Anonymous Poses More Questions Below

1. Will a NOC officer (one who is an US citizen with native foreign language ability and authenticity) be assigned (a) to those countries that requires that specific language skill sets native to the NOC officer, and (b) to other countries that the NOC officer may have to learn a new language in their several tours of duties overseas ?

2. Will the NOC tours of duties overseas remain in the same country for more than one term (i.e. 3-5 years) or rotate to other countries as needed ?

NOC officer tours are four-year tours, add-on tours thereafter are two-years each. Tours for inside officers are two-year tours. The Company encourages NOCs to remain in place for several tours since the cost of placement and maintaining a NOC are so high compared with inside officers. For example, I remained in one country as a NOC for nearly ten years and a country for six years. Both of these countries were places where the cover company had legitimate business interests. I had several NOC friends who remained in the same country for 12 plus years. While the needs of the cover company are subservient to the Company, still their needs are given great consideration when it comes to placement of the NOC. For example, the Company would never place the NOC in a country where the cover company has little or no legitimate business interests.

The NOC, too, has personal input when it comes to assignments. Usually, after the NOC has become an established producer, that is he/she has successfully completed an initial tour, he/she may be given several choices for a future assignment, these may include remaining in place for another tour or rotate to another country where the needs of the Company and that of the cover company are congruent.

Provided the country is not one that is highly hostile to US interests, both governmental and business interests, the Company will most likely place a NOC officer with native foreign language skills in a country where the language is spoken. For example, a US naturalized citizen of Chinese heritage could be placed in places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Asian countries with a high percentage of overseas Chinese. As of 2004 it was policy not to place NOCs on a full-time basis in Mainland (Communist) China. As far as I know, this policy still stands. I made many trips to Mainland China over a period of eight years while I was stationed in neighboring countries.

The Company does encourage all Case Officers to be multi-lingual and will pay extra financial incentives for those who maintain a language as a certain level and who use the language running operations. I was fortunate to learn four foreign languages, all at US government expense. However, I have known other officers who just maintained two languages, English and a native foreign language. Unfortunately, since their native foreign language came with their hiring, they were not entitled to language incentive pay. If they had learned a third language and used it operationally, they, of course, would be entitled to such incentive pay.

While this question was not asked, I will point out that all NOCs receive a 10% NOC premium pay. This means that in additional to your pay grade salary, you receive an additional 10% of your salary as an incentive to become a NOC Case Officer. Once assigned overseas, all CIA officers receive an additional incentive of 10% of their base salary as overseas pay.