I will never forget walking down the street in a hostile country as a CIA operations officer, then looking up and seeing our flag silhouetted above the embassy.
I thought not only of the small number of U.S. officials who were serving in harm’s way, but of the many who lived in that particular country who still looked at America as the land of opportunity. We have political and economic freedoms that they could never enjoy. Despite the problems that America has faced over the last several years, I still believe in American exceptionalism. To my core.
The CIA embodies American exceptionalism because of the unique nature of our mission and the exceptional nature of our workforce. Much has been written in the media recently about the difficulties the CIA has been having, with sensationalist headlines that declare “Human Intelligence is dead.”
What a load of hooey. This defeatism ignores the esprit d’corps, drive, and dedication of the Directorate of Operations. The spies in the field. The CIA’s mission statement reads: “We accomplish what others cannot accomplish and go where others cannot go.” I was once asked by a policymaker “if” we could handle an agent in a certain denied area country. My response was immediate: The question was “not if, but how” we would do so.
We have that familiar staple of the American spirit at our core: Let’s get it done.
Despite the challenges of technology, such as biometrics and smart cities, the CIA can still today meet agents anywhere, anytime, with proper planning and smart execution. That is who we were during my time at the CIA, and I am absolutely certain that it remains the same today. Spying is the world’s second-oldest profession, and the CIA remains the gold standard.
We are not the feared but ultimately second-rate Russian SVR. Nor the wildly hyped Israeli Mossad. Nor the vaunted but small British SIS/MI6. Nor the omnipresent but overconfident Chinese MSS. All competent services, no doubt. We dismiss their professionalism at our peril, particularly on counterintelligence. But none have the combined personnel, technological, and resource firepower of the CIA, across the analytic and operational fields.
Do the bad guys beat us sometimes? Yes, they do. That is the nature of the intelligence business. This is the big leagues, the stakes are high, and sometimes we will lose an intelligence battle. Our failings are plastered all over the front pages of the planet, as that is what the media feed off: failing. But failure, in the end, is not in the CIA’s DNA. Like our fellow citizens, we pull ourselves up off the ground and get right back into the arena.
True, 20 years of a bruising, relentless, and highly successful counterterrorism campaign (in which the CIA has saved hundreds if not thousands of lives) perhaps allowed some agent handling and recruiting skills to atrophy. We must own this lapse, and I believe the CIA is taking immediate measures to step up its game. That is what a world-class organization does.
But the ultimate truth remains salient: Many have asked me the simple question, “What makes the CIA great?”
My answer is equally simple. It is the people of the CIA who make it the finest intelligence organization on the planet. Men and women from all walks of life. Immigrants from the Arab world and farmers from the heartland. College graduates and some four-decade agency veterans. They are all heroes who do a difficult job with little fanfare and no expectation of a pat on the head. We operate in the shadows, and our successes will never be known. Intestinal fortitude, bravery, curiosity, and humility are the character traits that I find most apply to my former colleagues.
They are exceptional citizens who serve and sacrifice for an exceptional nation.
