As one who did technical intelligence for some 30 years, I always admired those who did human intel. My closest connection to that real world was being asked to volunteer to enter a nation with a blue passport without any military clothing. We were to setup equipment, get it operational with an unknown transfer condition. Since I had a family to worry over, I declined. The more normal condition was a red passport, civilian clothes generally but no scrubbing of military identity. But there were places that we went into knowing that officially we were "never there". I am told the only way to prove that fact lies within travel payment records but it has never been that important to get around events that "never happened".
It's refreshing that some stories of the past do get told some 50 years later, but few involved in those adventures will ever put them to paper or go though the hoops to publish. Even trying to spring loose documents long since declassified is an arduous process left to professionals at FOIA requests.
Thanks for the anecdotes, they do bring up old memories. Sad that many stories to be told will never see the light of day.
Bravura piece. I am abashed; I cannot equal it. Lots of decades of work here.
I will instead, cheaply, throw out (what I hope is) an amusing anecdote; a CIA case officer of my acquaintance mistakenly put his issue handgun and two full magazines through carry-on baggage on a commercial airline. He also provided me with one of the finest aphorisms I have ever heard in my life: "First I was in the Marine Corps, where you were expected to tell the truth. Then I was in private business, where you are expected to lie. Now I'm here and I don't know what the fuck this is."
As one who did technical intelligence for some 30 years, I always admired those who did human intel. My closest connection to that real world was being asked to volunteer to enter a nation with a blue passport without any military clothing. We were to setup equipment, get it operational with an unknown transfer condition. Since I had a family to worry over, I declined. The more normal condition was a red passport, civilian clothes generally but no scrubbing of military identity. But there were places that we went into knowing that officially we were "never there". I am told the only way to prove that fact lies within travel payment records but it has never been that important to get around events that "never happened".
It's refreshing that some stories of the past do get told some 50 years later, but few involved in those adventures will ever put them to paper or go though the hoops to publish. Even trying to spring loose documents long since declassified is an arduous process left to professionals at FOIA requests.
Thanks for the anecdotes, they do bring up old memories. Sad that many stories to be told will never see the light of day.
Bravura piece. I am abashed; I cannot equal it. Lots of decades of work here.
I will instead, cheaply, throw out (what I hope is) an amusing anecdote; a CIA case officer of my acquaintance mistakenly put his issue handgun and two full magazines through carry-on baggage on a commercial airline. He also provided me with one of the finest aphorisms I have ever heard in my life: "First I was in the Marine Corps, where you were expected to tell the truth. Then I was in private business, where you are expected to lie. Now I'm here and I don't know what the fuck this is."