Recharging The CIA

By Timothy J. Burger

Want evidence that the CIA is trying to get its groove back? Consider the tale of the tippler. An agency spook trying to recruit a potentially useful overseas target felt compelled to warn his bosses recently that the man enjoyed a drink. Fearing that deskbound managers would veto the contact, the spook was thrilled to be told "to use his instincts, be smart and see" what develops. The episode, related to TIME by someone close to the agency, is meant to illustrate how, a year into Director Porter Goss's tenure, the CIA is inching back to the risk-taking culture that helped it share credit for winning the cold war.

Knocked from its perch as the chief U.S. intelligence agency when Congress created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA is focusing on the critical task of planting human spies. President Bush told Goss a year ago to hire 50% more spooks "as soon as feasible." Sources say Goss's plan is to go back to basics: hide more spies posing, for example, as cultural or economic attaches in embassy-based CIA stations, and reopen stations that closed when the cold war ended. Camp Peary, the CIA's secret training center in eastern Virginia, runs a roughly six-month course to mint new spies for such postings. Classes at the Farm, as it's called, are packed, officials say.

Government sources say the agency also plans to plant more spies under nonofficial cover (NOC), one of the most dangerous yet potentially productive assignments. NOCs--posing perhaps as students or executives--don't enjoy diplomatic immunity. That means the U.S. would deny any link to the spies and offer them no protection from prosecution or even execution if caught--especially in a country with no diplomatic relations with the U.S.

But Goss, in an interview at agency headquarters in June, said he is giving his spies more autonomy in the field and backing them up--whenever possible--if something goes wrong. "We have tried to reduce the number of 'May I, Mother?' requests and let you make the decisions out there," he said.