20 April 2001
Source: Compiled from multiple files at the CIA Web site:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/di/index.html
DI Mission and OrganizationThe Role and Mission of the Directorate of IntelligenceOrganization of the Directorate of Intelligence
Organizational Components [Chart]
Organizational Components [Descriptions]
Collection Requirements and Evaluation Staff
DCI Crime and Narcotics Center
Office of Asian Pacific and Latin American Analysis
Council of Intelligence Occupations
DCI Environmental Center
Office of Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Analysis
Office of Policy Support
DCI Nonproliferation Center
Office of Russian and European Analysis
Office of Support Services
Office of Advanced Analytic Tools
Office of Transnational IssuesAnalysis: Directorate of Intelligence in the 21st Century
Guiding Organizational Precepts
DI Goals and Objectives
Major Provider of All-Source Analysis
Major All-Source Interface With Top Customers
Primary Driver of Collection
Leading Promoter and User of Technology
Model Work Force, Diverse and Highly Skilled
Public OutreachIntelligence Analysis in the DI: Frequently Asked Questions
Intelligence DisciplinesAdministrative Support
Collection
Economic Intelligence
Information Systems and Services
Management
Media Support
Scientific, Technical, and Weapons IntelligenceDaily Publications
Serial Publications
Research Intelligence
Reference AidsAnalytic Toolkit (Notes on Analytic Tradecraft)
Addressing US Interests in DI Assessments
Access and Credibility
Articulation of Assumptions
Outlook
Facts and Sourcing
Effective Summary
Implementation Analysis
Conclusions
Effective Use of Unique Intelligence
Analytic Tradecraft and Close Policy Support
Teamwork, Teams, and Getting the Job Done
Analytic Support for Negotiations
Analytic Support for Sanctions Monitoring
Mission. As the analytical arm of the CIA, the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) is charged with providing timely, accurate, and objective intelligence analysis on the full range of national security threats and foreign policy issues facing the United States.
Focus. The DI provides integrated, multidisciplinary analysis on key foreign countries, regional conflicts, and issues that transcend national boundaries such as terrorism, weapons proliferation, and narcotics trafficking.
Capabilities. The DI has unique analytic capabilities that exist nowhere else inside or out of government. The DI brings together a diverse, highly trained work force with state-of-the-art technology to analyze intelligence information drawn from clandestine and open sources.
Clients. The DI supports a range of intelligence consumers responsible for US foreign policy and national security, including the President, Vice President, Cabinet, National Security Council, a host of subcabinet officials, and a number of Congressional committees and specialized government agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Customs Service, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Products. The Directorate produces a large volume of individual intelligence products, including briefings, quick-reaction papers, and in-depth analyses. Most of these respond to specific requests by intelligence consumers. The DI also provides support to diplomatic negotiations and military operations.
The Directorate of Intelligence (DI), one of the Central Intelligence Agency's four directorates, serves as the executive agent for meeting CIA's responsibility to produce the bulk of CIA's finished intelligence products for the policymaking community.
Headed by the Deputy Director for Intelligence, the DI includes three offices which deal with regional issues, an office which addresses transnational issues, and another which provides information services and support. The DI also houses three interagency centers responsible for analysis of weapons proliferation, international crime and narcotics, and the environment. DI personnel are responsible for analysis of terrorist issues within the DCI Counterterrorist Center. With the Directorate of Science and Technology, the DI jointly manages an office which develops new automated analytic tools.
Collection Requirements and Evaluation Staff
The Collection Requirements and Evaluation Staff (CRES) serves as the DI focal point for obtaining the information needed by DI analysts. The staff is responsible for tasking Intelligence Community collectors in all disciplines, including imagery, signals intelligence, and human intelligence. Educating analysts on tasking procedures and collections capabilities is part of the mission. To ensure that collectors are accountable for responding to DI collection needs, CRES is the Agency focal point for evaluating collection systems and for decisions on future systems and collection-related resource issues. The staff also serves as the Agency focal point for a variety of DI-related intelligence policy issues including information release.
The Directorate of Intelligence houses the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Crime and Narcotics Center (CNC), which monitors, assesses, and disseminates information on international narcotics trafficking and international organized crime to policymakers and the law enforcement community. The DCI Counternarcotics Center was established in April 1989, and its mission and name were expanded to include international organized crime in l994. The Center is staffed with representatives from all four Directorates in CIA and includes the direct participation of most Intelligence Community, countercrime, and counternarcotics law enforcement and policy agencies.
The Office of Asian Pacific and Latin American Analysis (APLA) analyzes political, economic, leadership, societal, and military developments related to Asian, Pacific, and Latin American regional issues and the affairs of individual countries.
APLA conducts multidisciplinary short-, medium-, and long-term research projects and produces integrated analysis and quick response reports on individual countries, on related groups of states, and on issues that cross national boundaries.
APLA alerts the White House, the National Security Council, US negotiators, select departments in the Executive branch, military and law enforcement bodies, Congressional committees, foreign governments, and other appropriate US officials to significant developments in East Asia and Latin America.
The main objective of the Council of Intelligence Occupations (CIOC) is to ensure a steady supply of talent so that the DI has the expertise needed to provide value-added all-source analysis to its customers. The Council works closely with DI managers to project future expertise requirements, measure current skill levels against those requirements, and develop a plan that fills projected gaps through recruiting, training, and developmental assignments.
The Council views learning and skills development as an essential part of work and the means whereby employees can respond to changes in customer priorities and the external environment. In support of these goals, the Council is charged with establishing a professional development program for all DI employees that provides explicit proficiency criteria at each level so that everyone can see the knowledge, skills, and experiences required for advancement within each occupation or across occupations.
The intelligence occupations are organized into the following categories:
The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Environmental Center (DEC) was
established in 1997 as the focal point for all Intelligence Community activities
related to environmental issues. Housed in the Directorate of Intelligence,
the Center produces, integrates, and coordinates assessments of the political,
economic, and scientific aspects of environmental issues as they pertain
to US interests. The DEC also provides data to the environmental community.
Specific DEC programs include:
The Office of Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Analysis (NESAF) conducts comprehensive political, social, economic, military, and leadership research and analysis on the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.
NESAF contributes to current intelligence publications and produces multidisciplinary short-, medium-, and long-term papers, as well as quick response reports on individual countries, related groups of states, and issues that cross national boundaries.
NESAF alerts the White House, the National Security Council, US negotiators, select departments in the Executive branch, military and law enforcement bodies, Congressional committees, foreign governments, and other appropriate US officials to significant developments in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.
The office of Policy Support (OPS) manages the delivery of intelligence to
the most senior US policymakers. Two of its major elements are the President's
Analytic Support Staff and the CIA Operations Center:
OPS also houses several small staffs that provide critical quality control oversight for finished intelligence, document review and declassification services, and support for DI officers on rotational assignment to policymaking agencies.
The Directorate of Intelligence houses the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Nonproliferation Center (NPC), established in September 1991 as the focal point for all Intelligence Community activities related to nonproliferation. The NPC develops and updates strategic plans, enhances collection efforts, and assesses information to provide policymakers with a coordinated view on nonproliferation issues. It provides central leadership, resource guidance, and evaluation of Intelligence Community activities that support US policy, military, licensing, enforcement, and congressional entities involved in stemming the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) -- nuclear, biological, and chemical -- and their missile delivery systems. NPC also coordinates and guides intelligence support related to stemming transfers of advanced conventional weapons and associated technologies.
The Office of Russian and European Analysis (OREA) analyzes political, economic, societal, and military developments in Europe, Russia, and other Eurasian states.
OREA conducts multidisciplinary medium- and long-term research projects and produces integrated analysis and quick response reports on individual countries, related groups of states, and issues that cross national boundaries. OREA also produces several serial publications on issues that affect US national security policy. This office provides intelligence analysis and support to arms control negotiations and treaty monitoring efforts.
OREA alerts the White House, the National Security Council, US negotiators, select departments in the Executive branch, military and law enforcement bodies, Congressional committees, foreign governments, and other appropriate US officials to significant developments in the European arena, Russia, and other Eurasian states.
The Office of Support Services (OSS) enables the production and dissemination of finished intelligence and fosters the modernization of information systems and production support services. OSS develops and engineers information handling systems; operates intelligence dissemination systems; and operates, maintains, and populates the DI's corporate knowledge and retrieval systems. In addition, OSS applies quantitative analytic techniques to solve intelligence problems; enhances the quality of analysis; and provides cartographic, design, multimedia, video, and publishing services to enhance the value of finished intelligence. OSS also provides training and consulting services for DI information systems, software, and knowledge repositories.
Advanced Analytic Tools (AAT) is a joint office of the Directorate of Intelligence and the Directorate of Science and Technology. AAT was created to improve the quality of analysis through the effective use of state-of-the art information technologies. The goal of the office is to bridge the gap between technology research and information service. AAT acquires, develops, evaluates, and makes available advanced methodologies, hardware, and software to help analysts better meet the nation's security needs.
The Office of Transnational Issues (OTI) produces analytic assessments on
critical intelligence-related issues that transcends regional and national
boundaries. Drawing on a broad range of experts in engineering, science,
and social science disciplines, OTI focuses on four core program areas: weapons,
foreign technologies, economic security, and societal conflicts. OTI serves
a variety of customers in the Executive branch and Congress with quick turnaround
assessments and in-depth studies. For example:
Unclassified: For Public Release
Key Excerpts from the DI Strategic Plan
August 1996
Guiding Organizational Precepts
We will strive for:
We have identified six goals for the Directorate to pursue in fulfilling this vision. These goals--which respond to national security concerns defined by the Executive branch as well as to criteria advanced by Congress--will enable the DI to renew its strategic focus and core business processes in keeping with the challenges of the next century. The DI in the 21st century will be the Intelligence Community's:
Major Provider of All-Source Analysis
Goal: The DI will be a major provider of all-source analysis on issues of highest priority to our national security.
The DI, in close consultation with other Intelligence Community analytic components (National Intelligence Council, Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, DIA, and Department of Energy [DOE])--and key intelligence consumers--will promote a dynamic and continuing process to prioritize intelligence issues, to allocate resources against them, and to focus production on areas of comparative advantage for intelligence.Analytic depth--tradecraft skills plus substantive expertise--is the Directorate's core source of value to our customers, including how it is mobilized and concentrated against specific high-priority issues and how it is presented to our users. The quality, timeliness, and relevance of our products and services are attributable to effective teamwork among our information handling, production support, analytic, and administrative experts. The tradecraft skills needed by all officers, regardless of their area of substantive expertise, are:
- First-rate thinking, presentation, and communication skills.
- Professional expertise in analytic and support disciplines.
- Extensive insight into the concerns and objectives of our consumers.
- Strong information handling ability including tapping into open sources and assisting and directing efforts of the collectors.
In the past year, we have identified our priority issues and redirected resources to cover them. All our analysts and analytic managers have attended our core analytic tradecraft course, Tradecraft 2000. To ensure that the DI continues to be a major provider of all-source analysis, we must improve our ability to:
- Identify gaps in expertise among all offices and professions in the Directorate, as defined by mission needs.
- Set goals for acquiring and developing expertise to fill those gaps. At all times, about 10 percent of the DI work force should be in full-time training.
- Ensure sufficient coverage on the highest priority issues, in consultation with IC colleagues.
- Evaluate the utility and effectiveness of our products and services.
- Reward substantive expertise.
Specific Actions
- Develop and implement a global coverage program--including a corporate knowledge capability--as part of the the "CIA Into the 21st Century" hard target/global coverage strategy.
- Conduct a detailed office assessment of DI-wide skills and expertise and develop a skills inventory database in conjunction with ongoing Human Resources Oversight Committee (HROC) initiatives.
- Identify existing gaps in expertise. Reassess Directorate recruiting, hiring, resource allocation, and professional development programs to ensure that they address priority gaps. Identify disciplines for core analytic and support functions and develop mechanisms for establishing standards for judging performance, generating initiatives to acquire and develop necessary expertise, and guiding the careers of the officers within the discipline.
- Create or enhance partnerships with substantive experts in other IC components, including the NIC, DIA, State/INR, DOE, and the military services, departments, and commands.
- Revolutionize the business of analysis by taking advantage of advances in information technology.
Major All-Source Interface With Top Customers
Goal: The DI will be a major all-source interface with key customers.
Strategic IntentThe Directorate has made significant customer support improvements in recent years through, for example, enhancing the President's Daily Brief process, deploying more experts to customer sites, and augmenting electronic connectivity across the Community through PolicyNet and Intelink. Resource constraints and a more diverse array of substantive issues and customers have brought additional challenges, however, impelling the Directorate to review the scope and effectiveness of the way it approaches customer support.
Historically, the Directorate successfully built relationships at the level of individual offices with key customers. We have deployed on-site representatives to key organizations in the policymaking, law enforcement, military, and counterintelligence communities. Today's more complex substantive agenda and highly interrelated issues make it imperative that we shift to a corporate approach to determining levels of customer support.
To address this challenge, the Directorate will establish corporate strategies for:
- Deploying and using on-site representatives.
- Enhancing electronic connections to interested customers.
- Enhancing support to the military in areas such as exercises, joint intelligence centers, and on-site support.
- Providing support to the law enforcment community.
- Obtaining and using customer feedback on a systematic basis.
- Disseminating intelligence with lowest possible classification.
- Increasing support to Congress.
Specific Actions
- Identify key customers and policy drivers for each priority issue.
- Conduct a baseline review of existing external rotational positions, assess where we should have future rotational positions, and develop a plan to ensure adequate support to these locations.
- Conduct a baseline review of existing customer feedback mechanisms and disseminate corporate feedback requirements to DI officers assigned to policy organizations.
- Assess the level of customer feedback required to monitor the quality of our product, develop a plan to collect the data systematically, and implement procedures to ensure that the data is used to adjust the level and type of support provided to each key customer.
- Identify which DI officers at customer locations currently have electronic connectivity to Headquarters, develop a prioritized list of where we should have connectivity, and implement a plan to provide connectivity.
- Improve the flexibility of our electronic connectivity, including dissemination of products, from the Agency to on-site officers and key consumers.
- Ensure DI employees enhance their knowledge of Congress and the legislative process.
Goal: The DI will be a primary driver of collection to meet key customer needs.
Strategic IntentOne of the DI's unique strengths is its role as all-source provider of intelligence. All-source analysis is predicated on successful all-source collection. Experience has shown that the most effective collection is usually driven by fully engaged analysts and, by extension, the customer base the analysts support. Analysts, collectors, and collection committees need to work together to develop and deploy collection assets and to continuously evaluate the effectiveness of collection activities and redirect them as needed. It is incumbent upon the DI to work with collectors to ensure that analysts are aware of collection capabilities to assist the analyst in providing appropriate all-source collection guidance.
We have had some success in enhancing the DI's role in collection. We have been effective in encouraging closer cooperation between DI analysts and the DO collectors, and we have expanded collection cells in many of the partnered organizations that include officers from other community organizations. We have integrated IC collection organization representatives into the CIA Operations Center and the Collection Requirements and Evaluation Staff (CRES) to ensure that these organizations are aware of the DI's day-to-day issues and concerns and that we know what the daily collection posture is on high-priority issues. Senior Directorate leaders have assumed active roles in collection program and policy groups.
Specific Actions
- Establish the DI List of Priority Issues as the basis for developing collection strategies and assessing collector performance.
- Develop corporate positions on investment strategies for IC collection, processing, and exploitation programs based on independent evaluations.
- Make collection an integral and valued part of the DI Tradecraft ethic and reward DI officers for successfully driving collection.
- Enhance our relationship with non-Agency collectors.
- Augment existing training to educate analysts on available collection resources and capabilities.
- Expand the use of technology to satisfy the growing demand for actionable intelligence to support collection decisions.
- Evaluate the substantive contribution of collection programs and platforms.
Leading Promoter and User of Technology
Goal: The DI will be a leading promoter and user of technology for collection, analysis, and delivery.
Strategic IntentModern information management tools facilitate change by streamlining corporate decisionmaking and facilitating the way we work--enabling us to do new things and operate more efficiently.
In the 1980s, the DI made great strides in applying ADP tools, but most employees saw computer knowledge as a specialty for the "experts." The DI is committed to ensuring that today's state-of-the-art collection and analytic technologies serve the interests of the all-source production community.
Integrating technology into DI strategic planning is an iterative process, however. The true role and impact of technology in the DI cannot be fully defined until best practices have been identified and shared throughout the Directorate and a consensus reached on changing our culture and behavior. We need to carefully assess the options and match our resources with our objectives.
While the hard target/global coverage approach detailed in the Agency's strategic plan provides a general framework for developing and implementing our technology initiatives, the DI must translate the abundance of possible technological approaches into the few key investments that will make a difference.
Our fundamental objectives include:
- Shifting our emphasis away from private holdings on proprietary systems to widespread availability (within security guidelines) on commercially open systems.
- Providing electronically delivered products with supporting raw intelligence data to our customers to reduce the time and effort and increase the quality of our reporting.
- Reducing the cost of today's information management systems while providing a superior level of service.
The DI already has made substantial progress in several important areas, including:
- Creating Intelink and deploying it to the analysts' desktop.
- Creating PolicyNet to support the policymaking and warfighting communities and Congress.
- Upgrading SAFE (Support to the Analyst File Environment) and ROSE (Rich Open Source Environment) and integrating them on the analysts' desktop.
Key goals to enable the DI to be a leading promoter and user of technology for collection and analysis include:
- Increasing access to information and enhancing its usability by analysts and policymakers, through, for example, integration of open-source and classified data, access to foreign language materials from the desktop, and easy scanning of important hardcopy into electronic form.
- Providing the framework for building a corporate knowledge database allowing us to improve the DI's ability to perform hard-target analysis and global coverage.
- Facilitating collaborative work to enhance all-source analysis and the efficient application of resources and expertise from across the DI to a given issue or problem at hand.
- Using the Internet model to facilitate customer support.
- Providing a consistent framework across the Directorate for business process reengineering.
Specific Actions
- Establish a DI-Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) advanced analytic tools office to apply new information technologies to analysis.
- Maximize the use of PolicyNet for briefing key consumers.
- Establish electronic connectivity with all IC entities.
- Initiate a business process reengineering effort in the Directorate.
- Maximize the use of commercial off-the-shelf solutions to overcome resource constraints.
- Integrate unclassified and classified data on the desktop.
- Enhance work tools such as shared electronic whiteboards and at-desk videoconferencing to facilitate collaboration within the DI and across agencies.
- Make data more persistent. Information collected years ago should be as accessible and usable as that collected yesterday. This will require a commitment to backfill older records into the corporate knowledge base.
- Facilitate easy, academic-style references and electronic hyperlinking to the raw data underlying analytic judgments in our finished intelligence products.
Model Work Force, Diverse and Highly Skilled
Goal: The DI will be a model work force, diverse and highly skilled, in which all personnel are provided the training and encouragement to achieve their potential in support of the Directorate's mission.
Strategic IntentPeople are, and will continue to be, the DI's most valuable resource. While important strides have been made in recent years in addressing significant human resource challenges confronting the Directorate, such as promoting diversity, recognizing and rewarding performance, and implementing flexible work schedules, we must build on these successes to assist in addressing the evolving mission of the Directorate in the 21st century.
Over the last few years, the DI has made substantial progress in enhancing our human resource management effort. We have an active diversity management staff, which will complete a strategic diversity plan by September 1996. Our recruiting efforts have been revitalized, and we have created a vigorous student program. The DI completed job analysis for a new competency-based performance appraisal report (PAR). We will pilot our competencies and PAR form beginning in August 1996. In addition to innovative steps taken to address the special professional needs of secretaries, intelligence assistants, and production specialists, we are striving to provide alternative work schedules for all employees who desire such a schedule.
Under the auspices of Human Resources Oversight Council (HROC), the DI will pilot our new PAR and Upward Feedback program--a developmental tool through which managers are held accountable for their management skills--for managers at all levels. The DI will work with the other Directorates under HROC in developing and implementing Agency-wide programs in support of the Agency's future human resource management system. In general, these programs fall under seven main headings:
- Recruiting.
- Staffing and selection.
- Employee development.
- Evaluation.
- Compensation.
- Training.
- Information Management Systems.
Key human resource management goals necessary to create the model work force include:
- Improving our recruiting and hiring processes to ensure a systematic approach to diversity and other strategic goals.
- Enhancing career development opportunities through training, rotational assignments, and a more open assignments process.
- Establishing clear performance management standards.
- Balancing professional and personal needs through clear, consistent personnel policies that are sensitive to individual and family needs while ensuring successful fulfillment of the DI's mission.
- Maintaining and managing a skills inventory.
- Developing a new nonmonetary awards system which will focus on performance excellence.
Specific Actions
- Established in July 1996, a Human Resources Staff to manage a Directorate system to promote the DI vision and key goals and objectives. The Chief of this staff will oversee the implementation of the HROC proposals.
- Complete the first Directorate-wide upward feedback exercise as an HROC pilot.
- Conduct a detailed DI-wide skills and expertise inventory identifying existing gaps in expertise against priority needs; reassess DI recruiting, hiring, training, and professional development goals to ensure that they address gaps; and develop options to fill gaps.
- Develop specific training initiatives for post Tradecraft 2000 DI skills courses; encourage and support development and enhancement of language, substantive expertise, and information technology courses; rebuild DI management courses and increase support for instructor positions.
- Create the criteria for the Senior Analyst/Expert Cadre that will clearly delineate what will be expected for advancement.
Goal: The DI will be a leader in constructive engagement with academia, business, and the US public.
Strategic IntentThe DI will need greater interaction with outside experts to meet the broad and complex analytic challenges it faces. It must position itself to compete in a new information age in which consumers increasingly will have ready access to alternative sources of high-quality data and expertise.
Greater engagement with outside experts will yield useful information and insight, along with constructive challenges to our working assumptions, that can only sharpen our analysis.
The Directorate's progress to date--in establishing initial Internet connectivity, engaging in public speaking, and reaching out to academia and the national laboratories--has been significant but uneven. The DI Corporate Board will be in the forefront of a major effort to increase this interaction.
In establishing the new position of DI Communications Chief, we are sending a signal that public outreach will be one of the Directorate's highest priorities, embracing all levels of the organization in a coherent, corporate plan. The Chief's main duties will include external liaison to increase Directorate outreach to key groups and the American public.
In addition, the Directorate will strive to improve electronic connectivity with external public- and private-sector colleagues, including more effective use of the Internet.
Specific Actions
- Established in July 1996, a DI Communications Chief position to drive an expanded, carefully articulated, corporate approach to outreach and internal communications.
- Expand official contacts with academia, industry, the public, etc. while simultaneously enhancing internal communication, the exchange of information and ideas.
- Promulgate clear and consistent policies and procedures to guide corporate outreach activities, enabling both senior and junior DI employees to participate in public affairs activities according to appropriate ground rules.
- Establish desktop external electronic connectivity, including greater use of the Internet.
Key Events in DI History
1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s
The Office of Reports and Estimates is created under interagency Central Intelligence Group to perform intelligence research, produce current intelligence and write National Intelligence Estimates for policymakers.
President Truman asks for a daily intelligence report. The Daily Summary is first published.
President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 creating CIA.
Interagency National Intelligence Survey (NIS) program established to provide basic intelligence information on the USSR and 102 other countries. Each survey addressed military geography, transportation and communication, sociological developments, political issues, economic issues, scientific issues, and military affairs.
The National Security Council (NSC) commissions Allen Dulles--New York lawyer and veteran of the Office of Strategic Services, the Agency's World War II forerunner--to study CIA; his committee examines Agency activities and meets with policymakers on CIA's support.
Resultant Dulles Report criticizes lack of intelligence coordination between CIA, the military services, and the State Department, particularly in the production of National Intelligence Estimates; he recommends that national estimates be an interagency effort. NSC endorses recommendations and orders CIA reorganization to implement them.
Soviets explode first atomic bomb a year ahead of earliest Intelligence Community (IC) projection; CIA comes under criticism.
Walter Bedell Smith is confirmed as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). He announces he will implement the Dulles Report. The Office of Research and Reports (ORR) assumes responsibility for basic intelligence, and the Office of National Estimates (ONE), headed by William Langer.
Dr. Max Millikan from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) becomes associate director of ORR and writes blueprint for Agency economic analysis.
Office of Current Intelligence is established to produce the President's daily intelligence publication, now revamped and renamed the Current Intelligence Bulletin.
DCI Smith establishes the Directorate of Intelligence, successor organization to the ORR, to streamline the production of finished intelligence.
Loftus Becker, an attorney who had served as military adviser at the Nuremberg War Trials, becomes the first Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI).
Sherman Kent succeeds Langer as the head of ONE.
President Truman directs CIA to brief presidential candidates Eisenhower and Stevenson--a practice that continues today.
Robert Amory, a Harvard University law professor, becomes the second DDI.
President Eisenhower asks MIT President James Killian to study US military and intelligence capabilities; Killian forms the Technological Capabilities Panel, which recommends greater use of science and technology to improve collection. The panel's recommendation supports development of high-flight reconnaissance.
To address Intelligence Community concerns about Soviet missile program, DDI Amory appoints a DI Guided Missile Coordinator. Analysts concluded (in 1961) that the Soviets were far behind the United States in intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) deployment, thereby putting to rest the so-called "missile gap" controversy.
First U-2 aerial reconnaissance missions provide new intelligence on hard-to-reach Soviet targets; DI analysts play a key role in developing realistic estimates of the size of the Soviet bomber force.
DI Statistical Register created to support photo interpretation efforts.
Statistical Register renamed the CIA Photographic Interpretation Center, an Intel community entity responsible for tactical and strategic photo intelligence.
The DDI creates a small staff to identify intelligence problems that could benefit from automated information processing support. The staff identifies Soviet defense spending estimates as one and work begins on the Strategic Cost Analysis Model.
First reconnaissance satellite, codenamed Corona, launched--revolutionizes collection, greatly increasing information on denied areas, such as the USSR, Communist China, and their allies.
The Department of Defense and CIA/DI merge photo interpretation efforts into the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), headed by Arthur Lundahl.
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is created to support the intelligence needs of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff.
After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President John F. Kennedy stops reading the Current Intelligence Bulletin. CIA wins him back with a new publication, the President's Intelligence Checklist; specifically tailored to his interests and including the most sensitive intelligence. The Bulletin has continued publication and was subsequently renamed the National Intelligence Daily.
Ray Cline, a career CIA officer, becomes DDI.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a special "Situation Room"--a forerunner of the CIA Operations Center--was set up to cover all of the current information on the crisis.
The CIA Operations Center established; it runs 24 hours a day.
The Office of Central Reference begins production of the monthly series, Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments.
The President's Intelligence Checklist is renamed the President's Daily Brief.
DCI John McCone and Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance agree that CIA retain primary responsibility for foreign military-economic analysis, which prevents duplication of effort by CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency.
The Office of Research and Reports is renamed the Office of Economic Research, reflecting the final separation of the office from its noneconomic functions.
R. Jack Smith, a career CIA analyst, becomes DDI.
The Office of Strategic Research, designed to pull together various aspects of strategic military intelligence, is created under the direction of Bruce C. Clarke, Jr.
Abbot Smith replaces Sherman Kent as Chairman of the Bureau of National Estimates.
Edward Proctor, a career CIA analyst and expert in Soviet military and economic issues, becomes DDI.
Military-Economic Advisory Panel created (members include leading academics and businessmen) to review CIA's analysis of Soviet defense spending.
National Intelligence Officer system initiated under the National Intelligence Council (NIC); it provides experts at the DCI level to advise and coordinate between agencies on key issues and replaces the Board of National Estimates.
National Photographic Interpretation Center transferred from the DI to the Directorate of Science and Technology
The National Intelligence Survey (NIS) basic intelligence program canceled because of Intelligence Community budget constraints.
Sayre Stevens, an expert in scientific and technical intelligence, becomes DDI.
In response to criticism about Intelligence Community analysis on future Soviet military strength, DCI George Bush agrees to the A Team/B Team competitive analysis exercise as part of the preparation of National Intelligence Estimate, "Soviet Forces for Intercontinental Conflict Through the Mid-1980s."
DDI Stevens commissions a private consulting firm to study DI interdisciplinary research and analysis.
DI reorganized into the National Foreign Assessment Center (NFAC). NFAC includes a Center for Policy Support to serve as interface to the policy community; an Office of Regional and Political Analysis to produce current, mid-range, and long-term research; and assumes direction of the Offices of Scientific Intelligence and Weapons Intelligence.
Robert R. Bowie, a distinguished professor at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs, becomes NFAC's first director.
CIA implements a system for online delivery of electronic cable traffic.
Bruce C. Clarke, Jr., whose background is strategic military intelligence, becomes NFAC's second director.
Arms Control and Intelligence Staff (ACIS) established as central point in NFAC for intelligence support on arms control issues.
Advanced Analyst Training Program established, allowing full-time academic study as well as travel to support research projects.
John N. McMahon, a CIA veteran with broad experience, becomes the third director of NFAC.
NFAC creates Technology Transfer Assessment Center to perform multidisciplinary analysis and intelligence support on international transfer of technology affecting national security.
NFAC reorganizes; most functional offices are replaced with interdisciplinary regional offices. NFAC is renamed the Directorate of Intelligence.
Robert M. Gates, a career intelligence officer and expert on the Soviet Union, becomes DDI.
Robert Ames, director of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis, is killed in the terrorist bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut.
DI Modernization Task Force established to develop an ADP plan and address manpower and organizational issues.
New information technology tools give analysts a 90-day search capability for cable traffic.
The first DI Local Area Network system operational.
Counterterrorism Center established under the Directorate of Operations to help combat growing international terrorist threat. DI officers serve in its analytic components to provide regional and functional expertise.
Richard J. Kerr, a senior Agency official whose background is military analysis, becomes DDI.
CRAY supercomputer installed in the DI.
Counterintelligence Center (CIC) is established in Directorate of Operations; DI officers serve in CIC to provide analytical support.
DCI Counternarcotics Center (CNC) is established, bringing together officers from across the Agency with the direct participation of most Intelligence Community and counternarcotics law enforcement and policy agencies.
John L. Helgerson, former analyst and director for Congressional affairs, becomes DDI.
DI Persian Gulf Task Force established to provide senior policymakers and the military 24-hour intelligence support.
DCI Nonproliferation Center is established to strengthen DI interface to the policy community on the growing issue of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which is fueled by the demise of the Soviet Union.
DCI Interagency Balkan Task Force created in response to growing turmoil in Yugoslavia.
Dr. Lansing H. Bennett, from the Office of Leadership Analysis, and another Agency employee are killed in a terrorist attack at the entrance to CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Douglas J. MacEachin, former Director of Soviet Analysis, becomes DDI.
Daily Economic Intelligence Bulletin introduced to support to senior economic policy makers.
DDI MacEachin establishes a committee to examine options for reorganizing and downsizing the DI.
First running of Tradecraft 2000, a mandatory course for DI analysts and managers to reinforce and enhance core DI analytical and presentational skills.
John C. Gannon, former director of European Analysis, becomes DDI.
DI's Strategic Plan for the 21st Century is published. It identifies principles and strategies to meet intelligence demands and enhance organizational flexibility.
African Great Lakes Task Force established to provide intelligence support on crises in Zaire, Rwanda, and Burundi.
DI reorganization implemented; new offices have new directors and issue-level managers. Occupational Council established to support professional development of analytic and support cadres.
Director of Central Intelligence Deutch establishes the DCI Environmental Center, housed in the DI, as the focal point in the Intelligence Community for environmental issues.
John E. McLaughlin, former Vice-Chair of the National Intelligence Council, with background in European and Soviet issues, becomes DDI.
Director of Central Intelligence Tenet augments the DCI Nonproliferation Center by shifting analytical units into the Center and establishing a Senior Scientist position, thereby creating the largest concentration of proliferation experts in the Intelligence Community.
After India conducts an unannounced nuclear test, DCI Tenet commissions Admiral David Jeremiah (USN, Retired) to review the Intelligence Community’s performance on India; Jeremiah offers recommendations to enhance the Community's warning capability.
Office of Policy Support is established to enhance quality and delivery of DI services and products, including the new Senior Executives Intelligence Brief, which replaced the 37-year-old National Intelligence Daily.
Intelligence Analysis in the DI: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary objective of intelligence analysis?The overarching goal is to minimize the uncertainty with which US officials must grapple in making decisions about American national security and foreign policies.
Sometimes analysts help US policymakers make sense of complex issues. In other instances, analysts must call attention to an emerging problem or threat to US interests. Analysts almost always seek to help policymakers understand the perspective of their counterparts in other countries.
How do analysts present their findings to US policymakers?
Invariably, analysts work on the basis of incomplete and conflicting information. DI analysts are taught to clearly articulate what is known (the facts), how it is known (the sources), what drives the judgements (linchpin assumptions), the impact if these drivers change (alternative outcomes), and what remains unknown.
Where do DI analysts get their information?
DI analysts are "all-source" analysts. They review all types of information -- everything from foreign newspapers to US diplomatic reports to sensitive technical collection. Analysts must review all sources of information with the objective not only to determine what is accurate but what is relevant to the policymaker's needs.
How do analysts add value to the information?
In the Directorate of Intelligence, analysts:
- Maintain objectivity and preserve the integrity of analytic judgements.
- Deliver analytical products to the right people in time to be useful in decisionmaking.
- Convey the information in a format that the policymaker finds most useful, whether it may be oral briefings, written documents, electronic transmissions, or some combination of the three.
- Use customer feedback to help drive the collection of additional intelligence.
Who is involved in the preparation of analytical products?
DI analysts depend upon the support of many other intelligence professionals to prepare and deliver their analytical products. Cartographers, graphic artists, statisticians, and computer and technical specialists all work together to achieve a common goal: to provide timely, accurate, prescient intelligence to the nation's leaders.
The Directorate of Intelligence brings together hundreds of substantive experts in a variety fields, including area studies, economics, engineering, and the physical sciences. The DI is committed to rewarding substantive expertise among all employees and fostering career-long learning and professional development.
To help foster career-long learning and professional development, the DI categorizes the broad areas of substantive expertise into eleven separate disciplines, or intelligence occupations. Each discipline has its own mission, responsibilities, and core competencies.
MissionDI administrative support personnel support administrative affairs,including resource planning, procurement contracting, human resourcemanagement, recruitment, travel, training, logistics, security,information management, and secretarial services. The DI administrative support infrastructure facilitates DI managers and analysts in meeting theunique intelligence requirements of our consumers.
Definition
DI Administrative Support personnel possess in-depth knowledge in one or more of a number of specialties within the following areas:
- Resource Planning: Budget preparation and execution;procurement contracting management; and training, foreign and domestic travel, and logistics requirements.
- Human Resources Management: Recruitment and staffing issues, career development counseling, panel support, diversity and equal employment opportunity issues, and grievance counseling.
- Information Management: Records creation, maintenance, and disposition; electronic records management; and classification, and downgrading guidance.
- Secretarial: Office management, typing and formatting DIreports and memoranda, records management, time andattendance recorder, escorting visitors, and answeringtelephone.
Training/Core Competencies
DI administrative support personnel receive appropriate internal andexternal training (including some required courses). They possess an overall knowledge of the Agency's and DI's mission and functions, as well as regulations, policies, and procedures and have strong planning, organizational, and prioritization skills.
MissionDI officers in the collection occupation develop and implement strategies to address the DI's collection issues - getting the information the Directorate needs, translating analyst information needs into planned and funded future collection capabilities, forecasting the need for changes in collection policies, and evaluating the substantive contributions of intelligence collection programs. All DI collection analysts require broad knowledge of DI analytical issues, broad knowledge of Intelligence Community collection systems and processes, and strong knowledge of the Intelligence Community and its dynamics. Collection analysts produce analysis and evaluative information on significant collection issues, provide staff support to enable the CIA and DCI to achieve their collection objectives, and represent the interests of the Directorate, Agency, and DCI in various forums.
Definition
Collection analysts also develop specialized competencies in one or more areas of concentration:
- Requirements Analysis: In this area of concentration, the practitioner develops and implements all-source collection strategies to get the information the DI needs
- Policy Analysis: Policy analysts forecast the need for changes in policies for intelligence collection and intelligence data-handling and helps make those changes happen.
- Program Analysis: Program analysts translate DI information needs into planned and funded future collection capabilities.
- Collection Performance Evaluation: In this area of concentration, practitioners use statistical and other quantitative methods to assess the value of the substantive contributions of intelligence collection programs.
Training/Core Competencies
DI collection analysts at all levels receive appropriate internal and external training. They develop proficiencies in collection systems, programs, and capabilities; formal requirements tasking mechanisms and procedures; DI and Community priority intelligence issues and intelligence gaps; collection policy and priorities guidance; evaluative and decision support methodologies; and budget and programmatic issues. DI collection analysts require broad knowledge of DI analytical issues, broad knowledge of Intelligence Community collection systems and processes, and strong knowledge of the Intelligence Community and its dynamics.
MissionDI economic intelligence analysts support senior US policymakers by monitoring and assessing foreign economic policy and performance, licit and illicit trade and finance, energy issues, and civil high technology trends and developments that affect US security and economic interests. Analysts guide collection on these issues and alert policymakers to challenges and opportunities by assessing the economic factors, broadly defined, that shape the capabilities and intentions of foreign entities and their responsiveness to US policy initiatives.
Definition
Economic intelligence analysis is a multifaceted approach--comprising a wider scope of methodologies than traditional economic analysis-- to address the following issues:
- Economic policy, problems, and performance of countries key to US strategic and economic interests.
- Trade and capital flows bearing on international economic and financial stability.
- Trends and developments in critical markets, products, and commodities, including energy and food security, defense industry and trade, and foreign civil technology competitiveness.
- Negotiating strategies of foreign governments and foreign countries' compliance with trade and economic agreements.
- Networks supporting illicit transactions or evading multilateral or US economic sanctions against foreign governments.
- Foreign economic espionage and organized crime threats.
Many economic intelligence analysts cover country/regional economic and trade issues in regional offices, in collaboration with political and military intelligence analysts. Economic analysts working transnational economic issues cover such issues as multilateral trade and financial vulnerability, cutting-edge developments in civil high-tech industries, energy security, food security, environmental issues, sanctions monitoring, defense industries, and trade. A smaller number of analysts track flows of goods and money associated with proliferation, terrorism, drug money laundering, and gray arms trade, while others assess economic espionage threats and economic issues associated with organized crime. The DI has specialists who support analysis of economic issues in all these areas through the development of econometric models, databases, and other analytic tools.
Training/Core Competencies
DI economic intelligence analysis requires a basic understanding of economic processes and behavior and a working-level command of fundamental statistical methods. Most analysts enter on duty with such expertise or gain it by on-the-job training, internal and external training.
In addition, analysts require a thorough grasp of the economic issues and/or methodologies relevant to their assignment. Regional economic intelligence analysts need a working understanding of macroeconomic analysis, international trade and finance as well as knowledge of specific regional economic/political institutions and conditions. Depending upon their assignment, analysts working transnational issues will have command of methodologies for balance-of-payments and financial analysis, the mechanics of trade and financial transactions, technology and industrial competitiveness analysis, energy engineering and economics, economic geography, defense economics and trade. DI quantitative specialists have command of econometrics and techniques for statistical analysis.
Information Systems and Services
MissionMembers of the Information Systems and Services (ISS) occupation provide quality information services to support the production of DI finished intelligence and the conduct of other core Agency activities.
Definition
DI Information Systems and Services personnel perform a range of services and the ISS occupation consists of three distinct professions: Information Resources, Analytic Methodology and Information Technology.
- Information Resources (IR) professionals have expert knowledge of the content of information resources, including the ability to critically evaluate and filter them. They collect, disseminate, and retain classified and unclassified documents; operate all-source libraries; and provide all-source reference services. They also assist in the organization of information, contributing to the growth of corporate knowledge.
- Analytic Methodology professionals develop and apply new or established analytic methods to add value, rigor and precision to analysis. They work closely with DI analysts to identify methodological aspects of their issue, determine what information they need, and then use a variety of quantitative and qualitative approaches to analyze the issue.
- Information Technology (IT) professionals manage DI-specific information systems and services, provide information systems training and consulting services for DI computer systems and software, manage large-scale DI production systems, and develop analytically-oriented and computer-based applications and tools.
Training/Core Competencies
Information Resources: Information Resource professionals need broad knowledge of: world events, various information sources and media, document policies and procedures and instructional techniques. They typically have strong research, information organization, and database navigational skills. Information Resource professionals are generally assigned to the DI/Office of Support Services (OSS) but also serve in regional or functional offices.
Analytic Methodology: Methodologists provide statistical, operations research, econometric, and mathematical modeling support to Agency analysis, and interpret results in both technical and non-technical forms. They have experience using software, modeling languages and simulation, facilitation and elicitation techniques, and automated analytic systems.
Employees likely to select this profession are generally assigned to the DI/Office of Support Services (OSS) but may be on rotation to regional or functional offices. Individuals seeking a career in Analytic Methodology typically have backgrounds in the development and application of quantitative techniques, such as mathematical programming, survey design and analysis, engineering, and/or imagery analysis and operations.
Information Technology: All practitioners of IT need broad knowledge in the areas of: IT trends and directions; IT architecture; emerging technologies; system and technology integration; product and vendor evaluation; information systems standards, procedures and policies; data management; software; hardware; telecommunications; computer operations; systems management and administration and data security administration. IT professional standards--developed by an Agency-wide team of IT professionals--represent the roles and functions of IT professionals Agency-wide.
IT Field: Areas of Concentration
The IT profession has seven areas of concentration that group together related IT job areas and constitute distinct combinations of specialized knowledge and skill necessary to perform within those job areas. At the same time, there is overlap in the knowledge and skill required in the areas of concentration, and this overlap facilitates movement between areas of concentration by the IT professional wishing to do so.
Application Services:Employees in the Application Services discipline develop, test, and support application systems; develop functional requirements; lead and coordinate activities of application development or support teams; and perform or lead the technical design and development of applications. The Application Services professional needs in-depth knowledge in business analysis methods, application architecture, application development tools, and design and development methods and standards. They need broad understanding of application delivery methodologies, and the software and hardware infrastructure. In the DI, Application Services professionals are generally in the Office of Support Services (OSS) but also serve in regional or functional offices.
Customer Services:
Employees in the Customer Services discipline focus on customer service management; first line, desktop technology and help desk support; relationship management, and site support. The Customer Services professional needs broad knowledge across the board to provide technical and operational support and problem resolution for technology. Such knowledge includes: familiarization with a variety of commercial products or applications; experience with hardware, software, and network components installation; and understanding of scheduling, operations, and delivery processes and procedures for all information systems related activities. Customer Services professionals practice this specialty from information services staffs in the DI's Office of Support Services (OSS) and in regional and functional offices and from centralized help desks.
Data Management:
Employees in the Data Management discipline focus on data standards and procedures, data warehousing, database design and development, data model design, distributed data management, information management, and data dictionary maintenance. The Data Management professional needs in-depth knowledge in business analysis methods, database structures, design and administration, data organization and warehousing, and information security. They need broad knowledge of the hardware and software infrastructure and computer operations. Data Management professionals generally are in the DI's Office of Support Services (OSS) but may also serve in regional or functional offices.
Infrastructure Management:
Employees in the Infrastructure Management discipline lead the conduct of capacity planning; design and development of the technology infrastructure; support of hardware, software and office systems; software distribution; systems performance; and technology integration. The Infrastructure Management professional needs broad knowledge of data management, the hardware and software infrastructure, telecommunications, computer operations, and systems management and administration. This discipline is practiced in the DI's Office of Support Services (OSS) and other information service provider offices.
Network Services:
Network Services professionals focus on enterprise-wide network architecture, infrastructure design and development, network services, technology integration, and telecommunications operations (up to, but not including, the servers). They need broad knowledge across the board to evaluate, implement and maintain existing and emerging telecommunications technologies; operate and monitor voice, data and video network(s); manage the planning and day-to-day operation of domestic and international voice, data and video networks; and lead the research, development and enterprise-wide integration and implementation of new and emerging telecommunications technologies. Such knowledge includes: data management, the hardware and software infrastructure, telecommunications, encryption, computer operations, and systems management and administration. Although Network Services professionals support the DI's mission and work, their expertise is generally applied in components outside the DI.
Operations:
Employees in the Operations discipline focus on the operation of production systems, production scheduling and control; reports distribution, service level support, administration and controls; equipment operation, backup, recovery, and disaster recovery planning. The Operations professional needs broad knowledge of application delivery tasks, data management, hardware and software infrastructure, telecommunications, computer operations, and systems management and administration. This discipline is practiced in DI/Office of Support Services (OSS) and other information service provider offices.
Technology Exploitation:
Employees in the Technology Exploitation discipline focus on enterprise architecture, new technology implementation support, research and evaluation of emerging technologies, strategic technology planning, technology consulting, and software validation. Technology Exploitation professionals need in-depth knowledge in application development tools, hardware and software architectures, information management and telecommunications. They need general knowledge of business analysis methods. This area of concentration is generally practiced in the joint DI/DS&T Office of Advanced Analytic Tools and, limitedly, in DI/Office of Support Services (OSS) and other information service provider offices.
MissionIn collaboration with other managers, DI managers establish directions and goals for the analytic and support programs they direct, lead the work force in achieving those goals, and help shape products and services that meet the needs of senior Agency management and national security, foreign policy, military, and law enforcement customers. Management in the DI requires the development of competencies in three key areas: organizing work, working with people, and working with ideas.
Definition
Effective managers in the DI execute the following tasks individually and corporately:
- Leadership. Set and pursue ambitious goals; champion new ideas and initiatives; foster entrepreneurship, innovation, and risk taking; maintain and project confidence, even when not supported by others; resist stress and work constructively under pressure, responding resourcefully to change and ambiguity; behave in accord with expressed beliefs and commitments and maintain high standards of integrity; and cultivate an active network of relationships inside and outside the organization, forging supportive alliances to achieve the organization's goals.
- Communication Skills. Encourage open expression of ideas and opinions; listen actively; and promote a free flow of information throughout the organization. Represent persuasively the views of the DI and Agency to customers, counterparts, and collectors; deliver clear, convincing, and well-organized written and oral presentations; and project credibility and poise even in highly visible, adversarial situations.
- Corporate Behavior. Contribute constructively and creatively to senior management deliberations in a manner that demonstrates good judgment, problem solving skills, integrity, and vision; demonstrate optimism and a strong commitment to the organization; work through conflicts to achieve win/win solutions.
- Customer Focus. Be cognizant of key customers and their issues and interests; articulate a clear vision of the unit's mission and how it will meet customers' needs; deliver quality intelligence and support services in a timely manner to customers inside and outside the Agency.
- Development and Evaluation. Attract and develop talent to advance the quality of the work force, including its diversity; teach employees fundamental tradecraft skills and emphasize continuous learning and professional development; monitor and oversee work; accurately appraise the performance of others and provide constructive feedback.
- Substantive Leadership. Provide intellectual leadership; foresee issues of intelligence concern, trends, opportunities, and obstacles; generate breakthrough ideas; develop a program, strategies, and action plans that reflect understanding of personnel development, budgetary management, and customer demand.
- Effective Work Practices. Drive execution of the program by assigning clear authority and accountability while giving subordinates the latitude to grow and achieve; integrate efforts across units and functions; and tackle problems directly and with dispatch.
- Interpersonal Skills. Establish open, candid trusting relationships; treat all individuals fairly, equitably, and with respect; adapt style and approach to match the needs of different individuals and teams.
The specific importance and scope of each of these tasks varies with the level of the managerial assignment. As a general rule, more senior managers will focus more on longer term strategic and resource issues while more junior managers--especially team leaders--will tend to focus more on near-term product, personnel, and program management issues.
Training/Core Competencies
Managers develop these competencies through internal, external, and on-the-job training. Personal initiative in developing a self-awareness of management skills, acquiring appropriate experience, and addressing development needs is essential to improving managerial competency. Managers should use informal and formal 360 degree performance feedback and counseling, self-assessment tools available in managerial training programs, and career path guidelines as important resources in this self-appraisal process. Experience outside the directorate that develops an understanding of the role and interrelationships of each organizational function and customer perspective is important to advancement beyond the team chief level.
MissionDI media support personnel produce and disseminate daily and serial intelligence reporting for policymakers, military commands, and other intelligence consumers; produce cartographic and graphic design products; provide editorial support, and prepare video and other multimedia productions. The DI media support infrastructure facilitates DI managers and analysts by assisting with: written, verbal, and video products tailored to the needs of specific recipients.
DefinitionDI media support personnel possess in-depth knowledge in one or more specialties within the following areas:
- Graphics Design: Establish and maintain overall publication design standards; provide design consultation; produce graphics and illustrations; and provide briefing materials.
- Cartography: Provide cartographic support for intelligence publications, briefings, and operations planning; maintain worldwide digital cartographic database; and serve as Agency authority for foreign place names.
- Editing: Edit and process serial and ad hoc publications for printing; maintain official production records; provide guidance on classification, and review all manuscripts to ensure proper classification.
- Video: Produce and direct audiovisual intelligence production, develop new means for presenting intelligence.
Training/Core Competencies
DI media support personnel receive appropriate internal and external training (including some required courses). They use traditional and electronic tools, applied to intelligence products delivered in hpaper, electronic, or web-based formats.
Media support professionals must understand their audience--both the producers and consumers of the intelligence--in order to meet their needs. They are expected to produce consistently high-quality products in a deadline-driven environment. Media support professionals also review and maintain standards and formats within the directorate for each area of concentration.
Scientific, Technical, and Weapons Intelligence
MissionDI scientific, technical (S&T) and weapons intelligence officers are responsible for working on challenging national security issues involving foreign weapon developments, weapon proliferation, information warfare, emerging technologies, as well as a number of additional issues requiring a scientific or technical approach, such as foreign environmental and energy developments. These officers apply their knowledge to assess complex intelligence problems; drive intelligence collection; and alert policymakers to challenges and opportunities that arise.
Definition
DI S&T and weapons intelligence officers address important US security, policy, and law enforcement issues that require a scientific or technical approach. Specifically the DI's S&T and weapon intelligence officers use their expertise to address :
- Characteristics, performance, programmatics, effectiveness, and development trends in foreign missiles and other advanced conventional weapons, including the impact on arms control regimes and regional force balances.
- Proliferation and counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems, to include the development of nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare capabilities; the legal and illicit transfer of technology, subsystems, complete systems, and production capabilities for weapons of mass destruction.
- Impact of critical defense and dual-use technologies on foreign defense programs and industries--including energy and telecommunications infrastructures. Foreign information warfare capabilities and trends.
- Scientific and technical aspects of environmental and other S&T issues; methodology and analytical tool development, which supports all the above analyses.
Training/ Core CompetenciesAll practitioners of S&T or weapons intelligence require a set of corecompetencies for assessing broad and complex issues of an S&T or weapons nature and providing consumers with both current intelligence and warning of emerging developments and long-term trends. These competencies include the ability to place foreign scientific, technical, or weapons-related developments in the context of US policy, national security, or law enforcement interests; to drive intelligence collection resources to obtain critical data on foreign S&T and weapon developments, programs, and capabilities; and to utilize specific tools and methodologies to research, analyze, and present scientific, technical, or weapons-related data. In addition, it is important that all S&T/Weapons intelligence officers develop and maintain substantive knowledge in their field so they can discuss authoritatively US and foreign developments, state-of-the-art research, and the key technical issues.
The Directorate of Intelligence (DI) delivers finished intelligence information and analysis in a variety of forms to US policymakers, law enforcement, and military officials. The DI also provides extensive support to the National Intelligence Council, which has primary responsibility for coordinating interagency estimates and warnings on foreign developments affecting US interests.
DI analysis may be delivered as written reports, oral briefings, or other forms tailored to the needs of the intelligence consumer, including maps, charts, photographs, or models.
Daily PublicationsThe DI's flagship products are its classified daily publications. Because information in them is often sensitive, these daily publications are all classified and made available only to a select group of senior officials.These publications -- particularly the President's Daily Brief and the Economic Executives' Intelligence Brief -- are tailored to serve the intelligence needs of their readers. They do this by providing analysis that helps policy officials work through their policy agendas. They also address day-to-day events, seeking to apprise consumers of new developments and related background, to assess their significance, to warn of near-term consequences, and to signal potentially dangerous situations in the near future.
- President's Daily Brief (PDB). Prepared six days a week, the PDB compiles intelligence items of the highest significance necessary for the President to perform the national security duties of his office. It is distributed only to the President, the Vice President, and a select group of executive branch officials designated by the President.
- Economic Executives' Intelligence Brief (EEIB). Prepared five days a week, the EEIB is designed to serve the intelligence needs of senior economic policy officials. It takes a multidisciplinary look at the issues on economic officials' agendas, including foreign trade practices, illicit finance, and international energy developments.
- Senior Executive Intelligence Brief (SEIB). Compiled in consultation with other intelligence agencies, the SEIB publishes key current intelligence items and is produced six days a week. it is tailored to the needs of senior officials throughout the United States Government responsible for national security. Many items from this publication are sent to major US military commands and selected US posts abroad.
The Directorate of Intelligence also produces an array of classified serial publications and situation reports to address more specialized topics on key countries and to provide support on important policy issues. Because they contain sensitive information, these publications are classified and disseminated to a designated group of officials.These publications include:
- Regional Reviews. Periodic assessments (ranging from daily to monthly) of foreign political, economic, military, and societal issues relevant to US interests. These publications, produced by the DI's regional analytic offices, deal with regional and national events in Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and the Slavic and Eurasian states of the former Soviet Union.
- The Terrorism Review. A monthly publication of the Counterterrorist Center, this product addresses current trends in international terrorism activity and methods. It also includes a chronology of international terrorist incidents.
- The Narcotics Monitor, published weekly by the Crime and Narcotics Center. It assesses narcotics-related developments worldwide.
- Proliferation Digest, published monthly by the DI. All components contribute articles on proliferation themes.
- The International Arms Trade Report, published bimonthly by the Office of Transnational Issues.
The DI also produces a substantial volume of medium- and long-term intelligence research on key foreign countries and transnational issues. The DI may use classified monographs, serial publications, or oral briefings to present its research. The DI produces three categories of intelligence monographs, all of them classified for use by designated officials:
- The Special Intelligence Report (SIR) provides high-level policymakers with a brief, highly focused analysis of an extremely important topic or event.
- The Intelligence Memorandum (IM) serves the policy community's needs for brief but somewhat more detailed analysis of important issues relevant to policymakers' responsibilities.
- The Intelligence Report (IR) offers all levels of the policy community written intelligence support, including basic research and information, responses to specific questions, situation reports, and briefing books.
The Directorate of Intelligence also publishes on a periodic basis a limited number of reference aids, which provide basic information drawn from publicly available sources on individual countries and issues. Some of these publications are unclassified and available to the public. They include:
- The World Factbook, produced annually by the Office of Support Services. It is a comprehensive compendium of basic intelligence profiles on more than 250 countries and other entities. Information on geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues is included.
- Chiefs of State and Cabinet Ministers of Foreign Governments is a directory of foreign government officials published monthly by the Office of Support Services.
The Analytic Toolkit is excerpted from Notes on Analytic Tradecraft, published between 1995 and 1997, which elaborate on some of the skills and methods used by DI intelligence analysts. These notes become a standard reference within CIA for practitioners and teachers of intelligence analysis.
These are a series of notes to clarify the standards used for evaluating DI assessments and to provide tips for putting the standards into practice.
Addressing US Interests in DI AssessmentsThe DI professional ethic requires that analysts provide direct support to policymakers' efforts to define and defend US national security interests. The standard is for DI products to convey distinctive value added that promotes feedback, tasking, and access generally. In many cases, this standard requires going beyond general relevance to US interests to customized assistance for identified policy officials who have the "action" on designing, implementing, or monitoring US policy on an individual issue.The ultimate judges of the utility of DI products for the policymaking process are the officials who choose whether or not to rely on them. The opportunities for adding distinctive intelligence values are usually clear to DI analysts when policy officials ask for a study, memorandum, or briefing. These officials indicate what they expect to gain from their request: for example, specialized information, research findings, cause-and-effect analysis; cost-benefit assessment of tactical alternatives.
The challenge to address effectively US interests is greater when the initiative for launching a DI product comes largely from the intelligence side of the relationship. It is here that Agency monitors (such as the staffs of the congressional oversight committees) are most likely to raise questions about the policymaking utility of individual DI products.
How to proceed? Each analytic assignment represents a distinctive opportunity for providing support to policy officials and the policymaking process. That said, veteran analysts and managers have garnered from direct experience and feedback from policy officials that DI products are usually best directed to meet the needs of the user when they are either organized around or specifically highlight one or more of the following values:
- Opportunities and dangers for US interests, especially unexpected developments that may require a US reaction.
- Motives, objectives, strengths, and vulnerabilities of adversaries, allies, and other actors.
- Direct and indirect sources of US leverage on foreign players and issues.
- Tactical alternatives for advancing stated US policy goals.
Veteran analysts and managers also recommend the following Tips for increasing the utility of DI assessments for policymakers.
Getting Started
- Think of the analyst's role as that of the objective or tough-minded expert for a policymaking team. Much of the time, hands-on policy officials know the "story" or general pattern of events overseas regarding their priority accounts. What they need most from the intelligence analyst is organized information, including specialized intelligence, that clarifies the goals and motives as well as the strengths and weaknesses of adversaries, allies, and other foreign players.
- Recognize that research and reporting are inputs or means to an end. The output is customized support to help policy officials get their jobs done--usually planning for, taking, or monitoring an action. The goal is to convert substantive expertise into action-support analysis before conveying it to consumers.
- Put a face as well as a name on the five to 10 policy officials who are the core customers on a country or functional account. Analysts should study what these officials have written or said on important substantive issues and debrief policy staffers who work for core consumers, as well as anyone on the intelligence side of the river who knows their professional habits. The goal is to learn how key officials absorb information and reach judgments, as well as their current priority interests.
- Target the policymakers' specific interest in a substantive issue. To identify lines of analysis that provide value added, analysts should think through what they would want to know if they were policymakers charged with leveraging an issue. That done, in drafting an assessment or outlining a briefing, the analysts bring to bear the DI's collective substantive expertise, distinctive collection resources, and rigorous analytic tradecraft.
- Be aware that consumers' needs may change as the policymaking process evolves. Policy officials often are receptive to broad analytic treatments when an issue first emerges and they are in their long-range planning or goal-setting phase. But once the lines of US policy are set, their focus shifts to specifics about vulnerabilities. Leverage, and other facets of policy implementation.
Special Challenges
- Support the policymaking process without engaging in policymaking per se. The "if, then" approach can facilitate close policy support without crossing the line to policy prescription. If the US policy goal is to get from A to B, then the analysts' research findings, all-source collection, and general expertise indicate the following opportunities for moving forward and dangers to be avoided.
- Long-shot threats and opportunities. Policy officials often have a strong interest in low-probability, high-impact dangers and objectives. DI analysis in support of policymaking in these circumstances should provide expert, tough-minded assessments that concentrate, not on whether an event is likely, but on how and why it might come about, including the leverage the United States has for constricting dangers and enhancing opportunities.
- Pointing is not choosing. Policy-support analysis at times requires the analyst to identify and clarify the vulnerabilities of adversaries and the sources of US leverage over allies and third parties as well as enemies. The responsibility and risk of choosing what actions to take remains with the policymaker.
- The timeliness challenge. When policy officials are engaged in managing day-to-day crises, they will use whatever information is available to them when a decision point comes. Rarely will they wait for intelligence analysis. To provide utility, intelligence updates and other analytic support must be delivered in time to meet decision and action deadlines.
Drafting and Self Review
- Convert issues into questions. One way to assure utility for policymakers is to organize an analytic effort around the known or presumed questions of key officials on the account. Whenever appropriate, use the questions as section headings, or otherwise make sure that the sections address the identified operational concerns of hands-on policy officials.
- Use the "so-what" test. In reviewing a first draft, analysts should evaluate the sections of the paper from the intended customers' point of view and ask-- so what? Does the draft address specifically and effectively what key policymakers need to know to get their jobs done?
- Or use the "action-support" test. As an alternative test of the policy utility of a draft, analysts can list the five or so matters they personally would like to see clarified if they were directly responsible for managing US policy action. Next to each entry, list the paragraphs of the draft that provide actionable information or insight. Adjust the draft if key identified concerns are not addressed or if too many of the paragraphs are not directly related to specific concerns.
The goal of enhancing the policy utility and analytic quality of DI papers and briefings is centered on efforts to promote analysts' access to and credibility with the US officials who count most in policymaking, warfighting, and law enforcement:
- The quest for access--and with it guidance, tasking, and feedback--is driven by the DI's determination to produce analysis for people, not publications.
- Commitment to credibility reflects the core professional value of presenting objective analysis to officials who often have a range of conflicting information and views on complex issues.
The two standards are complementary. Without credibility, analysts will lose their access to the hands-on policy and operational officials who need sound and reliable intelligence analysis to succeed in their professional missions. Without access, even unquestionably objective assessments do little to promote the effective use of intelligence by consumers.
As indicated below, the nine standards used to evaluate DI analytic performance reflect the importance of increasing access and protecting credibility:
- The first challenge for analysts is to make clear to key officials what's in it for them when asked to commit their most precious commodity--their time--to read or listen to a DI assessment. Thus, the need for analysts to address US interests effectively, provide value added via substantive expertise and special information, and summarize key points efficiently.
- The second challenge is to help key officials succeed in promoting US objectives by producing assessments that can be relied on for sound treatment of evidence, inference, and judgment.
Increasing Access
Addressing US Interests. The most important and demanding charge given to DI analysts is to assist US officials to fulfill their obligation to design, implement, and monitor national security policy. The highest standard is to structure DI assessments to underscore what officials need to know to get their jobs done (for example, about vulnerabilities and strengths of adversaries). When this is not practical, DI deliverables should contain a carefully crafted section that addresses implications, dangers, and opportunities with the role of US policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement officials as action officers clearly in mind.
Sophistication of the Analysis/Depth of Research. Especially in broadly distributed and fully developed assessments, analysts have to convey their distinctive expertise on an issue. This demonstration of authority to speak to the issue should be based on some combination of research methodology, firsthand knowledge of country or subject, all-source data bases, closeness to collectors, and clear articulation of facts and assumptions--attributes that make a busy policymaker want to come back to the analyst for additional information and analysis.
Unique Intelligence Information. Especially in quick turnaround deliverables for small numbers of key officials, the analyst should make appropriate use of unique, at times highly classified, information that provides insights not otherwise available to well-informed officials. Policymakers and warfighters who have the action on key issues almost always have the clearances as well. At times they need assistance, however, in understanding the context and character of intelligence from clandestine collection and other special sources.
Effective Summary. The analyst's charge is to convey the distinctive values of the paper in the prescribed space. To maximize service to heavily engaged officials, the most important findings and judgments should be highlighted within a bare-bones depiction of the general context. Even more than in the main text, the summary should be made "actionable" via emphasis on US policy implications.
Maintaining Credibility
The Facts--Or What We Know. With emphasis on what is new, different, attention-worthy, a DI assessment should set out what the Directorate knows with sufficient confidence to warrant reliance by policymakers and warfighters in planning and executing US courses of action. When relevant, DI deliverables should also address what analysts do not know that could have significant consequences for the issue under consideration. If the paper notes intelligence gaps, it should, when appropriate, suggest collection strategies to fill the gaps.
Sources of the Facts--How We Know It. DI assessments have to depict the sources of information on which consumers are asked to rely within the general rules for using evidence. Direct evidence (for example, imagery) should be distinguished from testimonial evidence (for example, human source reporting). On complex matters (for example, the attitudes and plans of foreign leaders) analysts should make explicit their levels of confidence in the evidence.
Conclusions. Assessments should enunciate the conclusory findings from the hard evidence (for example, well-documented events) in terms of trends, patterns, and precedents that underscore dangers or opportunities for US policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement officials. When appropriate, the calculus that leads to the extension of the factual base to an actionable finding should be spelled out (for example, rules used to establish degrees of risk in dual-purpose technological transfers).
Clear Articulation of Assumptions. When analysts address uncertainty--matters that require interpretations and estimates that go well beyond the hard evidence--their argumentation must clarify the premises, suppositions, and other elements of critical thinking that underlie the judgments. For example, effective argumentation for consumers, who will often have their own strong opinions, requires the analyst to clarify not only degree of confidence in key assumptions but also the criticality of the latter to bottom-line judgments.
Outlook. The outlook sections of estimative assessments (for example, the likely course and impact of political, economic, and military developments in foreign countries) should identify the dynamics that will have the greatest impact on subsequent developments. In other words, what are the drivers that will determine the outcome, or what drivers would have to change to alter the outcome?
- The analyst's judgment on the most likely outcomes must follow clearly from the marshaling of evidence and articulation of assumptions.
- When the US stake is high and plausible alternative outcomes are judged to be in the range of, say, 20 percent or greater, outlook sections should also identify the factors at play that could lead to unexpected developments, signposts of change, and events that could trigger a major shift in direction.
- On issues vital to US security (for example, military intentions of adversaries), analysts must help policymakers and warfighters engage in contingency planning by (1) addressing all factors at play that could influence subsequent events, (2) ranking their relative importance, and (3) relating them to a range of plausible outcomes, including alternatives analysts deem to be remote possibilities.
DI analysts are regularly tasked to assist policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement officers in managing the uncertainty that complicates US efforts to deal with national security threats and opportunities. Many issues cannot be addressed with certainty--by analysts, by policy officials, or even by the foreign players involved. The pattern of political and economic developments in, say, a newly democratic country can depend on so many actors, institutional variables, and contingencies that the outlook cannot be predicted with high confidence. Estimating over an extended timeline or during a period of political or economic crisis increases the burden of uncertainty.As a rule, the greater the degree of uncertainty attending an issue:
- The greater the analysts' reliance on judgment rather than evidence; thus the greater the likelihood of estimative error.
- The larger the prospect for divergent views about the outlook among analysts and concerned policy officials.
- The greater the need for sound reasoning and precise argumentation to align facts, assumptions, and judgments.
This tradecraft note on Articulation of Assumptions and the next note on Outlook will address the DI tradecraft for argumentation that sets the standard for helping consumers deal effectively with the uncertainty they face in planning for, taking, and monitoring US action.
By "argumentation" we mean the communication in an intelligence assessment of the structure of the analysts' critical thinking in support of the bottom-line judgments. Under the DI tradecraft standard, when policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement officials are asked to rely on DI analysis, the reasoning that ties evidence, to assumption, to judgments must be:
- Logical-soundly reasoned.
- Precise-clearly stated.
- Realistic-attuned to the hazards of forecasting error.
Drivers and Linchpins
The DI tradecraft for the articulation of assumptions places emphasis on identifying the drivers or key variables--the uncertain factors that analysts judge most likely to determine the outcome of a complex situation. At times the economy is the key uncertain factor; at times the loyalty of the security forces; at times the leadership skills of a president or dictator. At times all three are judged to carry equal weight in driving future developments.
The analysts' working assumptions about the drivers are sometimes referred to as linchpin assumptions because these are the premises that hold the argument together and warrant the validity of the conclusion.
The following are hypothetical examples to illustrate the relationships of drivers, linchpin assumptions, and conclusions:
- The loyalty of the military is the key factor in determining a particular country's stability in the short term. The military probably will continue supporting the government. Therefore, the government is unlikely to be seriously threatened by opposition forces over the next year.
- A foreign leader's skill in handling recurring antiregime incidents will largely determine that regime's staying power over the next several months. He probably will continue to diffuse antiregime pressures with a mix of carrots and sticks. Thus, a serious threat to regime stability is unlikely.
Linchpin assumptions are by definition debatable and subject to error. Thus, analysts must defend their judgments by marshaling supporting evidence and reasoning. For instance, in the first example, the analysts should offer convincing evidence for the assumption that "the military probably will continue supporting the government."
Moreover, on an important issue such as this, the inherent uncertainty has to be accounted for by addressing plausible alternative courses of development, a topic that will be covered in the Note on "Outlook." Here we present recommendations for refining and articulating the assumptions that support the analysts' bottom-line conclusions.
Tips
1. Each assessment represents a distinctive challenge in terms of how to set out the argumentation. As a rule of thumb, the more complex and controversial the issue, the more the analysts should make clear the sinews of the reasoning:
- For some papers, the assumptions can be adequately articulated in the course of the text.
- For others, a textbox may be needed to clarify the causal relationships.
- At times, the entire assessment should be organized to march step-by-step through the critical thinking.
2. Before starting to draft an assessment, analysts should open up the search for drivers, and not rely solely on what was determined to be the key factors in the last exercise. That is, they should put aside their previous conclusions and focus initially on the range and alignment of assumptions:
- For example, generate a list of all the important variables--factors that cannot be known with certainty that are palpably affecting the issue under study.
- Assess the relationships among these variables--search for hierarchies of importance and other linkages.
- At times, with the help of colleagues acting as devil 's advocates, construct competing cases for selecting the drivers from among the host of variables.
- A useful question to ask to isolate the key variables is: What factors would have to change to change your mind about the expected outcome?
3. Also, analysts should open up the process of determining assumptions about the drivers:
- Before settling on the linchpin assumptions that will serve to underwrite the conclusions, assess the quality of the evidence. One test: How likely is new information to change your judgment of what is probable?
- Again with the help of colleagues, test the soundness of the supporting line of reasoning (the articulation of subordinate assumptions) that leads to the linchpin assumptions.
- Also test key assumptions against any contrary judgments held by other informed observers. What hard evidence and inferential reasoning, for example, lead them to alternative interpretations?
4. Analysts should review their first draft against a tough standard:
- Could a consumer, who was not reading all the raw information, quickly identify and summarize the essential elements of the assessment's reasoning?
5. Some specific questions analysts should ask about the draft:
- Does the depicted hard evidence adequately explain the linchpin assumptions?
- Do the assumptions in turn adequately defend the bottom-line conclusions?
In Sum
DI analysts can speak with authority on substantively complex and politically controversial issues only through sound and precise argumentation. The more effectively drivers and assumptions are identified and defended, the greater the credibility of the bottom-line conclusions.
This Note on Outlook continues coverage of DI standards for helping policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcers manage uncertainty regarding threats to and opportunities for US security interests. (Please see Articulation of Assumptions.)The outlook sections of DI assessments must address not only what analysts believe to be the most likely course of development but also important alternative outcomes that could confront US officials. This concern for the unlikely or unexpected reflects an experience-based appreciation of (1) the fallibility of analytic judgment, (2) the special analytic requirements of US officials for addressing long-shot threats and opportunities, and (3) the adversarial character of the policymaking process.
The perils of analytic judgment include:
- Limitations in the evidence and in the analysts' understanding of complex issues that can lead to judgments structured around either the wrong drivers (key variables) or incorrect linchpin assumptions.
- The impact of essentially unpredictable events on sound analytic judgments; for example, changes in political stability caused by the sudden advent of a charismatic opposition leader.
Policymakers and other consumers who carry the burden of executing US policy often have a different attitude than analysts toward unlikely events.
- Officials who are charged with advancing a long-shot objective may probably see a 20 percent likelihood of success as promising opening odds for arranging a negotiated settlement of a longstanding civil war or diverting an entrenched nuclear weapons program.
- Officials also require an understanding of unlikely developments to prepare contingency plans against low-probability, high-impact dangers (such as protecting Persian Gulf oil suppliers from another Iraqi military attack).
Finally, the outlook on important issues can be subject to deep-seated disagreements--among and between analysts, Administration officials, and congressmen--that generate suspicions about the objectivity of DI memoranda and briefings.
- At such times, DI credibility can depend more on explanation of why the outlook--for example, for Cuba after Castro or for Russia after the next election--cannot be predicted with high confidence than in an attempt to trivialize uncertainty by "just making the call."
General Rules
As indicated in previous Notes, each DI assessment represents a distinctive challenge to analysts on how to assure credibility with the consumers who count most in planning and executing US policy. The general rules that follow should weigh heavily as analysts choose the most appropriate approach.
1. In all cases, the analysts' judgment on the most likely outcomes must follow clearly from the marshaling of evidence and articulation of assumptions.
- The more complex and controversial the issue, the more analytic effort is required to ensure that drivers and linchpin assumptions are precisely stated and well defended.
2. When the US stake is high (for example, political stability of an important ally or adversary) and plausible alternative outcomes are judged to be in the range of for instance, 20 percent or greater, the outlook section should also structure these potentially important outcomes. Policymakers and other consumers should get enough understanding of these alternatives to decide whether to review contingency plans, ask for more evidence, or levy additional tasks on analysts.
Analysts should identify:
- The factors at play that could lead to unexpected developments. What alternative key variables could drive the outcome in a different direction (perhaps the economy, or growing corruption)? Or what plausible reversal of linchpin assumptions about correctly defined drivers could turn things around (perhaps a country's military will not remain loyal to the government)?
- Sign-posts or indicators of change. What intermediate developments would indicate that events may not be working out as originally expected? For example, such negative signposts for regime stability as the advent of coup plotting or capital flight.
- Events that could trigger a major shift in direction. What essentially unpredictable events could precipitate the unexpected outcome? For example, a crop failure, or a mishandled natural disaster, or anti-government demonstrations that get out of control.
3. On issues vital to US security (for example, military intentions of adversaries), analysts must help policymakers and warfighters engage in contingency planning by:
- Addressing all important factors at play that could influence subsequent events.
- Ranking their relative importance.
- Relating them to a range of plausible outcomes, including alternatives analysts deem to be remote possibilities against which policy planners may nonetheless decide to deploy resources.
Tips
1. Analysts should avoid unrealistic precision in citing odds. Weather forecasters may have sufficient data to determine that the chances of rain are slightly better than even. Analysts rarely have such luxury in assessing the political or economic outlook.
2. Also avoid phrases that compound unavoidable uncertainty with unnecessary confusion: for example, real possibility, good chance.
3. As a rule, use constructions that tie the outcome to the driver and linchpin assumptions, rather than flat predictions.
- Castro is unlikely to be forced out of office over the next six months unless his security forces mishandle disturbances and trigger prolonged violent riots.
4. To minimize misinterpretation when making important judgments, combine probabilistic phrases and rough numerical odds.
- On balance, Castro is unlikely to be forced from office in the next six months (less than a one-in-five chance).
5. To understand the often intense concern of hands-on policy officials about a 20 percent likelihood of a disastrous turn of events happening on their watch, analysts should consider whether they would voluntarily get on an airplane that had a one-in-five chance of crashing.
6. To deal rigorously with unlikely developments, analysts should switch their focus from whether something will happen to how it could happen. Some techniques for generating credible alternative scenarios by structuring the available evidence differently:
- Who and What Counts. Generate lists of the key individual and group players that can determine the outcome of an issue (for example, whether a country's politics will continue to simmer or will explode), and critically examine the factors most likely to determine their behavior (such as institutional loyalties, personal rivalries, family interests).
- Thinking Backwards. Start with the assumption that the targeted danger or opportunity has occurred. For example, revolutionary violence undermines the Castro government! Then generate one or more plausible "how-it-could-happen" scenarios, by postulating who would have to do what, when, how, and why.
- Judgments Discarded. List assumptions that fell by the wayside in reaching the bottom line. Regarding the judgment that the military will continue supporting a country's government, for example, revisit any available data or supportive reasoning indicating such support may be weakening, for example, among junior officers.
The credibility of DI assessments with key consumer starts with the analysts' skill in organizing and evaluating the information presented in support of policymaking, warfighting, and law enforcement. Estimative judgments are also important and at times essential for addressing complex and uncertain issues. But extensive feedback makes clear that US officials with hands-on responsibility for planning and executing policy take their first measure of DI analysts in terms of the judgment they exercise in providing actionable and reliable information:
- As a rule, then, the consumers' confidence in the analysts' estimative judgment comes only after he or she has established credentials for expert command over all-source information.
- Thus, while taking account of space limitations, analysts should err on the side of providing more rather than less relevant information.
This tradecraft note, on Facts and Sourcing, presents DI guidelines for depiction in memorandums and briefings of what the DI knows--that is, the character and source of its information. The guidelines will be illustrated by hypothetical examples of "best practices" for handling recurring challenges in characterizing information--for example, addressing the reported attitudes and intentions of foreign actors.
Definitions
DI analysts have a good track record in conveying what they know clearly and credibly to consumer of intelligence. What is undertaken here is codification of rules of thumb into general guidelines.
The following definitions are an attempt to promote standardized use of common terms and concepts relating to intelligence information.
Fact: Verified information; something known to exist or to have happened.
Information: The content of reports, research, and analytic reflection on an intelligence issue that helps analysts and their consumer evaluate the likelihood that something is factual and thereby reduces uncertainty.
Direct Information: Information relating to an intelligence issue under scrutiny the details of which can, as a rule, be considered factual, because of the nature of the source, the source's direct access to the information, and the concrete and readily verifiable character of the contents.
Indirect Information: Information relating to an intelligence issue the details of which may or may not be factual, the doubt reflecting some combination of the source's questionable reliability, the source's lack of direct access, and the complex character of the contents.
Sourcing: Depiction of the manner in which information was obtained, in order to assist in evaluating the likelihood that the content is factual. A single report from a source or collection platform can contain both direct and indirect information.
Data: Organized information that provides context for evaluating the likelihood that a matter under scrutiny is factual. The information can be either direct or indirect.
Guidelines
Rule 1. Be precise about what is known.
With US interests, and at times lives, on the line, policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement officials need to be informed precisely what the all-source analysts know and how they know it. In making decisions on whether and how to take action, it is important for them to know if the information is direct or indirect, and if and why the analysts have concluded it is factual.
Most key consumer of intelligence have learned to respect the complexity of the national security issues they are charged with managing and the frequent uncertainty about what is taking place and what lies ahead. DI analysts should write to their standard and not to that of the occasional consumer who wants answers no matter what the circumstances.
Thus, in the name of reliability, analysts should never exaggerate what is known. They should report any important gaps in information bearing on US decisionmaking and potential courses of action, as well as relevant information that seems to contradict the main flow of information.
Rule 2. Distinguish carefully between information and fact.
Analysts may have direct information on what a foreign leader said, for example, and responsibly conclude this as factual. But what that foreign leader believes, intends to do, and will do cannot be known to be true on the basis of a report on what he or she said.
Rule 3. Distinguish carefully between information and estimative judgment.
Analysts' estimative judgments, as indicated, are an important element in the process of supporting policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement officials. As a rule, these judgments cannot rely solely on reported opinions of foreign players or clandestine sources. They must be amply argued in terms of the entire body of available information and sound inferential reasoning.
Rule 4. Take account of substantive complexity.
The more complicated an issue (that is, the more inherently difficult it is to be certain on a matter), the greater the informational demands to establish that the matter under consideration is factual. The burden of proof for determining what foreign leaders or groups believe or intend to do, for example, is much greater than that required for determining what they have done or said. Again, analysts may properly make a conditional judgment about what a foreign leader intends to do (We believe country X is preparing to invade country Y.) But only rarely can this be stated as verified or factual information (Country X will invade country Y).
Rule 5. Take account of policy sensitivity.
As with substantively complex matters, the burden of proof is high on matters that are controversial among policymakers or politically sensitive between the Administration and Congress. Directly stated, a solid informational base is needed to present as factual (rather than as the analysts' conditional judgment) something that will be seen by key consumer as bad news. As a rule, then, on controversial matters analysts should place emphasis on the relevant information, and not on estimative conclusions.
Similarly, when addressing the behavior of a given country regarding treaties and agreements with the United States, DI analysts should place emphasis on reporting rather than interpretation. As a rule in these matters, analysts monitor (report relevant information), policymakers verify (decide whether a violation of a treaty or an agreement has taken place).
Rule 6. Take account of the possibility of deception.
Deception can be defined as the manipulation of information by a foreign government, group, or individual to get US intelligence analysts to reach an erroneous conclusion.
Rule 7. Use the term "evidence" sparingly.
This tradecraft note uses the term information as synonymous with the term evidence as it usually is employed in DI assessments. That is, both are used to refer to the content of reports and research that helps reduce the uncertainty surrounding a specific matter.
The US legal system, however, uses evidence in a more specialized manner--to refer to matters introduced in a court case and subject to proof and refutation by contending parties. Because the DI is increasingly providing assessments to support law enforcement officials and because even other kinds of assessments can be subpoenaed for possible use in a court case, analysts should avoid using the term evidence when information serves their purposes just as well. At times, characterization of the information is sufficient to make the analysts' point for the benefit of consumers.
Special Circumstances
This note has concentrated on general guidelines for depicting the character and source of the DI's information. The DI serves a broad range of audiences with varied needs and entitlements for intelligence support on a multiplicity of substantive issues. Thus, the special character of the subject matter, the delivery vehicle, or the audience can require exceptions to the rules posited above.
For example, either the limited clearances of the recipients of an assessment or a customer's request for an unclassified memorandum can require the analyst to avoid precision in depicting information and sources.
The summary plays a key role in determining the kind of impact a DI report or memorandum will have on the policymaking process. Thus, within the allotted space, the summary has to make the distinctive DI value added stand out--whether consisting of special intelligence with immediate bearing on US security interests, important findings from the sifting of all-source information, or actionable judgments about pending threats and opportunities.As with other criteria covered in this series of tradecraft notes, analysts have to tailor each summary to the circumstances of the individual assignment. One way or another, though, the analyst has to crystallize the DI expertise presented in the text in a manner that will seize the attention of the intended audience.
When the clients for the assessment are few in number and their priority interests regarding US policy and action agendas are well known to the DI, the analysts job is to craft a summary that crisply presents the what's new and the so what:
- For example, in a Special Intelligence Report, the allotted "hook" of a couple of lines of text must be designed to assure the intelligence consumer that his or her time will be well spent in digesting the rest of the report.
When an assessment is broadcast to a larger and more diffuse audience, the analysts challenge in determining the structure and content of the summary is greater. Usually, the two most important goals are:
- To highlight the value added of the paper against the contingency that busy readers will not get into the main text, especially the implications regarding threats to and opportunities for US interests.
- To support these values with distinctive expertise in order to motivate the gatekeepers to read the text and recommend that their principals survey sections targeted to help them advance their policy and action agendas.
To account for the diversity of the potential audience for broadcast assessments, other introductory sections can be put to use in flagging the full range of value added and DI expertise. In particular, an introductory textbox, placed immediately after the summary, can be used to meet the needs of specialized segments of the audience:
- For example, a depiction of the background or general context that would try the patience of the officials already directly engaged on a policy issue can be provided in a textbox to serve the needs of peripherally engaged intelligence consumers.
- Similarly, technical findings needed to meet the threshold of value added for a small, highly specialized portion of the intended audience can be placed in a textbox.
- And when depiction of policy implications on a controversial issue requires more space for balanced presentation than a summary can accommodate (for example, cost-benefit analysis of alternative courses of action), a textbox is an effective solution.
A preface is also a useful instrument, in longer and broadly distributed assessments, for supplementing the summary:
- Use it to explain to peripherally engaged readers the precise policy challenges the assessment seeks to clarify.
- Use it to augment DI credibility; for example, by listing prior publications on the issue at hand.
Tips
DI veterans offer the following experience-based tips for enhancing the effectiveness of summaries:
- Conform the summary to the text and vice versa. Often the process of squeezing all the values of the text into a summary paragraph or page sharpens the analysts depiction of key variables (drivers), cause-and-effect relationships, and argumentation generally. Retrofit any new insights and values into the text.
- Break up the typography. Many readers interpret summaries with paragraph blocks that run solidly from margin to margin as a signal that the memorandum or report is "user unfriendly":
- Use short paragraphs, bullets and subbullets, bold face, and italics to break up the space and to help the busy decisionmaker latch on quickly to the key information, relationships, and judgments.
- Fit the writing style to audience and purpose. When writing for a broad audience, including many policy officials with whom the production unit has only limited contact, top-quality exposition can help attract the readers attention to the main text. When working in support of a single consumer, however, consider using a more informal style to speed his or her grasp of the value added:
- One official reported that he did not have time for whole sentences -- just for what it was the analyst wanted him to know.
- Concentrate on the new and important. Historical background and other setting of the context can be presented tersely or dispensed with altogether. Use the allotted space to concentrate on content that will make a difference to well-informed policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement officers as they contend with their daily challenges:
- This usually means policy implications. In effect, the summary is a vehicle for explaining why a busy policy official should spend time on a DI product.
- Strive to make the summary actionable; that is, structure it to help a policy official get something started, stopped, or otherwise sorted out.
- Role-play key members of the targeted audience. Regarding what belongs in and what can be omitted from the summary: If you were a time-challenged policy official, what would you want to gain from spending five minutes or so with your assessment?
- Make fewer points, but make them well. If you have to choose between the quantity and quality of the points made in the summary, opt for the latter. This is particularly important when writing for a well-informed audience which has no need for a "tutorial" on the issue:
- If the assessment makes a bottom-line predictive judgment, refer to the key assumptions and other essential elements of the argumentation.
- If the assessment conveys important new findings, cover the reliability of the sourcing and the essence of the methodology.
This note discusses Implementation Analysis of the techniques for extending customized intelligence support to policymakers, law enforcement officials, and warfighters outlined in Addressing US Interests in DI Assessments.Implementation Analysis provides decisionmakers and action takers with an assessment of tactical alternatives for pursuing opportunities and averting dangers regarding established US policy goals. The role of the analyst complements but is distinctive from the role of the policymaker:
Analysts identify and evaluate alternatives for implementing objectives; policy officials first set the objective and then make the decisions about which tactics to adopt.
Why and When
Policy implementation regularly involves attempting to advance US interests under uncertain and often risky conditions. In these circumstances, policy officials recognize that US objectives can be difficult to achieve. Deterring rogue states from developing weapons of mass destruction and promoting democratic practice in polities with entrenched authoritarian traditions, for example, require overcoming deeply imbedded obstacles. Policy officials need support from intelligence analysts in identifying and assessing opportunities and dangers.
Intelligence analysts, through Implementation Analysis, can bring important value added to the policymakers table:
- Expertise in understanding foreign cultures, including the risk analysis and negotiating styles of adversaries and allies.
- Findings on strengths and vulnerabilities of target countries and organizations, based on evaluation of all-source information.
- Detachment from departmental bureaucratic pressures and a commitment to objectivity in examining tactical alternatives.
Even when the analysts inventory of alternatives largely mirrors that of policy officials, the latter benefit from exposure to the organized information and rigorous argumentation of the former.
In addition to its intrinsic value added, Implementation Analysis can also help the DI maintain effective policy ties on politically charged issues. When pursuit of US goals entails coping with multiple difficult challenges, heavily engaged policy officials do not appreciate a steady stream of DI assessments that reminds them (as well as congressional critics, for example) that they are working against long odds. Implementation Analysis sends the message that the intelligence team, although professionally committed to objectivity, is not indifferent to the challenges the policy team faces and will lend its expertise to help advance and protect US interests even under difficult circumstances.
In any case, analysts should place a premium on close lines of communication in delivering Implementation Analysis:
- As a rule, policy officials should request such customized support.
- Intelligence managers who are well connected to the officials doing the heavy lifting can, at times, advertise the capability and solicit a request.
The initial DI delivery of Implementation Analysis usually consists of a briefing or memorandum for one or a handful of principal policy officials. In recognition of the value added, the latter have in the past subsequently asked for:
- Regularly scheduled repeat briefings or memorandums.
- An increase in the circle of recipients.
- Incorporation of the analysis into policy planning documents.
Tips
Veteran analysts offer the following tradecraft tips for putting Implementation Analysis into practice:
- Redefining an intelligence issue in the policymakers terms can be a useful first step for providing value added through Implementation Analysis. In other words, analysts shift focus from their normal quest for understanding what's going on in country X to the policymakers quest for doing something about what's going on in country X.This requires:
- Recognition of the policymakers' role as "action officers"--charged with getting things started or stopped among adversaries and allies overseas.
- Recognition of the policy officials' propensity at times to take risk for gain. For example, policymakers may see a one-in-five chance of turning an unsatisfactory situation around as a sound investment of US prestige and their professional energies.
- Analysts also gain insight for adding value by concentrating on what it takes to achieve the operational goal (think like a policy professional) before turning to an objective survey of the ground truth (execute like an intelligence professional):
- For example, if the objective of US policy is to leverage a foreign government or organization to reverse its course, analysts can first think of what developments could lead to that outcome and then make an inventory of the forces at play that could trigger such developments.
- The If, Then structure often can be used to relate US tactics to US goals, while reserving the DIs tough-minded analytic posture toward both--that is, without crossing the line between professional analytic support of the policymaking process and policy prescription. For example:
- If US policy calls for getting from point A to point B, then here are some gateways to consider and some cul-de-sacs to avoid.
- If the US policy objective is to strengthen the forces for moderation in country X, then the following factors should be examined as potential catalysts for the desired development.
- Implementation Analysis often requires divergent thinking--the setting aside of attention to mainstream interpretations and the most likely outcome and focusing instead on the full range of plausible alternative interpretations and outcomes. Analytic techniques such as brainstorming, role playing, and "thinking backward" (examining the paths by which a low-probability event could occur) can help identify little-known forces at play that could effect a change in momentum:
- When analysts are pessimistic about prospects for advancing US objectives, they can employ a variation of the Sherlock Holmes methodology for moving forward when there is no promising suspect in a murder case. Provide policymakers with an assessment of the least unpromising tactical alternatives.
- DI analysts, in effect, are the scouts that provide information and insights to help the policymaker-coach develop the most sensible game plan, win or lose.
- In addition to knowledge of the ground truth, the value added of Implementation Analysis can depend on analysts knowledge of US instruments for leveraging a situation (that is, the available carrots and sticks). Analysts are well advised to make an inventory of US means for executing foreign policy based on the study of policy documents and discussions with intelligence managers and contacts in policy agencies.
- The final step for Implementation Analysis is presentation of the results of the analytic process in ways that make it clear that professional analysts have been at work. Often the responsible policy officials will be more interested in how analysts reached their evaluations of alternatives than in the evaluations per se:
- Presentation and ranking of alternatives via a matrix containing a rough cost-benefit analysis is a useful way to convey the analysts underlying all-source findings and linchpin assumptions. At the same time, such a matrix focuses the DI effort on analyzing alternatives, while leaving the actual choosing to the policymakers.
- Because Implementation Analysis calls on distinctive and challenging tradecraft techniques, analysts should engage colleagues and managers early on in the process of defining the issue and selecting promising tactical alternatives to assess. This team approach will help tap into corporate expertise, as well as smooth the coordination and review processes.
Conclusions--the analysts findings based on organizing, evaluating, and interpreting the all-source information available on the issue at hand, usually are the most important value added for key consumers of DI assessments. Because policymakers and action takers rely on DI assessments as they define and defend US interests, analysts must be precise in conveying the level of confidence in their conclusions, taking appropriate account of the prospect of deception and other sources of uncertainty.Heavily engaged policy officials often receive directly much of the open-source and intelligence information available to DI analysts. But the policy officials need DI assistance in keeping track of the facts, fictions, and trivia. The important event has to be identified from among the ordinary, the underlying patterns have to be cobbled together from seemingly unrelated pieces of information, and the reliable sources have to be distinguished from the self-serving.
On complex national security issues the information available to the analysts rarely speaks for itself. Gaps and inconsistencies are the rule. This is where the DI analysts expertise comes into play. When seasoned and skeptical DI analysts believe they have made their case by a careful scrubbing of ample all-source information, they should lean forward in making their conclusions precise and clear to the policy officials responsible for management of the issue. Analysts who have organized and evaluated their information are able to conclude with authority, for example:
- The latest information shows country "Xs" expenditures on weapons-related technology increased sharply in 1995 after several years of little or no growth.
- DI data demonstrate that incidents of human rights violations in country "Y", as reported by international monitors and reliable clandestine sources, are decreasing for the first time since the military government took power in 1989.
- The DI database shows that terrorist incidents in country "Z" are taking on a pattern of attempting to intimidate the foreign business community.
- Examination of DI chronologies of the seven national elections since the restoration of civilian government in country "A" indicates that recent government use of armed thugs to break up opposition political rallies is without precedent.
- The cause-and-effect relationship between Premier "Bs" political difficulties and his calling for military exercises to turn public attention to the foreign threat is by now well established.
DI assessments are particularly valuable to policy officials when the analytic findings are derived from the collective databases of a multidisciplinary team. Depiction of the political context for a foreign country's lax policy on narcotics controls, for example, or its financial and technological potential for pursuing a nuclear weapons program enables users of DI analysis to take a better measure of the potential risks and benefits of contemplated US policy initiatives.
In contrast, when available information is incomplete or susceptible to foreign deception operations and other sources of ambiguity, the analysts reasonable doubts about, say, cause-and-effect relationships should be shared with the officials who may rely on DI assessments in taking policy actions.
Many of the issues that the DI tackles are inherently complex and thus shrouded by uncertainties. The analysts have a professional obligation--where warranted--to conclude that they do not know. In such instances, presentation of two or more plausible interpretations of the available information makes a more useful conclusion than a single unreliable one masked in vague language (for example, a real possibility.)
Analysts should be particularly wary about projecting thin information as a DI conclusion. When, for example, analysts do not have a solid informational base and are relying on a small number of reports depicting an event as unprecedented or a pattern as well-established, they should attribute such conclusions to the source. Clandestine agents, foreign officials, and the local media may jump to conclusions. DI analysts should not.
In sum, the value added to policymakers, negotiators, warfighters, and law enforcement officials of conclusions in DI memorandums and briefings rests on:
- The solidity of the individual and collective DI expertise brought to bear through analysis of databases and other information.
- The precision analysts use in stating levels of confidence in their findings.
Tips
DI veterans offer the following recommendations for conveying conclusions effectively:
1. When analysts have reached firm conclusions on complex and especially controversial issues, take the time to present the data, to point to the relationships and other implications, and to state the conclusions forcefully.
2. Again, when an issue is complex and controversial, describe the credentials that lie behind the findings in a textbox or footnote, if not in the main text. For example: Depict the reliability of the sources of the information and other specific characteristics of a database; spell out the indicators used to determine diversion to military use of dual-purpose technology imports.
3. To minimize confusion when conveying a necessarily qualified conclusion, think of supplementing adverbial descriptors with a statement of rough numerical odds.
4. When the quality of available information requires either reserving judgment about conclusions or presenting multiple plausible interpretations, consider including a textbox or annex on information gaps and collection requirements.
5. When the text must be kept brief because of space limitations of a DI art form, the findings can be laid out in some detail in a textbox. This coverage can be useful both for those consumers who need a quick study into the issue and those with direct responsibility for decision and action who have an interest in taking precise account of what the DI knows.
6. Also use a textbox to explain any major shift in a DI conclusion from previous assessments or the basis for a contrasting conclusion held by other Intelligence Community analysts.
7. When appropriate, use chronologies, matrices, and other graphics to supplement the text in conveying complex trends and relationships. Even the best informed policy officials appreciate graphics that help them evaluate important information.
8. Conclusions are the bedrock foundation for estimated judgments in DI assessments that address future patterns of development. In papers that are divided between sections that set out the findings and those that make predictive judgments, analysts may find it useful to summarize the findings in a textbox immediately preceding the estimated portion. This helps clarify the argument for the critical reader. It can also help analysts audit their own logic trail.
Effective Use of Unique Intelligence
DI analysts' effective use of unique intelligence information starts with asking two questions about the purposes of an assessment:
- Who are the intended recipients?
- What is the most important value added the DI can provide them?
The answers can help the analysts decide whether use of unique intelligence based on information from clandestine human collection, technical collection, or other sensitive collection methods is called for; and, if so, how to use it to best advantage.
DI analysts serve a broad and differentiated audience of intelligence users. Often analysts must choose between (1) what is needed in an assessment to gain credibility with the small number of officials who have hands-on responsibility for daily management of an issue and (2) what is needed to gain access to the larger audience with a more generalized professional need to be kept informed:
- Key hands-on officials follow their priority issues more or less continuously, know in detail the general march of events, and receive directly much of the intelligence traffic. They usually have both the clearances and the need for integrating all relevant intelligence information into their decisionmaking. Under these circumstances, a sure path for DI analysts to provide value added is to concentrate on organizing, evaluating, and interpreting unique intelligence information--support, for example, of an opportunity to advance US interests or of a danger to be avoided.
- Many other officials also have an important if less direct role to play in managing US interests regarding an issue and depend on DI assessments for staying in formed. But either they or their staffs may lack the clearances and the facilities for access to highly classified assessments. As a rule, they are more interested in keeping up with the general march of events than in personally assessing the details of unique intelligence information.
- Moreover, officials with full clearances may at times have a need for DI analysis with lower classification.
This note provides general advice from experienced analysts on managing these tradeoffs and related considerations regarding effective use of unique intelligence.
Credibility Comes First
The first rule regarding effective use of unique intelligence information is that credibility with key clients comes first. Credibility is here defined as the ability to speak to an issue with sufficient authority to be believed and relied upon by the intended audience.
The core DI mission is servicing the intelligence analysis needs of the President and Vice President, Cabinet officials, and NSC principals, as well as assistant secretaries, NSC staffers, and other key sub-cabinet officials. Especially when this core constituency is contemplating action in pursuit of US interests, they must be supported by the full range of the DIs informational findings, including unique intelligence.
Even for many assessments that are intended for a broader audience, including those crafted primarily for the aides and analytic staffs of policy principals, credibility comes first. If the DI can only give due weight to its findings and judgments regarding a complex or controversial issue by marshaling unique intelligence, then the assessment should make the most of that information, despite the cost in terms of higher classification and limitation of distribution.
Finally, DI support of the implementation of policy in such areas as arms control, nonproliferation, technology transfer, and trade sanctions is usually heavily dependent on explicit use of unique intelligence for its credibility and thus for its utility in support of policy action.
Accessibility Is Also Important
DI analysts, in supporting US officials with assessments that are accessible at lower classifications than those required to protect unique sources of information, have to understand the consumers requirements in order to project a level of credibility that satisfies their needs.
- Often the main value added sought by intelligence consumers is informed general commentary on important developments rather than actionable intelligence.
Analytic Tradecraft and Close Policy Support
As indicated in Addressing US Interests in DI Assessments, the primary mission of the DI analyst is to help policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement officials get their jobs done. Close policy support is an important aspect of the process: The analyst customizes memorandums and briefings to take account of where the relatively small number of key policy officials charged with daily management of an issue are on their learning curves and decision and action cycles.Close policy support requires a closing of the gap between the perspectives of analyst (what goes on abroad) and client (doing something about what goes on abroad). Because of the analysts necessary intrusion into the world of policymakers, close support can raise concerns about professional standards associated with the term politicization, including distortion of analysis to please consumers of intelligence.
This note addresses the role of analytic tradecraft in providing close policy support in a professional manner. It includes a listing of best practices of veteran analysts for maintaining objectivity while providing value added to consumers of intelligence whose overriding professional interest is making US policy succeed, often under what analysts see as unpromising conditions.
Defining Terms
To start, key terms have to be defined to distinguish between close policy support as an essential component of professionalism and politicization as unprofessional practice.
Close Policy Support provides officials heavily engaged in managing US policy on a given issue with objective assessments that address their immediate decisionmaking and operational concerns regarding events and prospects abroad.
- Precise citation of what the analysts know, how they know it, and their assumptions about what cannot be known with certainty helps ensure that the analysts intrusion into the policymakers arena is based on expertise not policy bias, mind reading, or fortunetelling.
Politicization, in contrast, is an unprofessional intrusion by intelligence analysts into the policymaking process, characterized by the skewing of information and judgments to support or oppose a specific policy or general political ideology.
- The analysts unprofessional manipulation of information and judgments can be deliberate--for example, to please a policymaker or under pressure from an intelligence manager.
- The distortion can also be unintentional, arising from poor tradecraft practice in evaluating ambiguous information or in failure to vet alternative assumptions and judgments on complex and uncertain issues. In sum, politicization, as a rule, has little to do with how close analysts get to the policymaking process in providing intelligence support, and much to do with how closely they adhere to their analytic tradecraft in providing that support.
Tips
Veteran analysts provide the following guidance for maintaining professional standards while delivering effective close policy support:
1. Lead from strength with well-documented findings. Especially on controversial issues, place greatest emphasis on findings (conclusions) based on tough-minded scrubbing of all-source information, especially unique intelligence.
- To avoid being drawn in as a participant in debates among officials about policy choices, concentrate on areas where the DI has done its homework and can provide distinctive value added. For example, patterns, trends, and relationships revealed by reporting and research.
2. Take account of uncertainty. When estimative judgments are made, detail the line of argumentation and make allowance for alternative outcomes should key assumptions prove faulty. Here too the goal is to maintain the role of an honest broker and avoid the appearance of taking sides in policy debates.
3. If-then formulation. As indicated in Implementation Analysis, analysts can address objectively what they see as long-shot opportunities and dangers of concern to policymakers by switching the analytic focus from a judgment of whether a certain development is likely to how it could come about (factors at play and US actions that could either increase or decrease the prospects).
- For example: If the US goal is to move from A to B, then here are some opportunities to examine and pitfalls to avoid.
4. Structuring disagreements. Disagreements among analysts or between analysts and their managers on controversial issues as a rule are indicators of the complexity of the issue and the attending uncertainty, and not efforts to politicize the product. The first step is to discuss the structure of the relevant information and key assumptions to ascertain the cause of the differences. At times, with this effort the differences will shrink or disappear. If not, the next step is to structure the disagreements in the assessment (for example, as alternative assumptions and projections) so that heavily engaged policy officials can benefit from their own consideration of the range of plausible explanations and outcomes.
5.Presenting alternatives without disagreements. On complex and controversial issues, even when DI analysts and the key policy players agree on interpretations of the forces at play and the most likely courses of development, DI assessments should cover important plausible alternative explanations and outcomes, especially those with potentially serious impacts.
- Rigorous coverage of unexpected developments (stemming, for example, from a shift in key variables) can help the heavily engaged policy officials see contingent pitfalls and opportunities they may wish to take into account in working to achieve US objectives.
Teamwork, Teams, and Getting the Job Done
This note addresses the importance of everyday teamwork and special-purpose teams to getting the job done in the DI. Emphasis is given to tradecraft tips to ensure the effectiveness of crisis management task forces, negotiation support teams, and other DI teams for turning out analytic production to meet exacting consumer needs.Teamwork, broadly defined as the collaboration of individuals with complementary responsibilities to achieve a common objective, is an indispensable everyday activity in the DI, as in all complex organizations attempting to produce a product or service that is competitive in a demanding market.
- In the DI context, think of the many kinds of support the analyst routinely receives to enhance the value added of his or her assessments--not only from fellow analysts but also from collection requirements experts, graphics and database aides, supervisors and editors, publication and dissemination specialists, and liaison officers and other sources of client feedback.
Transactions requiring teamwork are so commonplace in the DI that the elements of good practice do not always get their due attention. Thus at times the necessary collaboration is ineffectively executed, because of either poor tradecraft or nonproductive individual or unit behavior.
- The literature on the requirements for effective teamwork is voluminous. Here, suffice it to say: Share responsibility for getting the job done. Share information needed to get the job done. Share recognition for getting the job done.
In an era of increased demand and reduced resources, effective teamwork between analysts with related accounts and between analysts and support professionals is essential to ensure distinctive value added to consumers of DI deliverables. In response, DI leaders are increasing the recognition extended to managers, analysts, and support professionals who practice corporate behavior, as well as the sanctions for those who seek to advance individual or home unit interests at the expense of effective collaboration.
Special-Purpose Teams,in terms of getting the DI job done, can be defined as groups of people with complementary interests and skills who take collective responsibility for achieving a demanding corporate goal. Common attributes of these teams include joint definition of ground rules, effective sharing of information, and openness to alternative viewpoints from all team members.
- The DI increasingly relies on Process Action Teams (PATs) to ensure incisive examination and precise recommendations regarding changes in work processes and substantive and tradecraft priorities. PATs are currently working, for example, on improving warning tradecraft and on better utilization of consumer feedback.
- Some DI production branches and divisions operate essentially as teams, in that both managers and analysts consciously pursue collaborative workplace practices that help the unit achieve the sought-after quality, policy utility, and timeliness of output.
Analytic Production Teams
As indicated, this note concentrates on what we will refer to here as analytic production teams. These teams are characterized by collaboration among members representing multiple analytic specialties and are structured to ensure high performance in meeting particularly demanding needs of US policymakers and action takers. The production teams usually have participants from multiple DI offices and often include collectors and analysts from other Agency directorates and other intelligence agencies.
The DI has demonstrated countless times the capacity of analytic production teams to deliver outstanding performance under difficult circumstances. As a result DI managers and analysts, when faced with a major policy-support challenge, are increasingly ready to rely on effective team collaboration rather than on individual star performances. For their part, Agency and policy leaders alike repeatedly cite the work of these teams as intelligence performance at its very best.
The analytic production team can take a variety of forms, for the most part structured to service the special demands placed on the analysts by the US officials directly responsible for designing and implementing policy under difficult circumstances.
1. The crisis management task force provides extended all-source analytic support (often, 24-hour) to meet the exacting requirements of US policymakers and warfighters for managing an ongoing crisis or averting a potential crisis.
2. Negotiation support teams provide concerted support to a US policy team for an international conference or bilateral negotiation, including preparation of briefing books; monitoring of the tactics of non-US parties; and, at times, the tabling of cost-benefit assessments of alternative tactical approaches for achieving US objectives.
3. Multidisciplinary teams that organize either to deliver a single highly complex written or oral assessment or to keep a working watch on a high-profile issue that requires recurring analytic production.
- Policy officials regularly comment on the special value added of DI assessments and briefings that provide, for example, the local political and leadership context of an economic, technological, or weapons-related issue.
The Team Advantage
The consistently high performance of analytic production teams reflects their ability to capitalize on the surge of energy brought on by the crisis or other demanding situation, and the synergy of individuals with varied talents working together to meet agreed goals and standards. But high performance also reflects the teams enhanced ability to apply the several tradecraft practices addressed in this series of notes as essential to gaining DI access to and credibility with key consumers of intelligence. For example:
1. Knowing and taking account of US interests. Nothing enhances productivity more than knowing who has what question. As soon as the team establishes its credentials for expertise, timeliness, and precise targeting of needs, lines of communication with key US officials shorten. Tasking, direct feedback, and overall guidance are then delivered more or less continuously.
2. Unique intelligence collection. The team also rationalizes communications with collectors, at times by integrating representatives from outside the DI into the team. Policymakers and implementers are provided with one-stop shopping for intelligence collection, and collectors make use of the analysts' substantive expertise in sharpening target selection.
3. Expertise. By joining forces of a varied group of specialists, the team pools not only complementary substantive insights and multidisciplinary skills, but also expertise on collection management, effective support of consumers, and the tradecraft for dealing with complex issues and uncertain prospects.
4. Implementation analysis. The team, with its close ties to policymakers, gains special insights into US tactical objectives. Using all-source collection and tough-minded tradecraft for evaluating information and testing assumptions, team members can address, with timeliness and precision, opportunities for and dangers to US objectives.
Tips
The specific demands placed on the members of each analytic production team will vary with the special characteristics of the subject, the audience, and the DI resource base. That said, veterans of successful DI team efforts see several broadly applicable requirements for a teams high performance under demanding circumstances.
1. Commitment to corporate behavior. The analyst has to support the corporate agenda, accept collective responsibility, constantly lend support to colleagues, and seek the views of team members before passing work up and out.
2. Sharing information. Everyone is busy. And tired. Nonetheless, making important information available to all team members is essential to the timeliness and precision of production. This includes not only incoming substantive traffic, but also feedback from consumers through either formal or informal channels. The team cannot afford to be late, or to answer the wrong question.
- Some analytic teams form Lotus Note bulletin boards for sharing current information, golden oldies with good insights into the issue at hand, and drafts of all substantive production.
3. Bench strength. Production teams, especially crisis management task forces, have to develop bench strength. Individual experts cannot be on tap 24 hours a day. Thus, they have to promote the development of potential backups, including by giving other team members prime time drafting and briefing opportunities. As a corollary, team members have to develop substantive and process flexibility (for example, by reading in on accounts handled by team experts and by developing review and editorial skills).
- Especially with unrelenting deadlines and an inevitable toll from all-out expenditure of energy, every analytic production team needs a number of ready-to-play utility infielders.
4. Openmindedness. Much more than when working in a traditional production unit where individual efforts predominate, account has to be taken of the varied interpretations of ambiguous and incomplete information of all team members who are collectively responsible for the units performance. The primary goal is neither to win an argument nor to submerge differences in fuzzy language, but to deal with uncertainty in a straight forward way that helps consumers of intelligence manage it more effectively.
- This often involves structuring the ambiguous information for the consumer and presenting more than one interpretation.
5. Rigorous tradecraft standards generally. As the team begins to perform at a level that creates dependency on the part of key policymakers, negotiators, warfighters, and sanctions and law enforcement officials, the likelihood that they will rely and take risks based on the teams analysis increases.
- Under these circumstances, there is no professional substitute for precise depiction of what the analysts know, how they know it, and their line of argumentation for dealing with what they do not know.
Analytic Support for Negotiations
DI analytic support for US negotiators, as indicated in Teamwork, Teams, and Getting the Job Done, is regularly seen by Agency and policy leaders as intelligence performance at its very best. DI analysts, often organized as teams, provide US negotiators with all-source information and expert insights on factors that can influence the outcome of the talks, including the bargaining styles, bottom-line objectives, internal dynamics, and susceptibility to external influence of non-US participants.
- When US policymakers are participating directly in international conferences or bilateral talks, they appreciate DI analysis that helps them organize their effort (for example, briefing books) and advance their agenda at the negotiations table (in particular, spot commentary that points to pending opportunities to seize and pitfalls to avoid).
- When US officials are attempting to broker an agreement between two disputing parties, they also seek analysis of confidence-building measures and other means that can help get the contending parties to the table and to negotiate in good faith.
Analytic support for negotiations is a priority issue for the DI and is closely related to such additional priority issues as nonproliferation and international economic developments.
Each engagement in negotiations presents US officials with distinctive policy challenges and requirements for intelligence support. DI managers and analysts with experience in providing such support, however, see several broadly applicable patterns.
1. US officials taking the lead on the issue, as a rule, will see distinctive value added in DI assessments of the general prospects for negotiations only if delivered before a commitment to the effort is made. For example, whether conditions are ripe for a settlement between belligerents.
- After the United States is committed to negotiations, the lead officials are likely to view negative DI predictions regarding prospects with either indifference or hostility.
2. Once negotiations are under way, US officials directly responsible for implementation of policy are most interested in receiving all-source analysis that helps to advance the objectives of the US game plan.
- As indicated, this includes assessments that point to specific opportunities for advancing as well as obstacles that could undercut the US negotiating agenda.
3. As the negotiations proceed, the US officials managing the effort obtain more and more of their information relating to the dynamics of the talks directly from foreign counterparts.
- Intelligence support, thus, must focus on swift delivery of precise information and insights to fill in the gaps and provide the context for what US officials hear at the table and in the cloakrooms.
Analytic Support for Sanctions Monitoring
DI analytic support for the monitoring of international sanctions regimes advances the US policy goals.Sanctions are intended to curtail common and pervasive forms of international economic activity--commodity trade and financial transactions. No mean task, because of the existence of multiple transportation routes and transaction sites, high profit motives, and countless opportunities for denial and other forms of deception. DI analysts provide a timely and reliable stream of intelligence deliverables that is much appreciated by the sanctions policymakers and enforcers who have to meet the challenge.
Analysis in Support of Action
DI analysis directly supports US policymaking officials and enforcement agencies and indirectly supports monitors assigned to implement international sanctions regimes.
DI analysts provide general assessments to help US officials set and review policy strategy. But most DI assessments identify patterns of violation and pinpoint transgressions to support action in the form of diplomatic representations, changes in monitoring deployments, and individual interdictions. These include vulnerability and compliance studies, violation patterns, and major perpetrators.
Skills and Tips
Sanctions regimes are equivalent to economic warfare, and target countries use every available "weapon" to weaken the impact. These skills underwrite the effectiveness of DI analytic support to the United States and indirectly international enforcers of sanctions on the other side of the battleline.
1. Expertise. Effective support of monitoring requires, first, that analysts develop solid general expertise in one of a large number of economically-based analytic specialties.
2. Teams and Leaders. Support for sanctions monitoring is resource intensive, especially when two or more regimes are in operation simultaneously. Close cooperation by teams of analytic specialists ensures a timely stream of multidisciplinary deliverables in support of effective action by policy and enforcement officials.
3. Driving collection. Curbing sanctions violations requires daily contact between analysts and intelligence collectors.
4. Serving the customer. To work effectively with the US policy team, DI analysts have to know the customers as well as the official policy. Also, representational skills have to be honed to execute the many personal exchanges called for by time-sensitive sanctions analysis.
- Knowledge of policy ins and outs starts with taking into account any tactical disagreements among US hands-on officials. The analyst best protects access and credibility in these circumstances by emphasizing what the DI knows and how it knows it.
- In teleconferences and other oral exchanges, the analysts' strong point, once again, is their command of information and context. Policy participants, as a rule, are highly motivated clients seeking to get a difficult job done by tapping into the analysts' expertise.
5. Rules of Information. Information is the key to successful interdictions and credible demarches in support of sanctions regimes. Action-ready databases help the analyst meet the tests of timeliness and accuracy.
6. Countering deception. Denial and disinformation are normal operating procedures of perpetrators at both the sending and receiving end of sanctions violations. Sanctions busters--whether criminal groups or business and government officials--use a variety of tools to mask their activity.
- Sanctions analysts need creative tradecraft as well as solid data bases to keep up with seasoned violators. What If and Role Playing are techniques that help, as do more informal creative efforts to stay one step ahead of the perpetrator in this cat-and-mouse game.
Personal ExperiencesEmployees have volunteered the following personal experiences of their work in the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence.
Access and Responsibility
Solving Problems for the Country
Variety of Experiences
Intelligence Support to Top Officials
Immersing Yourself in Information
Providing Graphics Support
Creating Maps for Senior Customers
Applying Economic Skills
Information Systems Support
Training DI Personnel
Access and ResponsibilityThere is no other place in government where you can have more responsibility and more access to senior policymakers than in the Directorate of Intelligence. From my earliest days as an analyst, I regularly wrote articles that reached the President and other senior policymakers the next morning. I've met US Presidents and Cabinet officials, briefed foreign government leaders, visited two dozen countries on five continents, and saved lives because of my analysis. And, as a bonus, it's possible to know virtually everything there is to know--or at least have access to it--about your field of interest. DI analysts have access to information from the academic and private research world, as well as the special sources available only in classified channels. It's intellectually challenging--you'll meet numerous other experts--and you cannot beat the job satisfaction you'll get from working at CIA. I am proud to have made this my career and have loved every minute of my 23 years here.
Solving Problems for the Country
For me, the Directorate of Intelligence has proven to be intellectually stimulating and a challenge throughout my eight years of employment. It seems like every day there is a new problem to solve, one which often directly affects the security of our country. As one of my biggest motivations is to do something positive for my country, I get a sense of lasting accomplishment out of the work I provide and the technical problems I solve.
In addition, in no other environment, including college, have I found such a large group of high caliber, intelligent peers. They continue to amaze me, not only in their abilities and fields of expertise, but in their continued camaraderie and pleasant characters. To me, DI people are for the most part fun to be around. When I wake up in the morning, I find that I want to go to work. My job in the DI is never a 'have to' but rather a 'want to'.
My educational background in aerospace engineering has prepared me adequately for an introduction to the Agency and the DI. Indispensable when it comes to solving the daily problems I face in assessing the capabilities of foreign weapon systems, this background is also combined with excellent DI on-the-job training for areas which are simply not taught in college.
One experience I've had working in the DI was completed only recently. As part of a three-person team, we assisted the FBI with technical analysis in its criminal investigation into the destruction of TWA-800. We determined through technical analysis of FBI-provided eyewitness data, National Transportation Safety Board radar data, and satellite data that the witnesses did not in fact see a missile destroy the plane as was initially speculated. This helped the FBI close the criminal part of the investigation in the TWA-800 disaster. This work, like many other examples, makes me feel that I have in some way made a positive contribution toward my country and its defense.
The Directorate of Intelligence has provided me with a wealth of different experiences that no other career could match. Whereas an analyst may choose to focus and build expertise on one issue or region for their entire career, I chose to experience several assignments which the DI has accommodated based on my skills, interests, and the Agency's needs.
In my 18 years here, I have served as a political analyst on Southeast Asia, traveled to many foreign countries, participated in US military exercises overseas, worked as a staffer in the White House Situation Room, spent a year working in Congress as an American Political Science Association Fellow, provided daily intelligence briefings to the President and other senior policymakers, and managed a human resources-related staff.
I sometimes participate in campus recruiting and other public outreach activities. Moreover, as an African-American, I particularly enjoy speaking to fellow African-Americans on the contributions we can make in the intelligence and foreign affairs fields.
Intelligence Support to Top Officials
One of the most appealing aspects of working in the DI is the opportunity you get to provide intelligence support to high-level government officials. In the past year alone (as a mid-level analyst), I have had my work read by one of the President's aides and an Under Secretary of State. I also have had the opportunity to consult with high-ranking government officials in charge of directing US foreign policy. I will be traveling overseas for several weeks and working with the National Security Council on providing intelligence support for a Presidential visit to my region of concern. Where else can you get this kind of experience?
Immersing Yourself in Information
The thing I like most about working in the Directorate of Intelligence is the opportunity to immerse yourself in the best available information, from both sensitive and publicly available sources, in order to shed light on what is really going on regarding a potential foreign threat. The biggest thrill is to be the first to figure out something about a threat, for instance the capability of a foreign weapon system, and watch the policy maker light up as he or she understands how the information will help make decisions.
I've been fortunate in having impact even from the start of my career. I was given a narrow area that was full of ambiguity. Over time I developed expertise and contacts that made me sought after to help solve some important questions on foreign issues as varied as nuclear reactors, lasers, and countermeasures to US missile defense. As times have changed, I have shifted my area of expertise, yet been able to make discoveries that still have an impact today. Most satisfying is participation in issues that have helped reduce threats to the United States through arms control and other diplomatic negotiations. In performing my work I have taken trips and seen things that I'll remember forever.
Surprising for me when I started was the dire need for technical expertise, both to understand technical aspects of foreign weapon systems and the capabilities of technical intelligence collection systems. In addition, the background in logic and the scientific method derived from a technical background make analysis almost second nature. Also a good fit is the CIA's insistence on getting only the truth from information while avoiding political agendas. The pursuit of answers is still infectious to me after 15 years, especially when surrounded by others of a similar bent. And despite the break-up of the Soviet Union there are more intelligence challenges than could be handled with five times as many analysts. Thus, everyone has the potential to contribute and make a difference.
I have worked in the DI for nine years as a visual information specialist, supporting DI analysts in communicating their message in a clear, concise, and graphically striking manner. This support has taken many forms and includes publication design, technical illustration, logo design, briefing boards and viewgraphs, statistical charting, information graphics, wallcharts, and book cover design.
My work has sometimes played a crucial role in clarifying critical analysis for a policymaker by capturing the essence of a complex issue and conveying it in simple graphic terms. Very often, solid professional graphics have provided the necessary added impact to help an analyst cut through the competing clutter of information. It has been a privilege to team up with analysts on breaking topics affecting our national security and then receive feedback that graphics “really got [the customer’s] attention.”
Professionally speaking, I work with many highly-talented designers who I learn from each day and have over the years helped me hone my craft. I also work with industry-leading technology and receive regular training opportunities to stay on top of breaking developments in my field. I enjoy being a part of the DI and making this very specific, and sometimes vital, contribution to the nation’s intelligence process.
Creating Maps for Senior Customers
Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of my job as a cartographer stems from our mission of supporting real-time, current intelligence products. Having the opportunity to work as one of the staff responsible for daily publications such as the Presidential Daily Brief ensures a certain degree of job satisfaction when you go home at night after a day's work.
Creating effective, timely, high quality cartographic products on such a diverse spectrum of national security issues under tight deadlines keeps the job both challenging and on the cutting edge. The fact that the maps you produce add value to the analysis and will be read by the highest government officials within hours, sometimes within minutes of leaving your fingertips makes the effort worthwhile and the experience quite rare within the discipline of cartography.
As a junior economic analyst in the Directorate of Intelligence, I prepare finished intelligence products on illicit financial activities for key policymakers. I started work at the Agency several years ago as a student co-op, which gave me an early introduction to the diverse career opportunities available at the CIA. After graduating with a degree in economics and international relations, I began work as an analyst specializing in tracking money laundering. Since that time, I've had the opportunity to travel to the Caribbean, Europe, and Latin America to develop expertise in my field and enhance my skills as an economic analyst.
Although I've been at the Agency for a short time, I've been able to brief and write for top US Government officials, giving them information that they have used in making US policy. As a female economist, I enjoy working with a diverse group of analysts with extraordinary expertise on complex areas. I cannot imagine a more rewarding, nor a more challenging career than the one I have at the CIA.
I have worked in the Directorate of Intelligence for 15 years in an information system support role. One benefit to working in the DI as a computer engineer is the wide range of opportunities available, from network operations to system architecture. In my career I have worked to solve technical intelligence problems, written modeling software to enable analysts to better understand foreign weapon systems, designed and operated computer networks, architected software systems, and worked on enterprise-wide computer systems architecture. This spectrum of opportunity has given me a wide breadth of experience and has kept my career fresh and exciting.
Another benefit to my work is that I am contributing to the important mission of the DI. The knowledge that your work improves the analytic process and helps to provide accurate and timely information to our nation's leadership is very gratifying. Very few organizations can provide computer engineers with this combination of experience opportunities and this level of participation in the organization's mission.
To keep the intelligence process functioning smoothly DI analysts use a variety of computer applications but someone must train them on their use. When I entered on duty 18 years ago, I never imagined myself teaching people how to use a computer. At that time, I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted my career to take. The DI gave me the opportunity to participate in special development program that exposed me to publications procurement, document indexing/retrieval, and computer support. To my surprise, I discovered that I actually liked the latter. I enjoyed showing people how to use DI computer systems more effectively. I moved from helping individuals, to coordinating classroom training, to finally becoming an instructor. I loved what I was doing.
I tried other jobs (marketing, producing an office newsletter, and career management) and experienced success but my love of training led me back to the classroom. I returned as a team leader, responsible for course development and tailoring training to meet the DI’s needs. Given that computer systems, the intelligence process, and the DI’s requirements are constantly changing the challenge facing a trainer is great but so are the rewards. Nothing gives me a greater sense of accomplishment than to hear a student say, "Thanks, that’s just what I needed," at the end of a class.
Employment Opportunities in the DI
Positions in CIA's Directorate of Intelligence are open to US citizens of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Salaries are competitive, and benefits are excellent. Successful completion of medical and psychological evaluations, a polygraph interview, and an extensive background investigation are required.
We anticipate openings in the coming year for: economic, political, leadership, military, and imagery analysts; scientific and technical analysts (including electrical, mechanical, aeronautical, and petroleum engineers; geographers, chemists, microbiologists, and geologists); cartographers, graphic designers, quantitative analysts, computer scientists, and secretaries. Click here for more details on intelligence disciplines in the DI.
If you are interested in employment opportunities with the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, please visit the CIA Employment Page and submit your resume online or mail your resume and cover letter to:
Recruitment Center
P.O. Box 4090, Attn: DI Rep
Reston, VA 20195
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