A Guide for the Aspiring Spy (The Anonymous Spy Series) by Anonymous Spy

officer in the field often does not have the luxury of time to go into a matter in detail. He must make quick on-the-spot decisions alone based on experience. The many personality tests you will take during the pre-employment process will look for all of these qualities.
     
    Also part of staying on board is being re-tested by the Company. Part of this process is the re-investigation and polygraph examination every few years. I have been on the Box about six times during my career, but I have used it as an investigative tool in authenticating my agents about a hundred times.
     
    Generally speaking, all CIA officers undergo the Box about once every five years, but some do so more frequently depending on the sensitivity of assignments, unresolved or questionable areas of previous Box exams, etc. The Box is used to determine possible lifestyle areas that may call into question a person’s loyalty, integrity, discretion, character, and morals (LIDMC), including financial improprieties, drug use, sexual sensibilities, and security issues, such as the presence of hostile control, etc.
     
    While the Box can be ethnically biased, in my opinion, that bias can be reduced by an veteran examiner who has experience with foreign assets. Most examiners do have such experience since most of the people whom they examine are foreign agents. The selection and translation of questions is vital to a successful examination if administered in a foreign language.
     
    Since the Box only measures physiological responses to the questions, the Box examiner has to use his own best judgment to evaluate what these responses indicate. Do they indicate deception or is there some underlying issue involved? In the case of examining foreigners, is there something in their value system that may make them respond to a question in a way as to indicate deception? Can a question be a “loaded question” to one person and be a normal question to another where each responds differently yet honestly to the question? A good Box examiner will recognize these areas and adjust his technique to the situation. The average examiner may miss the nuances and potentially fail a good NOC candidate.
     
    Moral Dilemmas
     
    It might seem that there would be a dilemma for someone who presumably is of high moral character but wants to help their country and would need to engage in immoral activities to achieve his objective. Just how does the CIA know its employees are moral, yet not too moral?
     
    To start with, the Company takes some of the dilemma out of the equation from the start with the screening process. As mentioned earlier, the acronym LIDMC stands for Loyalty, Integrity, Discretion, Morals, and Character. These are the traits that the Company seeks to establish in prospective officer candidates for the Clandestine Service, both NOC officers andOC officers. During the vetting process, all candidates are put through a thorough background investigation that focuses on turning up things that reflect both positively and negatively on the LIDMC areas.
     
    After the candidate comes on board as a trainee, he goes through an intensive high-pressure training process that gives him the case officer tradecraft skills to operate in the field. The training process itself is also designed to weed out those who may have been missed in the vetting process. In my class of some twenty-five trainees when I came on board, six were washed out before the training was complete. If there are any lingering doubts about your LIDMC at the end of the training cycle, you will probably be placed in a desk job at headquarters for some time while you are further observed by superiors to determine your fitness in becoming a field operative.
     
    Once you have been in the field for several years, you may be subject to reinvestigation or to periodic polygraph examinations to make sure you are staying on the straight and narrow. I underwent a total of three periodic polygraph examinations and I have