, because policymakers have short-term needs and often lack a long-term vision. For instance, they tend to have little interest in foreign governments as long as U.S. relations with those countries are favorable, and suddenly show great interest when a change in government makes them unfavorable. Unfortunately, to begin clandestine collection from scratch after an unfavorable change has occurred is too late. If no policy interest in a topic has been demonstrated, the strong tendency within the CIA is to not expend resources on the country, region, or issue. As an example, collection on Iraq should have begun before Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait in 1990, because Iraq is, and always was, an important country. The CIA’s leadership needs to meet the immediate concerns of policy

leaders while maintaining resources focused on future intelligence needs. Similarly, CMOs must satisfy the present but educate into the future. (3) Each NCS report must contribute new clandestine information to an

issue under discussion. The information need not be current, just new. CMOs have the substantive knowledge to verify the information, while COs often do not. CMOs can also draw on the expertise of other CMOs to confirm that the information under review was not previously reported. Corroborating information from a different source on an evolving policy issue is not merely valid collection, but actually reflects the ideal situation. The more sources involved in reporting on an issue, the greater the chance that the information is correct. In retrospect the U.S. government’s apparent reliance on only one source to convince itself and the world community that Iraq had mobile laboratories to produce weapons of mass destruction was foolhardy in the extreme. (4) The information must be secret. The CIA will not publish information

if the media, another government agency, or another source has reported it. The CMO is responsible for knowing what has or has not been in the public domain—a difficult task in the age of information overload. (5) Finally, the information must be factual and verifiable. No one on a

policy level wants or needs to read rumor or speculation. CMOs must focus attention in this area to ensure that the CIA’s sources are authoritative and have access to otherwise denied information.

Asset Validation

The NCS expends a great deal of effort on determining as best as it can whether an agent is loyal and trustworthy. This formalized effort is called asset validation. The CMO is on the leading edge of that effort.

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The CO and the CMO have differing roles in the never-ending process of asset validation. Those roles, though complementary, nevertheless concurrently create tension. The CMO’s role involves both a thorough examination of the information an agent provides, and an equally intense evaluation of the agent as a person. The CMO’s hard look at an agent begins with the critical step of verifying

that the agent is who he claims to be and holds the position he claims to hold. Though basic and obvious, that is only step one. The process sometimes involves a simple check of open records, especially if the agent works in a foreign government department or office. In other instances, identity could be more delicate and difficult to verify, and might involve searches of secret information held throughout the U.S. or by allied foreign governments. Both the CO and the CMO are tasked with understanding the agent’s

motivation for committing espionage—a critical part of the ‘‘why’’ in the business of espionage. Trite though it may be, people are at the core of human intelligence (HUMINT), and human beings are complex and fallible. Their motivations are sometimes apparent, sometimes complex, and often obscure. Even an individual who has clear objectives in working with the CIA can be conflicted and confused. These complexities, and others, factor into the evaluation of the intelligence that an agent (or, in common parlance, the spy) provides to a case officer. A relationship between the CIA and an agent, the provider of secret

information, can last months, years, even decades. The CO interacts with the agent and is the intermediary between the agent’s information and the broader CIA. Over the course of the recruitment cycles, COs get to know their agents very well. They spend time together, build a bond, and develop a sense of trust. COs tend to ‘‘fall in love’’ with their agents because they appreciate the information those agents collect, and because of the personal relationships they establish. In contrast, the CMO brings to the tab l e the advan tage o f d i s t ance , a l l ow ing an unb ia s ed , multi-perspective look at the information provided by the agent. The CMO forms opinions by reviewing the agent’s case history (a record written by the CO) and discussing with the CO whether the agent’s demeanor has changed, determining if the agent is responsive to the CO’s tasking, and ensuring that the agent is collecting what he or she was asked to provide. The CMO then weighs these personal assessments against the agent’s behavior and intelligence reporting. This distancing helps the CMO identify inconsistencies—in this context, gaps in understanding the agent, and changes in the agent’s pattern of personal and professional behavior. As soon as an agent (spy) begins to provide information of intelligence

value, the CMO begins to review the body of that agent’s work. The CMO is responsible for a logical, thoughtful, and ongoing scrub of the

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intelligence an agent produces to determine if it makes sense, is accurate, and adds value to the U.S. policy debate and formulation. The key issue is the veracity of the agent’s information. In determining

veracity, CMOs must consider endless questions, such as:

. Did events bear out the agent’s predictions?

. Were the agent’s predictions consistent with the information provided?

. Did other sources (human or documentary) provide similar or compatible intelligence?

. How did the agent obtain the information?

. Does it make sense that the information was available in that venue?

. Did the agent have first-hand, second-hand, or more removed access to the origin of the intelligence?

. Did the information come from a document?

. If so, how can the CIA determine if the document itself is authentic and not a fabrication?

. For whom was it written and why?

. To whom was the information directed?

. Is the agent really providing secrets, or just convoluted accounts of open source material?

. Does the agent’s body of intelligence make sense?

. Is it consistent with the agent’s access?

. Does it center on specific issues or areas in which the agent is involved?

Over time, the CMO becomes sufficiently familiar with the agent’s entire work product to determine if any unexpected declines in the quality of intelligence have occurred, or if the agent suddenly reports on topics that do not fit into his profile. The CMO remains alert for signs of reporting that does not make sense, for sudden changes, or for themes that either appear or disappear without a clear explanation. Following substantive issues, the asset’s access, and the validation process

enable CMOs to protect the credibility of the CIA’s reporting by minimizing the likelihood of fabrication. CMOs are usually the ones who spot fabricators: people who make up information to pass to the U.S. government. A fabricator could be a double agent, ostensibly working for the United States while actually being directed by another country’s intelligence service to pass false, misleading information. More often, however, fabricators are merely individuals who have lost access to intelligence of value but want to continue receiving payments, and to maintain their relationship with a CO, who has often become a confidant of some kind. Whatever the motivation, fabrication must be identified and stopped—if possible, before material based on such reporting is disseminated to the Intelligence Community. Otherwise, the CIA may be forced to issue a ‘‘burn notice,’’ withdrawing disseminated reporting after

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fabrication is identified, which obviously places the Agency in an embarrassing position.

Bridge Building: Interfacing With Policymakers and Analysts

The CMO straddles the divide between the overt policy community and world of clandestine intelligence. The CMO must build a network of contacts within the policy community to remain constantly aware of the type of information wanted or needed on a particular subject. These contacts can include personnel in the Department of State, the Department of Defense, Defense Intelligence, Homeland Security, Commerce, Treasury, the National Laboratories, federal law enforcement agencies, the academic community and more, if required. The CMO must call on that network to determine clandestine collection requirements as they develop and evolve. In overseas postings, CMOs must build relationships with officers at every level within official installations to pass disseminated intelligence, obtain comments on intelligence reporting, and keep a finger on the pulse of developments in country to adjust reporting activities. The CMO also links analysis and collection to instill as much factual

credibility as humanly possible into secret information. In this regard, the CMO coordinates with the DI to learn analysts’ requirements and to tap their expertise. DI analysts have substantive and substantial knowledge that the NCS needs in order to debrief its assets, shape intelligence collection, and identify emerging issues of intelligence and policymaker interest. In addition, CMOs can play a direct role in CIA’s relationship with the U.S.

Congress. At the Headquarters level, CMOs brief members of Congress and staffers on every imaginable issue, especially when a crisis involving U.S. interests erupts somewhere in the world. When Senators and Members of Congress travel abroad, the CMO in the CIA station often briefs them on developments in that particular country or region. The travelers’ interests and security clearances determine the depth and specificity of those briefings. Regardless of the particular requirement, CMOs are often the staff members best placed to fulfill this role, because they participate in preparing all the station’s substantive and operational overviews. Thanks to their special skillsets, CMOs are frequently asked to perform a

variety of other tasks. They have been pulled into reviews of intelligence pr ior i t i e s and staf f ing , and are of ten reques ted to carry out counterintelligence reviews because they have the insight needed to judge the accuracy of information. They review operational programs to give Headquarters a sense of the status, the usefulness, and the future of the program under consideration. CMOs can also—not often, but in a timely manner—accompany COs to operational meetings to fine-tune a debriefing or give the CO an independent operational assessment of an

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agent. These special duties all indicate the trust and confidence accorded to a competent CMO.

Liaison With Foreign Intelligence Services

The CIA passes and receives enormous amounts of information from foreign liaison services. Liaison takes place on many levels, both operational and substantive. To be sure, controversy has often arisen regarding U.S. dependence on information from other countries; some believe that CIA should have a greater unilateral capability. Regardless of the optimum balance, interservice liaison will always be crucial, especially on such transnational issues as terrorism, proliferation, counter-narcotics, organized criminal activity, and rogue and failed states. CMOs play an important part in liaison activities, especially in situations

requiring substantive knowledge. They have the talents and ability to organize information for foreign recipients, and to understand the information that foreign liaison officers provide. A competent CMO always has an agenda when meeting with a foreign liaison officer. The CMO’s substantive knowledge earns the respect of liaison partners, leading to the passage of better and more information. Given transnational intelligence challenges, the CMO’s role in liaison exchange will continue to increase.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD CMO?

According to the CIA’s Website, a CMO must be prepared ‘‘to deal effectively with individuals at all levels and rapidly changing intelligence priorities. Excellent verbal and written communications skills are a must for CMOs, as are well developed time management and multitasking abilities along with rock solid judgment.’’ These general attributes lead toward a number of characteristics shared by successful CMOs.

Personality

All CIA personnel are psychologically assessed before employment. CMOs share some personality traits with COs and DI analysts, but nevertheless differ from both. COs and CMOs have several characteristics in common, and usually respect each other’s talents. Both love the operational work of gathering clandestine intelligence, dealing with international issues, and living in foreign environments. The CO is the ‘‘fighter pilot’’ of intelligence operations. Obviously, without agent recruitments, there is no human intelligence (HUMINT). In contrast, CMOs have less desire or need to socialize or to engage in the recruitment process. Where COs often live hectic lives defined by agent meetings and the cultivation of agent candidates, the lives of CMOs are defined by gathering and reflecting on information while posted inside a CIA office. In this sense, the CMO’s

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personality resembles that of the DI analyst. CMOs are often somewhat more introverted and perhaps less energetic than COs, and generally have a greater depth of substantive knowledge. They frequently can write better, and definitely write faster than COs, a talent that has made them increasingly more competitive for senior positions where such skills are rewarded with Agency promotions. Of course, these characterizations are highly general. And, given individual talents, COs who have substantive knowledge do bridge the gap, as do CMOs with a more engaged energy.

Intellectual Agility

CMOs need to know what sources clandestine collectors have, what access these sources have, and what information they have been asked to supply. They can be responsible for shifting intelligence collection, based on policy direction, events, and developments. Without intellectual agility, CMOs would be overwhelmed by their multiple responsibilities, and could not act as the effective intelligence officers that the organization needs. CMOs succeed only if they have a strong, abiding, determined interest

in various issues and geographic areas. At times, a CMO will be asked to manage intelligence on a variety of geographic locations and on transnational issues—for example, terrorism and proliferation. At other times, the CMO may focus almost exclusively on one area of critical importance—a particular peace process, Pakistani stability, Iran’s nuclear program, or the cyberwarfare capabilities of various countries. The CMO has the knack of finding such subjects interesting, following bits and pieces of an information puzzle, and using these pieces to create a clearer and more meaningful picture of the topic. In all of these areas, the CMO must be willing to learn, explore, discuss, and execute.

Intellectual Curiosity

The intelligence business involves great ambiguity. CMOs must have the intellectual curiosity to explore new issues in the service of the U.S. government. The CMO needs an ardent curiosity about what comes next in any story, and a strong desire to identify the best source of collection to find the missing details—whether a task for the NCS or obtainable outside the CIA. Many questions can arise when attempting to find an important piece of intelligence: Has the information been reported in the press? Can it be obtained in a journal or at a conference? Do partner foreign intelligence services already have the information? If the information is clandestine, is there one source or several, and which one or ones should be used? Should the information be collected in the country or obtained through a third country? What other agents might be able to contribute to the puzzle and corroborate the collection?

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The CMO must also embrace the challenge of focusing the policy community on the right intelligence—i.e., the facts. In addition to the deepening of existing collection efforts, CMOs must anticipate future intelligence needs in order to help the U.S. government position itself to deal effectively with future national security challenges. The CMO’s expertise and network of government and private sector contacts are especially important in this context, because government tends to react to, rather than being prepared to respond to, a crisis. Although this problem can never be resolved completely, it can be remedied somewhat through the CIA’s leadership ability to communicate with the government’s political leadership. CMOs are there to remind, advise, and prod.

Courage of Their Convictions and Exceptional Judgment

The NCS judges the performance of most of its officers on the basis of foreign agents recruited and the intelligence produced. Thus, agents are a CO’s professional ‘‘bread and butter.’’ As a result, COs can be reluctant to learn that an agent is not all he or she should be. Yet, a CMO must often reject a CO’s intelligence report because it does not rise to the standard for dissemination. This assessment can make a CO very upset. And, because the CMO is usually the first to become suspicious of a bad agent, the CO can become even more upset. In general, even these emotionally charged conversations between the

CMO and the CO tend to remain surprisingly congenial. However, a CO occasionally resists even the most compelling CMO arguments that an agent has either lost access or fabricated information. When that occurs, both sides must argue their case to upper management to achieve the best resolution. To supplement a station’s internal reviews of intelligence, each U.S.

embassy has the obligation to review and comment on most of the collected clandestine information that pertains to that particular country or region. This usually involves a cordial, professional exchange between the embassy’s State Department representatives and the NCS officers stationed there. When differences of opinion arise, the CMO, along with the Agency’s station management, must be familiar with the full body of information surrounding the topic, and be prepared to explain why the information adds value, why it must be collected clandestinely, and why it is credible, even if it contradicts preconceived ideas. The State Department representative has the right to add a comment disagreeing with or complementing the information, but cannot stop or delay the information from being disseminated to CIA Headquarters. And whether making a case to an officer from another agency or to a CO,

the CMO must present cogent arguments that support a position for or

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against dissemination and=or continued handling of an agent. The CMO must argue on behalf of the information, not the person. Certain quasi-psychological factors are at stake here, because showing someone else to be wrong leads to personal and professional embarrassment. If challenged, the CMO must have the confidence needed to present a position factually and clearly, not by showing inflexibility but by arguing forcefully and articulately on behalf of the facts. For example, a CIA station collected intelligence showing that a particular

foreign government leader was corrupt. The sourcing was considered authoritative and the reporting track record was solid. During the coordination process, another U.S. government agency raised objections because its reporting contradicted the reporting of the CIA’s source. The discussion was escalated to the Ambassador’s level, where the CMO had to explain why the CIA had faith in its reporting. By fully understanding the agent’s access, motivation, and reporting record, the CMO was able to present a convincing case. The Ambassador concurred and the report was sent to Washington. In another example, a CMO received a fragment of information indicating

that a foreign government was about to test a weapons system of significant interest to the U.S. government. The agent was new and had used emergency communications to relay the information in very broken English. The CMO had confidence in his own judgment and decided to disseminate a short but carefully worded report, with the circumstances of collection described in detail to provide context. On the next day, the test took place. Because the United States had received a warning, the government was well-positioned to evaluate the event. Had the CMO made the opposite call, potentially vital intelligence would have been left on the cutting room floor.

Secure in the Value of Their Contributions

Even though retired CMOs seldom appear on the speaking circuit or offer expertise on television networks, they perform an invaluable and irreplaceable function during their years with CIA and the NCS. Over the course of a career, every CMO has the potential to exert tremendous impact on intelligence collection, but a CMO’s contributions are difficult to calculate at any particular moment. CMOs may never receive the recognition COs receive, yet they remain core collectors, and have increasingly become candidates for senior positions in the NCS.

Logical Thinking, Thoughtfulness, and Patience

The contributions of an individual, generic CMO take time to develop because, in the business of espionage, both experience and substantive knowledge are required. Producing good intelligence involves hours of

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research on facts, knowledge of real or potential sources, and persuasion of skeptical consumers. A CMO must work methodically and patiently toward the end goal, as well as understand the motivations of the people engaged in spying. What do they need? What do they want? Has an asset changed? Does the NCS need to change its approach to the agent or how he or she is managed? What are the agent’s strengths and limitations? On an ad hoc basis, CMOs can make excellent agent handlers because of their substantive expertise and knowledge of cases.

Interest in People

Finally, a CMO must know, wonder about, and be curious about people, because people are at the core of HUMINT.

ENHANCING COLLECTION RESULTS

The CMO position is unique to the CIA: no other U.S. intelligence service has officers whose job description specifically calls for the expertise and operational acumen demanded of a CMO. CMOs improve the CIA’s performance by making reporting more reliable because they play a role in both operations and analysis. Credible intelligence needs more than one set of eyes. The most successful espionage cases in the sixty-odd-year history of the NCS have resulted from close partnerships between COs and CMOs. In the past, these partnerships increased the probability of successful foreign recruitment operations, and improved intelligence production. The CIA uses to its advantage a certain personality type interested in information and rigorous thought. Doing so makes CIA better because the reporting is more reliable. In the future, such collaboration will do the same. Improving intelligence is that simple.

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