Anonymous asked about CIA "Black" Station Program!

Q. As the NOC program typically functions as an elite entity, made up of a small cadre of carefully selected case officers, some of whom would spend years in training and a decade or more overseas with only intermittent contact with headquarters.

According to a recent article, CIA has a new plan calling for the newly created front companies (and not the legitimate US corporation overseas subsidiary) to serve as way stations even for relatively inexperienced officers, who would be rotated in and out much the way they would in standard embassy assignments.

The idea was that these were going to be almost like black stations, to build something that had a life span, that had durability.

In the process, the agency hoped to break a logjam in getting post-Sept. 11 recruits overseas(as thousands of applicants had rushed to join the CIA after the attacks, and many were sent to Afghanistan and Iraq). But outside of those war zones, open slots were scarce.

In your opinion, would such a front company (black stations) be as effective (operationally and cost) as US State Dept cover ?


A. The program you describe is known as platforming. It first surfaced back in 1992 as an option the CIA considered to place a number of NOC officers under one single commercial cover facility devised, structured and established the CIA. The facility would be a super devised cover facility ostensibly doing some form of business but in fact no real business would actually be done. It basically would provide cover for status.

The predecessor to this was the NOC “cluster”. At large CIA stations there were often several NOC officers in the field. One of the methods to handle all these NOC case officers was to place them under the supervision of the senior grade NOC officer as cluster chief having primary responsibility for meeting with the inside contact within the Station. Each NOC had his own commercial cover company thus no link between the NOCs publically. So long as they employed good tradecraft, ostensibly there would be no way to connect them as having any sort of connection or relationship.

In 1992 ad 1993 the idea of the NOC platform gained popularity within the CIA and some test runs were made to see the problems that may surface in the concept. Several surfaced immediately. Since all NOCs were under the same over, if one NOC gets his cover blown, then all NOCs are contaminated. Thus to lower this risk, certain limiting parameters were employed. One was that the devised cover facility would be based stateside, with NOCs deployed on temporary duty assignment (TDY) to the field, sometimes employing operational aliases under another devised cover facility that, if blown, would not expose the other NOCs under the original devised cover facility. Well, as you can see if begins to get complicated already. A number of other problems were also involved that I will not go into at this time. Turf wars - where the CIA Station abroad and the NOC platofrm station based stateside had conflicts of interests - were common.

Now let us look back at the original purpose of NOCs from the 1950s and 1960s. NOCs were originally intended only to be agent handlers in alias identities as CIA case officers. They were supposed to handle only the most sensitive and productive agents within a Station’s stable of agents. This was supposed to add a layer of security since foreign security services were known to conduct surveillance against suspected CIA officers from within the local CIA Station. A NOC, having no ties to either the US government nor the local American Embassy or other suspected CIA station facilities, would have no reason to be under surveillance. Like just any other American businessperson the NOC should expect to go about his business with a low risk of hostile surveillance. So to enhance security of the Stations most sensitive agents, they were turned over to NOCs for handling.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s this view began to change. NOCs were now expected to use their commercial cover company to spot and develop targets of interest to the CIA and to “spin” them off to other inside officers for recruitment so as not to expose the NOC as having any CIA connection. Easier said than done! In the late 1970’s some CIA Stations began expanding the scope of NOC responsibilities still further. NOCs were now expected to also employ documented aliases under devised commercial cover facilities to spot, develop and even “commercially” recruit agents and handle them as commercial consultants to produce intelligence. The agent would not know that he was reporting to the CIA. Once these gates were opened and produced positive results a flood of other tasks were opened to NOCs to perform.

Now let’s get back to more recent developments. The aftermath of 911 produced a flurry of scrutiny from the US Congress on the NOC program. As mentioned in the previous posting, Congress wanted to vastly increase manpower in the program but this required time and money and congress was not very understanding about either. Here again the platform concept was revisited and given new life.

Your question: Do I think it would be effective both operationally and cost-wise? It depends on the tasking! While as an old hand I have reservations about tasking NOCs to do a job that inside case officers can well do, I know that NOCs can do most all tasks as well or better than the average inside case officer. Mind you, I have been on the inside at a CIA station, on the outside as a paramilitary case officer and also as a NOC officer for most of my career. I have also sat on a headquarters country desk as a desk officer responsible for administration and support of a Stations NOC contingent. So I have pretty much seen it all. NOCs have more risk exposure than the average case officer since we have no diplomatic immunity and the American corporation doing the CIA a legitimate service by providing the cover overseas for a NOC officer has great financial exposure should the NOC’s cover be blown. So I believe that NOCs, assigned to the platform concept where the cover facility is a CIA devised cover with no overseas risks, should be called upon to conduct tasks with more risks than the NOC officer under legitimate commercial cover. Personally, I would prefer to retreat to the concept of NOCs under legitimate commercial covers doing agent handling of the Station’s most sensitive assets and perhaps some spotting and developing work.

The platform concept I believe can be operationally effective. The CIA has for years had clandestine domestic Stations in key large US cities that target foreign visitors, foreign students and foreign officials, both civilian and military, who are inside the US on assignment, training or for education. The CIA officers staffing these facilities are both NOCs as well as regular inside case officers on rotational assignments. These officers work out of these domestic Stations under devised cover facilities and in alias. These domestic Stations produce some quality recruitments who return to their native countries as fully recruited CIA assets in place. The NOC platform concept as envisioned today could provide a valuable contribution to overseas targeting and recruitment similar to the CIA domestic Stations.

But will it be cost effective. This is also possible if it, in fact, replaces manpower that would otherwise be assigned overseas at a Station. It will cost considerably less to post a NOC and his family in the US than to post them abroad. Housing costs less, school tuition is nil in US public schools where abroad the cost of tuition at international (English) educational facilities is often more than college in the US. Would savings here be able to offset the cost of frequent international travel and living expenses? These are just a few cost considerations. There are many, many more.

So yes, the CIA is going forward with platforming NOCs under such “black” stations. Let’s just hope that the concept does not get bastardized and turn into something that it should not be.