Cloak, dagger and résumé

CIA seeks 'new generation' of spies

By David Ensor
CNN Washington Correspondent

LANGLEY, Virginia -- The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is hiring again.

At university "job fairs" around the country, agency recruiters -- stocked with souvenir pens and refrigerator magnets -- are interviewing men and women for jobs as spies and analysts.

It's part of the agency's largest hiring campaign in more than a decade.

"We're looking for people who have high energy," says CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin. "People who want to serve their country, people who want to make a difference. People who aren't daunted by a challenge, ambiguity, uncertainty or potential for surprise or danger. A lot of jobs we offer to people nowadays are very risky."

Hit hard by budget cuts and low morale, the CIA has lost nearly a quarter of its workforce since the end of the Cold War. To reverse that trend, Congress over the past two years has sharply increased funding to the CIA and 12 other U.S. intelligence agencies.

Recent intelligence gaffes -- such as the agency's inability to predict terrorist bombings at U.S. embassies in eastern Africa and India's preparations to test a new generation of nuclear weapons -- have underscored the need for change.

CIA Director George Tenent has said the agency's top priority is to strengthen its espionage and analysis capabilities through a recruitment program "that parallels the very best in private industry."

To attract attention -- and compete in a tight labor market -- the CIA launched a national advertising campaign in magazines and newspapers, featuring attractive men and women with the words "integrity," "intellect" and "courage" imposed on their faces.

The CIA Web site invites readers to click on the agency employment page, featuring job openings in such fields as "clandestine service." According to the Web site, salaries are "competitive with other entry-level positions -- ranging from $34,000 to $52,000, depending on credentials."

The goal, according to the agency's recruiters, is to attract a "new generation" of spies -- technically savvy and culturally diverse.

"We're looking for chemists, physicists, people with skills in information science," says McLaughlin. "And we continue to look for people with instincts and training in political analysis, military analysis and economics."

While the CIA says it needs "new blood" after years of downsizing and retooling, critic and former CIA intelligence analyst Melvin Goodman argues the agency is in the midst of an identity crisis.

"I think the end of the Cold War presented the CIA with a major challenge and a major problem," he says. "Eighty percent of what the CIA did, 80 percent of what they spent for about 30 or 40 years, was targeted against the Soviet Union."

Goodman says that without the Soviet challenge, the CIA can and should slim down. Post-Cold War threats such as terrorism simply don't require the same resources, he maintains.

"Terrorism is essentially a police problem more than it is a military problem," he says, "and you need intelligence in support of that. But I think it would be a danger to throw too much attention or too many assets in the way of terrorism."

Goodman and others also argue that the CIA should collect and analyze intelligence -- but get out of the business of covert action.

That contrasts sharply with the views of Oleg Kalugin, a retired KGB general now working as a business consultant in Washington. Kalugin advises his former U.S. rivals to get better at subverting America's enemies.

"Clandestine, covert operations is a better alternative than Marines, or launching missiles against real or potential [enemies]," he says.

In fact, the CIA's McLaughlin says the "new world order" has only made espionage more critical.

"The things that endured when the Cold War ended were very striking," McLaughlin says. "The things that endured are still dangerous to the lives of Americans. They come from a lot of different areas these days, whether terrorists, or weapons of mass destruction, or narcotics flowing into the country, or ethnic turmoil in parts of the world.

"If anything, the mission of the CIA, post-Cold War, has become more complex and demanding."