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

heard of others undergoing even more in a twenty-year career. If this is not enough to firm up your moral fiber and instill loyalty and dedication, you may be beyond hope. But still, there have been some who have slipped through the system for many years before being caught.
     
    Another level of built-in safeguards is the Company’s bureaucracy. How the NOC officer deals with the bureaucracy was covered earlier. With bureaucrats both at headquarters and at the CIA Station closely monitoring how the case officer deals with his pool of assets, it is difficult to deviate from the direction the moral compass points, so to speak.
     
    By and large, however, the dilemma is not a personal one; it is a systemic one, and the safeguards in place to check on operatives, both NOC and OC officers, are pretty good, though they are good enough by any means. There is always room for improvement.
     
    But how does the NOC officer justify to his own moral conscience the lying, deception, trickery, etc., that is a part of the deep-cover lifestyle? Let’s just say you get used to it. It is a necessary part of the lifestyle and you had better learn to do it well, otherwise, you may blow your cover and end up not only compromising yourself but also compromising your agents. If it’s a choice between a little moral dilemma and twenty years in a foreign prison, well morals be damned. But the trickery, lying, and deception side is directed at protecting yourself, your family, the interests of your cover company, your agents, etc. It is not a part of your relationship with the Company.

How to Have a Long Career with the CIA
     
    This is not at all meant in a disrespectful way, but, in a nutshell, you will have a successful career with the CIA’s Clandestine Service if and only if you are able to make yourself and your supervisors look good. This may sound somewhat cynical, but it is a fact of life inside the Company. What you do as a case officer must reflect positively on your supervisors in order to make them look like good administrators and bureaucrats.
     
    A common saying among young case officers is “recruit your boss.” What this means is to get the boss on your side by giving him positive operational and intelligence input that he can take to his own supervisors to make himself and them look good. Everyone has a supervisor up the chain of command. Everyone has someone else to answer to and to please. It is essentially a perpetual mutual admiration society. Of course, the best way to get your supervisor on your side is to run good, clean agent operations and produce good-quality intelligence. Do so while occasionally blowing your own horn and your supervisor can then blow his own horn, too. All benefit and all get promoted.
     
    Another factor that adds positively to your career is to remember that the CIA bureaucracy is always right, so reflect this back to headquarters in your cables. Remember what was said earlier about the bureaucracy? Even though there may be a pompous ass sitting on your country desk spurting meaningless cables to the field that only make more unnecessary work in your already overloaded schedule, you should respond as if these cables have the wisdom of King Solomon and have added inspiration to the handling of your agents. Just remember: that pompous ass of a desk officer may someday be your supervisor. He is, after all, sitting on the desk with every intention of showing his supervisor that he deserves to have another field assignment, so just remember that you have to make him look good, too.
     
    Some case officers are good recruiters and some are good agent handlers. Few are good at both. However, the system expects all case officers to spot, assess, vet, develop, and recruit agents and to exploit their agent resources to collect and write intelligence and operational reports. Your proficiency report, that report of your achievements as a case officer that goes before promotion panels to rank you for