How many cia operatives are there

Marc Polymeropoulos: First and foremost, I had a 26 year career that was not really remarkable in the sense a lot of people do this. There are many heroes behind the scenes at CIA. So I was one of many. But sure, I spent 26 years, a lot of time in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, other times overseas service, and then back at our headquarters as well in McLean, Virginia. Tom Temin: And when one is overseas for an extended period, I guess it may be a year or two, would that be fair to say?

Marc Polymeropoulos: Yeah, sure. So it all just depends. Marc Polymeropoulos: Sure. One of misnomers about CIA is that we actually do carry guns and are dressed in 5. Read more: Workforce. Tom Temin: And when you are in the field in whatever role, what is it that headquarters can best do in terms of support?

And then they put together what is most required, which is papers or briefings for policymakers. And when the intelligence community is really humming, our true role is a support to policy. Tom Temin: And having been there 26 years, that was probably four, perhaps five administrations that you served under, and they always have politics going back and forth with the intelligence community and the CIA.

Did it seem at the level you operate it at that that was pretty much kept apart from the people doing the work day to day and year after year? Marc Polymeropoulos: Absolutely. But when I do speak, one of the things I talk about is that we really are an apolitical organization.

So I served for different administrations. I think this most recent administration, with a president who was very active on Twitter, certainly made things more interesting. But really one of the the great hallmarks of the CIA and the intelligence community in general is that people just put their heads down and get the business of intelligence, and you really try to push any kind of politics aside.

Marc Polymeropoulos: First and foremost, I think nor new DNI, Avril Haines, who is a veteran of the national security apparatus, of course former deputy director, but also a lot of time at the NSC and state. This is a fantastic choice because she really knows how to integrate intelligence into policy.

She knows our foreign partners very well. So I think that she will be a great success. He was an ambassador in two major posts in the past in Moscow and Amman, so he knows about what intelligence collection really means. And of course, he served in policy roles back in Washington, so he knows how intelligence can help shape and formulate policy.

Tom Temin: And you were also a victim of the magnetic radio waves beaming that affected CIA and State Department employees in and , causing brain damage. Want to stay up to date with the latest federal news and information from all your devices? Download the revamped Federal News Network app. Marc Polymeropoulos: So this is the hardest thing for me really to talk about. I was unfortunately kind of compelled to go public about this because I was not getting the medical care that I really needed and sought.

I took a trip to Moscow in December of , and there was an event there that certainly changed my life. I suffer now from migraine headaches that never go away. On a good note is the agency has has relented after I did go public with my grievances and so I am going to the Walter Reed Traumatic Brain Injury Center for a month of outpatient treatment, which is really the place where I need to go.

Marc Polymeropoulos: It was in a hotel room in Moscow. Tom Temin: But at the first occurrence, you sense that directional quality of the radiation that other people have reported? But one of the key points on that is there was a big study that came out from the National Academy of Sciences which talked about their conclusion it was likely radiation microwave weapon that caused this.

And so the NAS study, I think, was really important in that it gave us a lot more legitimacy as we move forward. Tom Temin: And we interviewed Dr. Marc Polymeropoulos: Yes, I do. So I wrote a book, and one of my passions at the end of my career was mentoring. I made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I thought I was a very good leader. So I wanted to kind of put that forward to the general public.

In fact, most of my leadership principles, talk about how to deal with adversity and how to overcome failing, and really learning how to lead in times of ambiguity and crisis. So I hope people will be interested in this and I can pass on some of my wisdom that I learned over working in really dark places in the third world.

And I talk about the one principle that I believe in the most is humility. Tom Temin: And my final question is for those that might be considering a career in the intelligence community, and the federal government has recruiting, not so much recruiting problems, but talent skill acquisition challenges from time to time. Marc Polymeropoulos: This is a fantastic question.

So just leave that aside. Not only did I see the world, but experience different cultures, you get to serve your country.

And I remember walking down the street and just seeing the silhouette of the American flag lit up at the US Embassy.

And boy, that was motivating to me. Thanks so much for joining me. Tom Temin is host of the Federal Drive and has been providing insight on federal technology and management issues for more than 30 years. US and foreign intelligence officers flock to conferences for the same reason that army recruiters concentrate on low-income neighbourhoods: they make the best hunting grounds.

While a university campus might have only one or two professors of interest to an intelligence service, the right conference — on drone technology, perhaps, or Isis — could have dozens. She submits a paper and it is accepted. At the conference, the hosts ask for a copy of her presentation. The hosts hook a thumb drive to her laptop, and unbeknownst to her, download every file and data source from her computer. The CIA is involved with conferences in various ways: it sends officers to them; it hosts them through front companies in the Washington area, so that the intelligence community can tap academic wisdom; and it mounts sham conferences to reach potential defectors from hostile countries.

The CIA monitors upcoming conferences worldwide and identifies those of interest. Suppose there is an international conference in Pakistan on centrifuge technology: the CIA would send its own agent undercover, or enlist a professor who might be going anyway to report back. Intelligence from academic conferences can shape policy. It helped persuade the George W Bush administration —mistakenly, as it turned out — that Saddam Hussein was still developing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Some of those spies may have drawn the wrong conclusions because they lacked advanced degrees in chemistry, biology or nuclear power. Without expertise, agents might misunderstand the subject matter, or be exposed as frauds. One former CIA operative overseas explained to me how it works. Between assignments, he would peruse a list of upcoming conferences, pick one, and identify a scientist of interest who seemed likely to attend after having spoken at least twice at the same event in previous years.

R would assign trainees at the CIA and National Security Agency to develop a profile of the target — where they had gone to college, who their instructors were, and so on. Then he would cable headquarters, asking for travel funding. The trick was to make the cable persuasive enough to score the expense money, but not so compelling that other agents who read it, and were based closer to the conference, would try to go after the same target.

Next he developed his cover — typically, as a businessman. He invented a company name, built an off-the-shelf website and printed business cards. He created billing, phone and credit card records for the nonexistent company.

For his name, he chose one of his seven aliases. R was no scientist. Korea is more. Scientific conferences have become such a draw for intelligence agents that one of the biggest concerns for CIA operatives is interference from agency colleagues trapping the same academic prey. The religious art, stained-glass windows and classical quotations lining Gaston Hall enveloped the directors of the NSA and the FBI like an elaborate disguise as they gave keynote addresses on combating one of the most daunting challenges of the 21st century: cyberattacks.

The name tags that almost all of the attendees wore showed that they worked for the US government, foreign embassies, intelligence contractors or vendors of cyber-related products, or they taught at universities. Perhaps not all of the intelligence presence was open. Officially, 40 nations — from Brazil to Mauritius, Serbia to Sri Lanka — were represented at the conference, but not Russia.

Yet, hovering in the rear of the balcony, a slender young man carrying a briefcase listened to the panels. No name tag adorned his lapel. I approached him, introduced myself,and asked his name. I proffered a business card, and requested his, in vain. My cards are still being produced. I persisted, asking about his job at the embassy. He looked at his watch.

I must go. By hiding its role, the CIA makes it easier for scholars to share their insights. They take credit for their presentations on their CV without disclosing that they consulted for the CIA, which might alienate some academic colleagues, as well as the countries where they conduct their research.

An emeritus professor of political science at the University of North Texas, Booth specialises in studying Latin America, a region where history has taught officials to be wary of the CIA. It provides a fig leaf for participants. The CIA arranges conferences on foreign policy issues so that its analysts, who are often immersed in classified details, can learn from scholars who understand the big picture and are familiar with publicly available sources. With scholarly presentations followed by questions and answers, the sessions are like those at any academic meeting, except that many attendees — presumably, CIA analysts — wear name tags with only their first names.

In , its executive ranks teemed with former intelligence officials. I make no bones about it to my colleagues. I am an American citizen. I feel I should proffer the best possible advice to my government. He later ran into one or two of the same people at an academic conference. Centra strives to mask its CIA connections. We have nothing to do with that.