So THIS is what you do with a liberal arts degree

February 27, 2016 6:17 PM

In some ways, it is hard to imagine two paths more different than being a writer and being a spy. It is certainly hard to imagine two careers with more wildly disparate stakes. And yet there are parallels in the underlying qualities of their practitioners: an interest in psychology, a facility with narrative, a tendency to position oneself as an observer, and a willingness to lie and call it something else.--writer Jennifer DuBois explains what it was like to be hired by the CIA.
posted by MoonOrb (18 comments total)

I interviewed with the CIA when they came to my campus (I signed up as a protest, but they didn't know that). They seemed to be quite interested in me, history major with a facility for languages, who had lived abroad as a child and adapted well. Until I started asking about their illegal actions in Central America.

Later, when I was living in DC, I knew a guy who was an analyst for them. He had also been a history major (or maybe government, can't remember). It doesn't seem that odd that they would be interested in people who are good at reading, analyzing, and creating digests of narratives.
posted by rtha at 6:57 PM on February 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

Without googling as I am in bed on my phone, what is on the CIA reading list she mentioned, I wonder?
posted by nevercalm at 7:34 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

my favorite CIA interview story is told by Lewis Lapham. This woman seems completely callow...
posted by ennui.bz at 7:39 PM on February 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Lovely story, but... How can we ever know it's true?
posted by kandinski at 7:59 PM on February 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Here are several sources regarding the CIA's reading list...

A PDF that purports to be from an interview packet

The CIA's list of "intelligence literature"

The CIA's list of reading materials about the intelligence profession from the careers area of its web site.

posted by carmicha at 8:04 PM on February 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

I refuse to confirm or deny which books may or may not be on the recommended reading list for prospective employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.

However, I urge any interested potential candidates to read the new book by General Michael Hayden, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror.

Thanks, everybody.
posted by MisplaceDisgrace at 8:07 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Frances Stonor Saunders wrote a fascinating alternate history of the Cold War. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters in which dozens of writers were enlisted in a massive propaganda project. Some of your favorite writers were on the payroll. My favorite writer on the payroll was Peter Matthiessen. The Awl had a listicle piece last August, Literary Magazines for Socialists Funded by the CIA, Ranked.
posted by bukvich at 8:13 PM on February 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

in which dozens of writers were enlisted in a massive propaganda project. Some of your favorite writers were on the payroll.

Dear CIA,
(I can just do this here, right?)
I'm available to write some shit. Hit me up with some of that good-ole American green! Lettuce start a long, profitable relationship!
You know how to reach me.

Sincerely
From bklyn
posted by From Bklyn at 9:47 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

my favorite CIA interview story is told by Lewis Lapham. This woman seems completely callow...

I enjoyed this, but could have done without the extended rumination on how a career with the CIA compares with with a writing career. That seemed a bit overstretched, and, yes, callow. On the other hand, it's an account of her experience with the CIA when she was twenty-three. I think callowness is the point.
posted by lunasol at 10:21 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I thought this was going to be about Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy, but then it wasn't.
posted by enf at 10:27 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've read several autobiographies by former CIA officers, and this jives fairly well with what I've found there. Noting rtha's comment along with those books, I have to imagine that the process isn't monolithic.

These are people conducting the interviews and investigations, and I'm sure some are more hard-assed or touchy or more political than others. I'm not surprised that rtha may have rubbed his interviewers the wrong way by asking about Central America, but I also wouldn't be surprised if that wouldn't have bothered a different interviewer at all. As this article suggests, there are a lot of people in the CIA, and some of them really do want prospective candidates--and the country--to think hard about the shady things they do.

The thing that blows me away about the books I've read is what DuBois talks about with the CIA getting to review & redact anything you want to publish after working for them. Again, what I've read speaks to variability there. Robert Baer's See No Evil is 1) very critical of US foreign policy and CIA practices, and 2) full of crazy stories that at least ring true to a reader...and yet it's hardly got any redactions at all. Conversely, Valerie Plame's autobiography starts with a pretty nice account of the recruitment process and from there gets redacted like crazy. She was at the center of a huge scandal, of course, and none of it her fault. The redactions clearly read like political vindictiveness, especially because the back of the book has a journalist's account of all the same shit as it came out in the public, and the CIA can't redact that; they can, however, redact it if it's from Plame, because she worked for them.

Sorry if that's rambly. I thought this article was a great read. Yeah, the writer/spy thing is a bit of a stretch, but it still made for an interesting perspective.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:42 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have met three or four retired low/mid-level CIA workers, and they were smart, thoughtful and interesting, with precisely the background rtha describes: They seemed to be quite interested in me, history major with a facility for languages, who had lived abroad as a child and adapted well.

I'm sure the agency has its share of rabid extremists and I have read that there is a cultural split between the paramilitary and the analytical sides of the agency, but based on just the people I have met, there is a lot of space there for smart, well-rounded intellectual types.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:52 AM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Spoiler: she chickens out and rejects the conditional offer of employment.
posted by ostranenie at 8:08 AM on February 28, 2016

I had a post-MFA fellowship with the author and though the voice of this piece may seem callow, I can vouch that she's lovely and conscientious.
posted by tapir-whorf at 8:22 AM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

From the article alcohol is “important for social lubrication within diplomatic circles,” Hitz explains, and an entire category of tradecraft is devoted to concealing its abuse

Does anyone know any more about this or have relevant links?
posted by roolya_boolya at 10:06 AM on February 28, 2016

Going the other direction, a favorite of myself, Roald Dahl.
posted by LD Feral at 5:27 PM on February 28, 2016

roolya-boolya: not CIA, but I have an idea of what is involved in hidding the effects of heavy drinking and being able to run meetings at 8:00 a.m. after two hours of sleep.

An acquaitance who is in the alcohol business stayed at my place for a few days. Two nights in a row he came home at 3 in the morning very drunk after drinking all day with clients. Like barely able to walk drunk. He would throw up, drink a liter of coconut water and go to sleep almost instantly.

Both days a dude showed up at 6:00 a.m., put an IV drip in my friend's arm and pumped him full of saline and a 'secret blend of 11 vitamins and minerals', then left him with a fistful of pills to take throughout the day.

My friend looked fresher and sharper by 7:30 a.m. than I look after a full night of sober sleep. Apparently he made thousands and thousands of dollars in sales during morning meetings afterwards.

The only pills I could recognize were modafinil, good old fashioned aspirin and anti diarrhea stuff.

According to my friend he was paying $400 per treatment, the guy was an off duty nurse, no one asks if it is legal, and you can get this service almost anywhere in the world if you know the right people.

I just assume that CIA agents know the right people anywhere in the world.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 7:15 PM on February 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

my favorite CIA interview story is told by Lewis Lapham. This woman seems completely callow...

Lewis Lapham probably feels differently, or he wouldn't have published it in his magazine.
posted by atrazine at 4:05 AM on February 29, 2016 [2 favorites]