Anonymous Against Asked

1 During a NOC's tours of duty overseas with their families, NOC will have their own identity while working with the legitimate U.S. company. Will the NOCs travel under their own real names with their families while traveling abroad ? In other words, will the NOC have two different U.S. Passports (one which is their own for family travel and one under their covered identity name to be used for traveling outside the assigned country on assignment for CIA)?


When the NOC and his family travel to their overseas post, they travel in true name just as anyone else does. Of course, they are known in true name within the cover company and a minimum number of people inside the cover company actually know that the NOC is a CIA operative. This usually includes but not limited to the Chairman, CEO, CFO and immediate supervisor of the NOC. Depending on the size of the cover company others may know as well.

The NOC usually receives several operational aliases with documentation and pocket litter to use for his operations in the field. In most cases these aliases are backstopped with a devised commercial cover facility for the NOC to use in developing, recruiting and handling assets in commercial cover and alias. The NOC may also be given alias documentation in some US Government backed cover such as the Department of Defense to use as well. Documentation may include a US passport in alias, alias international drivers license, alias credit cards, etc.

NOCs must use extreme caution and clandestine tradecraft when going from true name into alias and visa versa. For example, when the NOC goes to his cover company office to work each morning, he does so in true name. But perhaps on some occasions, the NOC may have to meet an agent in alias for debriefing at a local safehouse in the middle of his normal workday. To insure that he is not compromised, he must employ counter-surveillance, if he has a second person to help him, or employ a surveillance detection route (SDR) if he works alone. Each time the NOC goes from one status to another, he must do this. Done properly, it is a long process that usually takes more time than the agent meeting itself. The agent, too, should also conduct an SDR to and from the meeting site to make sure he is not being followed.

The NOC must also use extreme caution to insure that his true name documentation and alias documentation are not on his body at the same time and that they are property and securely stored when not in use. To do this, the CIA provides the NOC with concealment devices to use in his office and his home. In fact, the concealment devices are used to store all CIA materials in the NOC’s possession.

Another Anonymous Asked -

1. During a NOC's overseas tours working under cover in a legitimate company, given the NOC's errartic and long hours daily including weekends with evening hours recruiting and writing reports already, is the NOC still expected to perform duties requested by the businss company local CEO the NOC is assigned, as the NOC needs to spend some quality time with their own family as well ?

Yes, the NOC is expected to perform cover duties for the cover company. In some cases the NOC will be the only American employee for the cover company in the country, so he will be able to establish his own work schedule. His immediate supervisor would then be assigned back in the corporate or regional HQs and the immediate supervisor is always witting of the NOC’s true affiliations and very rarely will make time demands on the NOC. I found supervisors to be most supportive of the NOC’s true mission and would work with the NOC to insure a smooth cooperative relationship.

In other cases the NOC will have an American supervisor inside the country but this supervisor will be witting of the NOC’s true affiliation and real duties. In such cases the NOC is expected to work together with his supervisor to maintain cover duties while performing his true CIA duties. This is rarely a problem. In the old days, the Company and the cover company had a memorandum of understanding outlining precisely what duties the NOC was expected to perform for the cover company and outlining approximately how many hour per week the NOC was expected to put in for the cover company.

When I worked as a NOC I averaged perhaps 20-25 hours a week for the cover company. There were times when I would travel regionally for the company and work 40-50 hours a week for the cover company and there were times that I would work as little as five to ten hours a week. There were also times when cover company and CIA duties would overlap and I would be performing a service for both at the same time. This may happen if you are so fortunate to work for a cover company that provides access to targets of interest to the CIA.

You will find that your cover supervisor may go all out to support you in your CIA duties and will even front for you and create excuses for you. He may do so to protect the interests of the cover company but more probable is that he loves feeling a part of something that is worthwhile.

Still you are expected to work 50-60 hours a week. This is the case not only for NOCs but for your inside counterparts at the local CIA Station as well. Saturdays are a given. If you expect a 9 to 5 job with the CIA, you are in for a shock! Those jobs are only back at CIA Headquarters where the bureaucrats work! Being a NOC isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life. If you do not thrive on pressure and stress, it’s not for you. Yes, your family will suffer from a lack of your time. The role of your spouse is a vital ingredient in the life of a NOC. She is not just a spouse, she is a partner in the game! The spouse’s active support will be important to your success as a NOC and for your advancement in this career.

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.

Another Anonymous Question Below

1. While on assignment in a foreign country, in the event a NOC is caught spying, arrested and imprisoned, since the NOC does not have diplomatic immunity (and US government has total deniability), will the NOC's family (spouse and children) in the host country be protected by the CIA (to get back to USA) and financially compensated (since the NOC may be executed in host country?


In a word: Yes! The NOC is, after all, a legitimate full-fledged CIA employee with all the rights and privileges of all other CIA employees. The support given to the family of a captured NOC officer, of course, must remain covert. Above the table, the US Government will afford the NOC officer all the support that is provided to any US citizen arrested by a foreign government. This may be liaison with the arresting authority to see that the captive is being treated well, assistance for family visitations, medical assistance, etc. Under the table, depending on the relationship between the foreign country and the US Government, talks may be undertaken to secure the release of the captive.

But let’s not forget the US company providing cover for the NOC. The cover company, as it is called, has legitimate business interests and equities at stake in the country. It is vital that the cover company continue to support the NOC as a member of its staff and to provide, with the covert cooperation of the CIA, legal support to the NOC. It is vital that the cover be maintained even though the NOC may have been caught red-handed in the act of spying. After all, industrial espionage is a possible explanation for the NOC’s actions and the cover company, to protect its own interests, could claim its management had no knowledge of the over zealous activities of its NOC employee.

But I digress! Your question concerned the family. It may be in the interest of the NOC that initially his family stay in country rather than immediately returning to the US. Depending on the country, the family may be allowed to maintain contact with NOC. While they remain in the country, they will continue to receive financial support channeled through the cover company. If the NOC should be tried, convicted and imprisoned, of course, at some point the family will probably return to the US and will continue to receive full financial, psychological and logistical support from the CIA.

Anonymous asked some good questions below:

1. Someone mentioned that they never applied to the CIA (nor the clandestine service), but they received a call from a CIA recruiter for a NOC position as a result of their education, work experience and language background. The CIA recruiter said they found this person's resume on the internet (through some commercial headhunter / recruiting firm). Is that possible? What are other ways CIA is recruiting U.S. Citizen with foreign language abilities? Will such applicants have a better chance of getting a NOC position than those applying through the normal channel (i.e. the CIA website)?

2. I read that more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) -- the heart, brains and soul of the CIA -- has been outsourced to private firms such as Abraxas, CTC Int'l, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. In your opinion, does that diminish the capacity of the CIA and it's aura of secrecy?

3. Do you feel that NOC case officers / operations officers with native fluency and ethnic authenticity passing as natives of a particular country would be valuable and successful operatives with the CIA - as the CIA received a mandate to increase the national clandestine service by 50% in 2010?

I will combine the above questions from three anonymous viewers since they have common elements that would otherwise require repetitive answers. You might get some background by going to earlier blog posts under Facts to read CIA Employment Contacts (8/20/2007) and Getting on Board (1/3/2008). These two postings will answer and anticipate many of your questions regarding CIA recruitment of prospective employees. With the mandate from Congress to increase manpower of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) (previously called the Directorate of Operations (DO) and earlier the Deputy Director of Operations (DDO when I came on board)), it would not be at all surprising to hear that the CIA is being aggressive and innovative to employ non-traditional methods to find prospective candidates for Non-Official Cover positions. But if you want to get your foot in the door, you may be better served to find a direct channel to the CIA rather than waiting in the hope that they may find you! A number of methods you may employ are mentioned in CIA Employment Contacts (8/20/07). The CIA has been known to use certain job fairs, both at educational institutions and with large chambers of commerce. The CIA has been known to use the personal wand ads in big city newspapers. Also the CIA maintains contacts within many large and medium size companies and some smaller companies that have foreign contacts of interest. If you work for such a company, you might go to the CEO to ask that your name be submitted to the CIA’s domestic contact officer for that company. Perhaps the most direct contact and one often overlooked is to check your telephone book under US Government to determine whether the CIA maintains an overt office in your city, then call it to see if someone will meet with you about employment. That’s what I did some 40 years ago and it worked. But now the CIA prefers not to use that channel and try to encourage prospects to submit their resume directly via the CIA’s website. If you are sufficiently innovative to get your resume before the CIA regardless of the channel, someone on the inside will recognize your initiative and this may just get your case in the in-box ahead of others.

Regarding the question about outsourcing CIA responsibilities to the private sector, please do not believe all the press out there. Most of which came about from the war in Iraq. Like many other agencies of government the CIA does employ outside contractors for some limited specialized tasks but in the case of the NCS, this is extremely limited and does not include direct human intelligence (Humint) collection. The CIA has a long history of not trusting outsiders and we recognize that contractors may well have an own agenda that may differ from that of the CIA. Rest assured that where Humint collection is concerned, a CIA Case Officer will be up front at all times.

The last question concerned the possibility of a US citizen with native foreign language ability and authenticity getting hired. Absolutely!! During my career with the Company as a NOC officer I personally knew many CIA officers who were, in fact, born in born in a foreign country and became naturalized US citizens. I supervised several and found it a joy to have the benefit of someone who had native understanding, not only linguistically but by customs and traditions and history as well. The CIA continues to recruit such people as both inside Case Officers as well as NOC Case Officers.

Communication Tools - Elicitation, Debriefing and Interrogation

To be a successful Case Officer you must develop your interrogative skills – the ability to ask questions in a logical manner that easily evicts information from the target. Your success as a CIA Case Officer will depend on your ability to communicate effectively through the use of the basic interrogatives – who, what, when, where, why and how! These basic interrogatives are the heart of elicitations, debriefings and interrogations – all separate and different tools that the Case Officer uses to obtain intelligence and operational information.

By far the tool you will use most often is elicitation. Elicitations are used to obtain information from a yet-to-be recruited developmental asset or a target of interest. The target of elicitation does not know of the intelligence connection of the Case Officer and thus does not comprehend the true nature of the questions being posed by the Case Officer. Elicitations normally take place in a relaxed social setting – such as cocktail parties, dinners, golf, card games, etc. – where the target feels a high level of comfort to respond to the seemingly innocuous questions being casually posed by the Case Officer.

The best use of elicitation is to obtain personal information about the target. Such personal details elicited over a period of time provides good insight into “what makes the target tick”, i.e. motivation and vulnerability data explained earlier in the blog. However, in some cases elicitation may be used to obtain intelligence information that the Case Officer may draft into intelligence disseminations or at least ops-intel cables.

Elicitations are usually a give and take process where each party responds to the other. While the Case Officer is developing information on the target that responds to motivation and vulnerability requirements as well as to determine the targets access to information of interest to the CIA, the Case Officer is responding to questions by the target that tend to enhance a personal relationship of friendship between the two. Elicitations in social settings usually take place during one to two hour sessions over a period of months.

Debriefings are used to obtain information from a cooperative agent, either witting or unwitting of any CIA affiliation. Debriefings may be defined as a structured, planned meeting between two parties to talk about certain specific requirements. Debriefings usually take place in an environment under control of the Case Officer that provides an atmosphere of security and confidentiality. Agent debriefings are pre-organized by the Case Officer to respond to specific collection requirements from CIA headquarters. From these debriefings the Case Officer then prepares intelligence reports and operational cables. Normally, an agent debriefing will last from two to six hours. The longer the meeting the less productive it becomes as both agent and Case Officer become exhausted.

The last and most extreme communication tool is interrogation. Case Officers seldom use direct interrogation unless the agent is under a tightly controlled environment. In interrogations the agent may be under suspicion of being a double agent or perhaps of fabrication of information. Surreptitious interrogations, where the target is unaware that he is under suspicion, may take place in a normal debriefing setting but such is rare. Surreptitious interrogations may be initially employed to avoid the agent becoming aware that he is under investigation. If such interrogation techniques fail to resolve the issues under investigation, then hostile interrogation may be employed.

Interrogations by the CIA of agents suspected of wrongdoing, fabrication or worse or interrogations of captives such as possible terrorists suspects are not at all like interrogations by law enforcement of suspects under criminal investigations. Unlike law enforcement, the CIA is not interested to develop information to document criminality. Also unlike law enforcement, the CIA does not have to be much concerned about a foreign agent’s or suspect’s legal rights.

Interrogations might have different objectives. Some interrogations have the objective to resolve yet unresolved issues. An agent suspected of fabrication of information may, for example, be directly or surreptitiously interrogated to resolve details of his fabrication. Other interrogations are used to obtain actionable operational intelligence. Captured terrorists, for example, may be interrogated to obtain information upon which countermeasures may be developed. Also terrorists may be interrogated to obtain operational details of their terrorist cell and its interconnections with other terrorist cells.
During your training at the Farm you will receive only cursory training in these communication tools that are so valuable to your CIA career. Once in the field you will be expected to develop these skills through trial and error. Elicitation is the first of these you should take pains to develop. As an Official Cover Case Officer, you will be given many opportunities to develop these skills at official receptions and functions where foreign service officers from other countries congregate. As a NOC officer you will have to improvise by joining fraternal and social clubs or work related professional organizations to develop these skills.

As you develop your pool of recruited agents, you will naturally and gradually develop your debriefing skills. It is also pretty much of a trial and error process but your training at the Farm will fortunately concentrate more on debriefing than on elicitation or interrogation. The collection requirements provided by CIA headquarters will provide basis guidance for the debriefing process and greatly enhance the ability of the Case Officer to rapidly develop debriefing skills.

Elicitation, debriefing and interrogation all have some commonalities. Perhaps the most important from the point of view of an intelligence professional is rapport. Rapport put simply is a basis of a relationship between the participants. While it is best that this relationship be one of trust, respect, admiration, sympathy, it may be tempered by less positive attributes such as fear and anxiety. But the relationship, whatever the foundation, provides a channel to foster communications by which the Case Officer will be able to obtain information of intelligence or operational use.

Elicitation, debriefing and interrogation also have a psychological function. The experienced Case Officer may use these tools to plant seeds for the future. Some psychological seeds may provide inducements for an elicitation target to become an agent for the CIA through manipulation of the target’s motivations and vulnerabilities. For a recruited agent, seeds planted during debriefings may enhance control or influence over the asset by tweaking aspects of the agent’s motivations or vulnerabilities. In the interrogation mode, psychological pressure may be applied to the subject through a host of methods to enhance cooperation – to break the subject, so to speak.

Despite press reports to the contrary, however, the CIA does not condone the use of torture in the interrogation of suspected double agents, agents suspected of lying or fabrication of information. More flexibility in the use of physical inducement has been used in the case of terrorist interrogations. Water boarding, as far as I am concerned, is not torture! In fact, the CIA has established guidelines on the degree of physical inducements that may be used during interrogation. Historically, foreign security liaison services that cooperate with the CIA to interrogate prisoners of war or terrorists have been known to use physical torture. Such has never been condoned by the CIA though CIA personnel at the scene have been known to turn the other way when they suspect torture may be being used. As a matter of practice, the CIA as well as other components of the US intelligence community does not trust information obtained by foreign liaison services where it is believed torture may have been employed.

Cheng Asked: Would process of agent authentication differ for NOCs? Would commercial recruited agents be suspicious of polygraph?

Cheng's question was actually : How would the process of agent authentication differ for NOCs? Wouldn't agents be suspicious of polygraph when they are recruited without knowledge of govt affiliation?


First, the process of agent authentication does not differ for NOCs. As a NOC you will not be handling your agents in your true NOC identity. You will handle your agents who are witting of US government affiliation in a US government alias cover. For your agents who are not witting – that is they are commercial cover recruitments - you will use a devised commercial cover facility and you will thus handle them in commercial alias. Regardless of whether your agents are witting or non-witting of their CIA affiliation, the authentication standards are the same. The techniques of the authentication process may differ in some regards and the polygraph is one area where it may, at times, so differ.

The second question is a bit problematic. The polygraph is just another tool that the Case Officer has to manage his operation. I maintain that not all agents need to be polygraphed. If other means of testing the agent lead to the unmistakable conclusion that the agent is who he claims to be, that he has access to the information he claims and that he is not under hostile control, then why introduce the polygraph – especially in the case of commercially recruited agents who are not aware of their CIA affiliation. The bureaucrats at headquarters, however, often have another view and they tend to push the polygraph on cases in the field that may not be warranted. To my way of operation, the polygraph is best employed in cases where there are unresolved problems or where standard investigative and testing techniques are unable to authenticate the case.

You do have a point that commercially recruited agents who have no knowledge of their CIA affiliation may become suspicions when faced with the polygraph. This is often explained away by providing stories such as the polygraph has become a standard employment technique by US companies, etc. The agent may be told, for example, that he will receive a pay increase upon successful completion of the polygraph or that his employment contract will be changed from temporary to long-term, etc. The Case Officer can use his imagination to come up with different scenarios to explain the use of the polygraph as a standard commercial employment tool.

I have worked cases where the agents were commercially recruited but where we believed that the agent was actually aware that he was cooperating with US Intelligence. We call such cases “fig leaf” cases. That is, the agent prefers to maintain a fig leaf of cover that he is working with a commercial enterprise even though he may well suspect he is reporting to the CIA. I worked about a dozen such cases in my career. In one case, I worked with the agent for six years, meeting him once a month for dinner for overt debriefings. When I informed the agent that I would be leaving country and turning him over to someone else, he finally asked if the new Case Officer would be CIA. It was an easy re-recruitment as a witting agent.