Spies Like Us

Belmont Club does a nice summary of a Weekly Standard Article lamenting the sorry state of the CIA. Belmont Club comes up with the conclusion that the CIA needs more American spies, not just haphazardly recruited foreigners, but actual employees.

He's right of course, but that's not the whole story...

Obviously, demographics on employees of the CIA aren't that easy to come by. You can, however, draw some conclusions based on where they tend to recruit employees; Ivy League Colleges. Not all employees are recruited from Ivy League Colleges, some come from other major educational institutions, but I believe a significant number are from Yale, Harvard, etc.

What's wrong with many of our government agencies is that they're composed of a relatively small subsection of the population, mainly from the Northeastern US. This leads to a kind of group-think that negates a lot of the qualities Americans are known for - individualism, willingness to take risks, and the ability to improvise to solve problems.

I believe one of the problems facing the CIA is that it's long been an extension of the Ivy League Schools. There isn't a whole lot of initiative or original thought going on. Instead, it's a risk averse culture that always "colors within the lines". Not exactly what we need in a dangerous world.

The CIA needs to recruit normal Americans. People from the Midwest and the rest of the country. People who didn't go to fantastic colleges. Heck, who says they even need to have attended college? I think it would be much easier to find a taxi cab driver in Chicago who would make a great spy than it would be to find one at dear old Harvard. (It would probably be cheaper too.)

The closest the establishment has come to actually getting some good people involved is the recent decision to train US Army Green Berets in intelligence gathering and related skills. Soldiers tend to come from the opposite end of the spectrum than your typical Ivy Leaguer and maybe that will help to balance things out. Hey CIA! Come out here to the Midwest and recruit me, or some of my friends, or the kid down the street who's parents immigrated from India. Then maybe we can see some results.