Developing A Cover As A CIA Spy
What is a 'Cover' for a CIA spy?
A CIA spy can have a number of different covers whether it be posing as a businessman or a woman or a freelance writer I posed as on occasion. My official cover I was posing as a diplomat overseas and one of the reasons that the CIA traditionally uses this cover is because it is the lowest risk for its officers, that is, if I were caught spying overseas, I would probably be declared persona non grata and sent home. Whereas, if I were caught and didn't have diplomatic cover, I wouldn't have diplomatic immunity and the consequences could be a lot greater.
How is a cover established?
Sometimes you have a long time to establish your cover, but sometimes you only have a few minutes or hours. For instance, sometimes I would travel in alias and I would be using alias documents that I hadn't seen or had in over a year. So I would have a few hours where I would be able to look at the alias documents and try to memorize my name, birth date and my mother's name and birth date. I will then try to commit to memory in a very short period of time a whole different identity.
Does a cover change your whole identity?
It doesn't change your whole identity but it's supposed to change your identity as much as possible so that there's can be no link between that cover identity or that alias identity and who actually you are. As a CIA officer a lot of people think that CIA spy are always using an alias and always using pseudonym, always living a cover. That's not the case in that often time you are using your own real first time last name but you my have number of other alias identities in the background that you can fall back on if you don't want to use your real name.
What happens if you forget your cover?
If you forget your cover, then best case scenario is you just fumble along there's some embarrassment. But worse case scenario is that you expose yourself as a fraud or a potential CIA agent or officer. So it's really important when you have a cover that you kind of spend some time, not only committing the details to memory, the names and the dates, and the sort of details that might trap you up in a border crossing, but also that you have enough of a back story so that if you're meeting with someone, pretending to be someone that you're not, that you can, you know, tell a story about your childhood, or where you grew up. So if you have a cover that involves you being born somewhere where you've never been, well you want your story to suggest that you moved from there when you were only a few months old, so if you meet someone else from that area you can explain why you don't know anything about it or why they don't know who you are.
Does your family know your cover name?
My family did not know any of my cover names, stories, aliases, anything like that, and that is pretty much how it should be. My family knew that I was working for the CIA, but other than that they didn't have any idea what I was doing.
Why is a cover needed for the CIA?
A lot of people think that a cover is necessary to be a good CIA officer, and that's not really the case. A cover is more one of the tools you use to be an effective spy. But you should be able to do your job, even if someone suspects you of being a CIA officer. That is, you should be able to conduct your operations without ever being caught, and with having some degree of plausibility to what your story is. But a cover is very helpful in that it gives you a story to tell someone, to explain why you're interested in what you're interested in. It also, particularly if you're using an alias name or a pseudonym, enables you to do something, and then later there will be no trace of that interaction, or no trace of you doing that, no link between your cover identity and who you actually are: the CIA officer.
How often is a cover used in the CIA?
A cover is used by a CIA spy on a daily basis, in that you're not telling everyone that you're a CIA spy, unless you're deliberately breaking cover with them. You're always posing as something, whether it be a diplomat or a businessman, a writer, a photographer. You always have some cover story. But sometimes there are, beneath that one cover story, different layers of cover stories. You're living your cover. When you're a CIA spy, you're living a double life, which is basically living your cover and then also living your secret life among your CIA colleagues.
What is an example of a typical cover?
A typical cover for a CIA spy and probably the most commonly used is to pose as a diplomat. One of the reasons the CIA likes to use diplomatic cover is because it is the least risky for it's officers and also because you have an ostensible reason to be overseas, and you have an ostensible reason to be meeting with foreigners and asking them some probing questions. You are an American diplomat, of course you are interested in the nuclear infrastructure of their country. However, one of the problems is that because the CIA has used diplomatic cover so much and because all of these other countries relied on diplomatic cover particularly during the Cold War, it is not really as effective in today's environment where we are specifically seeking out contacts with people who might have contacts with terrorists. They are usually not going to be on the diplomatic cocktail circuit. They are not going to be the kind of people who fraternize with diplomats. The CIA is at a crossroads now in trying to come up with more innovative covers and more innovative ways of conducting human intelligence.
Have you ever known anyone who's blown their cover?
In terms of blowing your cover, I blew my cover by writing a book. I didn't actually blow my cover, because I had had that cleared with the CIA beforehand. That is, I asked the CIA, "Now that I'm resigning, can I actually say that I worked for you?" The CIA complied, but they don't always do that. I have known people who have had their cover blown, either by a foreign government, or sometimes by a colleague who was in a different branch of the government but knew that they were working for the CIA. If your cover's blown, it doesn't mean that your career is over. You should still be able to do your job as a spy, even if your cover has been blown. It naturally erodes over time. As you spend time all over the world, there are going to be enough people who know that you work for the CIA that your cover has eroded.
Does your cover change for different missions?
Your cover definitely changes for different missions. That is, you might be posted overseas and have one cover that you're living as a diplomat, and then have to travel to a whole other part of the world using an alias name and posing as something entirely different, like a business person.
