How to Work for the CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency is a very different agency from the FBI. The FBI is basically concerned with law enforcement, whereas the CIA is concerned with getting information to help aid the U.S. in making foreign-policy decisions. If you want to join the CIA, you don't have to be a spy. The majority of jobs at the CIA are those for economists, foreign-policy experts, researchers and psychologists.
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Instructions
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Know What the CIA Does
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American spying has existed ever since the infancy of the nation, extending back to Nathan Hale and the Revolutionary War. The Central Intelligence Agency, however, is a relatively new organization that was created by President Truman in 1947 with the signing of National Security Act. The CIA's stated purpose: "to collect, evaluate and disseminate foreign intelligence" and "to engage in covert action at the president's direction." In the past, the agency carried out far more covert actions, many in Central America.
In the latter half of the 20th century, the CIA was plagued by a number of embarrassing incidents. For example:
* The CIA recently mistook the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade for a Yugoslav government building, which led to an international incident when U.S. military forces bombed it.
* The agency failed to predict both India's nuclear test or North Korea's missile launch, and then admitted it didn't have officers in place who could have picked up on them.
* Aldrich Ames lived the good life at the CIA until it was discovered that he was a mole who had sent secrets to Moscow from 1985 until his arrest in 1994.
More recently, there was the issue of agency director George Tenet's claim that the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would be a "slam dunk."
The CIA is not a policy-making organization. Instead, it simply gives policy-makers (like the National Security Agency and the president) the information they need for to make (hopefully) good decisions. As alluded to above, the agency has in the last few years taken on new responsibility by tracking terrorists, drug producers and nuclear and chemical weapons. In short, the Central Intelligence Agency is what makes the U.S. "intelligent" on the world scene.
As the CIA's factbook expounds, the CIA is responsible for:
* Providing accurate, evidence-based, comprehensive and timely foreign intelligence related to national security; and
* Conducting counterintelligence activities, special activities, and other functions related to foreign intelligence and national security, as directed by the president.
It's a general set of duties, but much of what the CIA does changes on a case-by-case basis. If the U.S. is involved in a conflict, needs to respond to a foreign crisis or suspects an international act of terrorism is going to take place, the CIA is put on the case. Once the agency has figured out what's going on, it sends in the FBI to handle the situation. As far as your future employment with the CIA is concerned, the first step is to realize that it's international and advisory in nature, with a few select people (spies) engaging in activities to help inform those decisions.
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