The CIA: Dead Spy Stumbling – This New Generation Is Self-Serving and Dysfunctional

I entered on duty with the CIA in September 1985. I spent a year in the Career Trainee Program and then, in September 1986, took up my work as the lone Honduran analyst in the Central American Branch. That was a hot position that put me in the frontline of one of the top foreign policy priorities at the time of the Reagan Administration–the Central American Wars and Soviet interference in Nicaragua. When I write, “hot position,” I mean that I was writing two to three times a week for the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) and the National Intelligence Daily (NID).

I had a front-row seat to watch the struggle to present intelligence that cut against the grain of the political priorities of the Reagan Administration. I recall vividly sitting in a “Warning Meeting” that was chaired by the National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Latin America. At one point during my briefing I referred to the Contras who were based in the Salient in southern Honduras. The NIO interrupted and ordered me to refer to them as “the Nicaraguan Democrat Resistance.” Me being me responded, “But the President calls them the Contras.” The NIO responded, “Yes, but he’s the President.”

When you start dictating politically correct language to an intelligence analyst you are on the threshold of Orwell’s 1984. I count myself fortunate to have worked at the CIA when it still had some shred of integrity intact. My experience was not the first time that a political agenda intruded on the intelligence process. Cuba in the 1960s and the Vietnam War preceded me as other dark examples of trying to cook the intelligence to match White House priorities.

Now we have this ridiculous recruiting video featuring the new generation of CIA officers:

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56 Responses to The CIA: Dead Spy Stumbling – This New Generation Is Self-Serving and Dysfunctional

  1. Fred says:

    Are they, ‘they’ being the people who put out that ludicrous example of wokeness par excellence, trying to hire fools like that or just covering their ass from the woke managerial class which already infests the organization that was so transformed by Brennan?

  2. Jose says:

    Larry, sadly the DOD, the Dept on Injustice, and just about anything the SJW touch is destroyed.

    It’s not like we need a CIA in today’s world..

    Miss the yucca con chicharones y curtido? lol

  3. Sam says:

    Tucker and Glenn Greenwald on woke CIA.

    https://twitter.com/columbiabugle/status/1389754812174987266?s=21

    This is not about wokeness but about power and control. Wokeism is the tool.

  4. Bill H. says:

    Unfortunately this is not limited to the CIA, nor to government. It prevails in every aspect of this nation, including major corporations, where these SJW hires have risen to upper management.

  5. jerseycityjoan says:

    Larry,

    Do you really think the person in that ad served in human intelligence?

    I assumed with the anxiety that the job would have been in a back office. It is true that some people with problems can be great at certain tasks and can be a real asset to employers.

    But working out in the field in another country and in high stress situations? You have to be kidding me.

  6. mathias alexander says:

    What was the “Soviet interference in Nicaragua”? Were they invited by the Nicaraguan government? Where the Contras interfering?

  7. Philip M Giraldi says:

    Larry the recruitment ads are astonishing even if one has grown accustomed to expecting the worst from our politically correct form of government. I recall that back in our time there were a number of homosexuals in the Agency. One wondered how they passed the polygraph exam. Two that I knew of in the DO in very senior positions were undoubtedly also pedophiles. One of them was finally “retired” when pornographic material involving children was found in his office desk. And, as you know, a very recent director was homosexual. Somehow they managed to survive in the system in spite of concerns by many that they might be emotionally unstable or subject to blackmail, as you point out. Let’s face it, today’s federal government is no longer expected to actually do anything to benefit the American people.

    • Trevor E. says:

      One wondered how they passed the polygraph exam.

      C’mon, Phil, you’re a highly intelligent guy educated at the best universities. I worked in background investigations for DOD and an IC agency. One of the first things I learned was that lie detectors are a joke. Even former CIA polygraphers have admitted that the polygraph is no more than a prop. How many polygraphs did Aldrich Ames pass?

      • Philip M Giraldi says:

        Good point Trevor but the last time I was able to have a chat with a poly examiner he said the test was only as effective as the belief by the person being examined that it actually works. Ames had no sense of guilt about what he was doing. The examiner said to me that Catholics are easy to examine because they were brought up feeling guilty about everything, so they react to every question. Muslims are difficult because they believe that lying to an “anglo” examiner is required. He also said the exams are most effective in the pre-exam phase where someone can be made fearful of what is to come and can be induced to confess to crimes and misdemeanors…

        • Pat Lang says:

          Phil
          I must be exceptionally easy because I am a papal knight and JP2 told me that he saw nothing very bad in me

        • lysias says:

          So the effect is to drive Catholics out, and to retain psychopaths?

          • Philip M Giraldi says:

            No, it is to have the examiner be able to explain that the process compelled the candidate to reveal all his misdemeanors even if they did not amount to an admission of anything that was disqualifying. It was to validate the process, good to run Catholics through the system. In training, examiners used to boast that some of those being examined actually confessed to murder.

          • Pat Lang says:

            Philip Giraldi
            A retired LTC I knew applied to work for them and the poly people got him to admit that he had killed people in combat. They referred the case to the FBI for prosecution.

          • LeaNder says:

            Interesting exchange.

            I wouldn’t mind being polygraphed. Meaning I’d love to volunteer for a test, although I am Catholic. Test is test. 😉

            Would it help someone close to his exams for a degree in associate criminal justice to concentrate on the grain of truth of his narrative??? Given the questions asked are simply silly, except the single one that mattered? At least that was the polygraph exam, I had the pleasure to watch under Florida ‘Sunshine Laws’.

            I seriously even as Catholic I doubt I’d fail that no matter what. Surely not that specific one.

          • Pat Lang says:

            leander

            I was polygraphed many times because of my more or less continuous associations with foreign intelligence people. This was part of my job. the way this works is that the polygrapher establishes a base line of your physical reaction and then agrees with you on a list of question he will ask in the examination. He then runs through the list mixing the base line questions in with the ones that go to the heart of the matter. I am Catholic. I don’t see what the connection is.

  8. Some Dude says:

    >This is a sickening development.

    Negative, sir: this is a great development. Hopefully the FBI will follow suit, if it is not already doing do.

    Both these agencies are mortal threats to the freedom, health and wellbeing of white people in North America. The FBI has been since its inception as a domestic secret police force, the CIA at least until the mid-fifties. The faster they are identified as such in the minds of still-clueless whites, the better. Maybe we will catch a break and “Mija” will be appointed DNI by President Harris.

  9. Pat Lang says:

    All
    Larry was an analyst for the Christians In Action and Phil was a field guy, one of the best. Like so many of the really skilled case officers the DO had in the old days, Phil was an enlisted US Army case officer who the CIA was smart enough to recruit away from the Army. Between these two men you have the broad spectrum of CIA knowledge.

    • LeaNder says:

      “Christians In Action” the spearhead against faithless communism/Cultural Marxism? Outside first, but for longer now concentrated inside? Part of CIA?

      Who or what is or are Christians in Action? A priest friend of mine is pretty obsessed with what he feels are not interior to faith but outside political networks. He may know.

      • Pat Lang says:

        Leander

        “Christians In Action.” C-I-A. Get it now? CIA are easily mocked. What would be an example of German humor?

      • LeaNder says:

        Ah, well yes. Familiar. Otherwise, I guess everyone knows how humorless Germans are.

  10. Rick Merlotti says:

    Thanks, CIA for showing us that gay, bi-, trans, people of color, ex-communists and the like can all work together to keep our glorious unipolar empire on top. The Chinese, Russians, Syrians, Iranians, et al don’t stand a chance against our empty woke posturing. I can sleep well tonight.

  11. Deap says:

    Being up front about their “intersectional proclivities”, now they won’t be compromised by later blackmail. Progress?

  12. Deap says:

    Maybe her “generalized anxiety disorder” comes from her plethora of dissociated self-confessed identities. What happened to just introducing yourself by your first name?

  13. Deap says:

    Interesting take on Tucker Carlson – CIA “woke” video was an intentional counter-intelligence move. C’mon bad guys, take us on now that we made you think we are weak and addled.

    https://therightscoop.com/tucker-the-woke-cia-video-may-not-be-what-we-think/

  14. BillWade says:

    Back in the early days of 1910 or so, the circuses had to search far and wide for a “Fat Lady” or a “Tattoo Lady”. I can find a combination of both within 10 minutes and 2 miles from where I live. We are the circus now.

    I hear young women complain that they can’t find a masculine guy anymore and I hear young masculine men complain they can’t find a women who doesn’t resemble a refrigerator.

  15. Keith Harbaugh says:

    Rob O’Neal, who was part of the military/CIA team that got bin Laden,
    speaks about the “woke” CIA recruiting video:

    https://youtu.be/JSl2tmK4JLU

  16. All I could hear was “me, me, me, me, I’m wonderful, me, me, me”.
    Not, actually, very convincing.

  17. Bobo says:

    Poor Mija just got sucked into an HR recruitment stunt. The CIA wanted to be Woke and picked out an employee they could utilize. HR obviously wrote the words and she performed.
    So a Cisgender Intersectional woman of color is just a Latina who likes guys trying to get a leg up. No different than a white guy from Boston of Irish decent trying to get on the police force in the old days. Just trying to get a leg up.
    What is sick is the use of these new fancy words and a governmental agency trying to be woke.

    • LeaNder says:

      HR obviously wrote the words and she performed.

      Make that the C.I.A announced changing its image in early January 2021 and hired a marketing firm to help reach the publicized goal of more ‘diversity’? …

      What ad variants were offered by the selected company? Why was this chosen? Why was the firm producing it selected in the first place. Assuming there was a selection process.

      I doubt HR was involved, I also doubt this is anything but an actress performing based on the marketing agencies script.

      • Mark Logan says:

        I imagine the agency is actually pleased to see a society in which being gay is OK, it removes an avenue of compromising for foreign case officers. The agency seeks and needs truly exceptional talent and unfortunately that kind of talent can come in strange boxes. Thinking Alan Turing here.

  18. Cofer says:

    I don’t see the problem here. The CIA will just have to send undercover therapists in support of their emotionally challenged undercover agents behind enemy lines. Three or four sessions a week is all it takes.

  19. Here’s another in the series. Also very much about me, me, me
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7_PGYgmcPo

  20. The Twisted Genius says:

    That recruiting video could easily pass for an SNL sketch. I was pretty sure what cisgender meant, but I had to look up the meaning of intersectional. The saddest part of this is the CIA’s low opinion of American youth. Do they really think this will appeal to any worthwhile recruits? Their ads were once about patriotism, being part of something larger than oneself and sacrifice. The smaller ads in the Army Times for MICECP recruitment were the same way.

    I saw a lot of good come out of a policy of “vibrant” recruiting for case officers (C/Os) and operatives. In one unit, the operatives were almost exclusively foreign born and capable of being foreign documented. Us C/Os were mostly white males, but most of us also had SF experience. My C/O partner in that outfit was Somali born. In my first collection detachment in Germany, 3 out of 7 were German born with 2 of them female. Almost all female C/Os I’ve worked with were very effective against European and Russian targets. I do think a high level of foreign language skill is far more important than any “vibrancy.” That and being a hard hearted empath whether you’re male, female or whatever.

    I saw the career opportunism thing take hold at DIA by the late 90s. So many were just pushing to get the next promotion and rise in the managerial ranks. Maybe it was a result of the post-9/11 expansion. One of the worst examples I saw was the promotion of one individual , not even a C/O, to an SIS position as the HUMINT expert of all things. What bullshit! In the Army, we C/Os fought to stay in the field overseas. When you had to take a stateside assignment, you fought like hell to get overseas again. If it meant never advancing beyond GG-12 or 13, so be it. The overseas housing allowance made it worthwhile. At DIA, there were a lot less overseas C/O billets to vie for. To solve that problem and escape the HQ, I developed a new clan collection methodology, created my own detachment and escaped to the field. Not overseas, but it was the field and there I stayed… quite happily.

  21. Yeah, Right says:

    The words “cisgender” and “intersectional” are just buzzwords. They mean nothing more than that “I am just like most people”, and hardly anyone would ever characterize their lives as a “box-checking exercise”.

    All that is just meaningless waffle. Pathetic waffle.

    “I used to struggle with imposter syndrome. But at 36, I refuse to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be. I am tired of feeling like I’m supposed to apologize for the space I occupy.”

    Sheesh. All she is saying is that she used to worry about what people thought of her, and now she doesn’t give a s**t.

    Big Deal, Luvvie. Join the club.

    But why would the CIA hire people who are diagnosed with “generalized anxiety disorder”?

    I…. what? What gives? I… words fail me.

    • Mark Logan says:

      Best guess is the CIA is afraid of hiring gays (or whatever) who are still in the closet about it and thus easily compromised. Seems likely that’s been a problem for the CIA, I reckon.

    • Barbara Ann says:

      Alan Ladd’s character in the 1946 movie O.S.S. gives a good description of chronic general anxiety disorder – brought on by working as a covert agent in Nazi-occupied France. I can’t recall the exact quote, but it comes after his boss asks him to carry out another mission despite the very high chance of discovery, capture and what would inevitably follow. He does not volunteer, but when ordered to do so does his duty. As a result, his partner (and love) played by Geraldine Fitzgerald is subsequently captured by the Gestapo. I am not sure about O.S.S., but I have read that an S.O.E. agent’s life expectancy was measured in weeks. Bravery off the charts.

      Employing people that can deal with extreme stress is doubtless essential for this kind of work. I am thus incredulous that the CIA would advertise the inability to deal with regular life as a desirable qualification.

      • Pat Lang says:

        Yeah, Right

        Personality disintegration over time is what happens to HUMINT assets who live in a denied area for a long time. Claude Devereux, the protagonist of my trilogy, was built to be an example of that.

  22. J says:

    Russian SVR and Chinese MSS will need to set up intake therapist with a BIG sign —

    All CIA entering country, please report to our therapists for further evaluations.

  23. Keith Harbaugh says:

    As to the new CIA and national security apparatus,
    it is worth quoting John Brennan (from his statement on, I believe, 2021-01-20) on that:

    “We are now looking forward that
    the members of the Biden team who have been nominated or have been appointed,
    are now moving in laser like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about
    what looks very similar to insurgency movements that we’ve seen overseas,
    where they germinate in different parts of the country and they gain strength and it brings together an unholy alliance frequently of
    religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, Nativists, even libertarians.”

    He says exactly that at:
    https://youtu.be/vrUSBAzQMD0?t=4m35s ,
    or read it here:
    https://reason.com/volokh/2021/01/21/new-administration-moving-in-laser-like-fashion-to-uncover-even-libertarians-in-an-unholy-alliance/

    Let us note that America fought a very long and expensive war against Fascism in the 1940s, resulting in hundreds of thousands of American casualties.
    So now if, say, one wants to restore many of the social conventions of then,
    how does that make one a fascist?
    The term ‘fascist’ has been grossly overused by those on the left.

  24. Barbara Ann says:

    “Instead of committing to serve America..”

    Larry,

    Notably missing from the whole 2 minute wokefest was that word; “America”. Nations and the concepts of nationalism/patriotism are abhorrent to the wokies and I am sure the omission was no accident. Absent any CIA mission or value statement the video’s message seems to be that The Work of a Nation is now the promotion of international wokeism – the thought and language of the new Left. Mija’s employer is in fact only mentioned twice, as a fact purely incidental to the focus on the individual’s issues and grievances (as Patrick Armstrong notes). The ad is otherwise 100% generic woke corporate mush.

    And since when did “CIA” not require a preceding definite article, are proper nouns no longer woke? Perhaps they are indicative of hierarchy and thus deemed discriminatory.

  25. J says:

    IMO both Biden and the CIA are playing with fire regarding delaying or stopping the withdrawal of U.S. ‘uninformed ‘troops from Afghanistan.
    The CIA and their mercenary buddies plans to keep their part in Afghanistan forever will in the end be defeated by the locals.

    Biden needs to up the Afghanistan withdrawal and to heck with any whining coming from the Pentagon.

    The Taliban issued a warning 4 days ago
    https://youtu.be/-f-fpzU4ZWs

    • Deap says:

      Certainly triggers memories of the British retreat up the Khyber Pass when their forced “delay” out of Afghanistan allowed the Afghani extra time to set up their sharp shooters all along the box canyon leading out of Kabul back to the safety of British India

      Instead of the promised safe passage, the Afghani just picked them off one by one, women, children, British troops and camp followers, until only a single soul, a British doctor, made it out alive. Slung over his saddle, horse limping up to the Khyber Fort, he was beyond words to describe what he just had to endure.

      Of course, this degree of primitive betrayal could never happen again in the days of electronic surveillance?

      • Pat Lang says:

        Deap

        Actually the Afghans captured a lot of people who they later ransomed back. Are you looking forward to this?

  26. And here’s another one
    https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1390728356518313990

    I’m pleased to hear that everything is “amazing”

    • akaPatience says:

      O.M.G. What would’ve seemed like parody not too long ago has now become reality. Methinks we are royally screwed.

    • The Twisted Genius says:

      Patrick, this guy is a librarian and the woman is in protective services. That first recruitment video surely didn’t show a cisgender, intersectional clandestine case officer. It’s more likely she’s in HR or, at best, an analyst. Given that the CIA is a massive bureaucracy, it’s not surprising it would be full of a lot of the same kinds of employees that inhabit other massive bureaucracies. I would be interested to see if this stuff extends into the clandestine service. When I was going through MOTC at the Farm, the CTC class consisted of mostly pasty faced boys and girls just out of college. MOTC students, OTOH, already had ten years of military experience under their belt.

      • Pat Lang says:

        TTG

        Yes. I was the responsible Washington official for the military side of The Farm. CIA hated that but they needed our money to run the place. As you say the typical CIA CT student was not impressive. You could see that in how well the MOTC people did with the CIA women trainees. “There is something about a soldier.”

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