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Authors: Mark M. Lowenthal

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KEY TERMS
 
analyst agility
analyst fungibility
analytic penetration
analytical stovepipes
assessments
clientism
competitive analysis
confidence levels
current intelligence
duty to warn
estimates
global coverage
groupthink
layering
long-term intelligence
mirror imaging
opportunity analysis
politicized intelligence
FURTHER READINGS
 
The literature on analysis is rich. These readings discuss both broad general issues and some specific areas of intelligence analysis that have been particularly important. The CIA has declassified many of its estimates on the Soviet Union and related issues (see chap. 11).
 
Adams, Sam. “Vietnam Cover-Up: Playing with Numbers; A CIA Conspiracy against Its Own Numbers.”
Harper’s
(May 1975): 41-44, ff.
Bell, J. Dwyer. “Toward a Theory of Deception.”
International journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
16 (summer 2003): 244-279.
Berkowitz, Bruce. “The Big Difference between Intelligence and Evidence.”
Washington Post,
February 2, 2003, B1.
Caldwell, George.
Policy Analysis for Intelligence.
Report by the Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence. Washington, D.C.: CIA, 1992.
Clark, Robert M.
Intelligence Analysis: Estimation and Prediction.
Baltimore: American Literary Press, 1996.
Cooper. Jeffrey R.
Curing Analytic Pathologies: Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis.
Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Analysis, CIA, December 2005.
Davis, Jack.
The Challenge of Opportunity Analysis.
Report by the Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence. Washington, D.C.: CIA,1992.
Ford, Harold P.
Estimntive Intelligence.
McLean, Va.: Association of Former Intelligence Officers, 1993.
————.
Estimative Intelligence: The Purposes and Problems of National Intelligence Estimating.
Washington, D.C.: Defense Intelligence College, 1989.
Gates, Robert M. “The CIA and American Foreign Policy.”
Foreign Affairs
66 (winter 1987-1988): 215-230.
Gazit, Shlomo. “Estimates and Fortune-Telling in Intelligence Work.”
International Security
4 (spring 1980): 36-56.
————. “Intelligence Estimates and the Decision-Maker.”
International Security
3 (July 1988): 261-287.
George, Roger Z. “Fixing the Problem of Analytical Mind-Sets: Alternative Analysis.”
International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
17 (fall 2004): 385-404.
George, Roger Z., and James B. Bruce, eds.
Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles, and Innovations.
Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2008.
Heuer, Richards J., Jr.
Psychology of Analysis.
Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, History Staff, 1999. (Available at
www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csipublications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis
.)
Johnson. Loch K. “Analysis for a New Age.”
Intelligence and National Security
11 (October 1996): 657-671.
Lockwood, Jonathan S. “Sources of Error in Indications and Warning.”
Defense Intelligence journal
3 (spring 1994): 75-88.
Lowenthal, Mark M. “The Burdensome Concept of Failure.” In
Intelligence Policy and Process.
Ed. Alfred C. Maurer and others. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985.
MacEachin, Douglas J.
The Tradecraft of Analysis: Challenge and Change in the CIA.
Washington, D.C.: Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, 1994.
Nye, Joseph S.
Estimating the Future.
Washington, D.C.: Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, 1994.
Pipes, Richard. “Team B: The Reality behind the Myth.”
Commentary
82 (October 1986).
Price, Victoria.
The DCI’s Role
in
Producing Strategie Intelligence Estimates.
Newport, R.I.: U.S. Naval War College, 1980.
Reich, Robert C. “Reexamining the Team A-Team B Exercise
.” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
3 (fall 1989): 387-403.
Rieber, Steven. “Intelligence Analysis and Judgmental Calibration
.” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
17 (spring 2004): 97-112.
Stack, Kevin P. “A Negative View of Comparative Analysis.”
International journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
10 (winter 1998): 456-464.
Steury, Donald P., ed.
Sherman Kent and the Hoard of National Estimates.
Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, History Staff, CIA, 1994.
Turner, Michael A. “Setting Analytical Priorities in U.S. Intelligence.”
International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
9 (fall 1996): 313-336.
U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
lntelligence Support
to
Arms Control.
100th Cong., 1st sess., 1987.
————.
Iran
:
Evaluation of U.S. Intelligence Performance Prior to November 1978.
96th Cong., 1st sess., 1979.
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
The National Intelligence Estimates A-B Team Episode Concerning. Soviet Strategic Capability and Objectives.
95th Cong., 2d sess., 1978.
_______.
Nomination of Robert M. Gates.
3 vols. 102d Cong., 1st sess., 1991. 1.
———.
Nomination of Robert M. Gates to Be Director of Central Intelligence.
102d Cong., 1st sess., 1991.
.Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq.
108th Cong., 2d sess., 2004.
Wirtz, James J. “Miscalculation, Surprise, and American Intelligence after the Cold War.”
International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligenc
e 5 (spring 1991): 1-16.
______.
The Tel Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991. 1.
CHAPTER 7
 
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
 
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
(CI) refers to efforts taken to protect one’s own intelligence operations from penetration and disruption by hostile nations or their intelligence services. It is both analytical and operational. Counterintelligence is not a separate step in the intelligence process. CI should pervade all aspects of intelligence, but it is often pigeon-holed as a security issue. CI does not fit neatly with human intelligence, although CI is, in part, a collection issue. Nor does it fit with covert action. It is also more than security—that is, defending against or identifying breaches—because successful CI can also lead to analytical and operational opportunities. In sum, CI is one of the most difficult intelligence topics to discuss.
Most nations have intelligence enterprises of some sort. As a result, these agencies are valuable intelligence targets for other nations. Knowing what the other side knows, does not know, and how it goes about its work is always useful. Moreover, knowing if the other side is undertaking similar efforts is extremely helpful.
(See box, “Who Spies on Whom?”)
However, counterintelligence is more than a defensive activity. There are at least three types of CI.
• Collection: gaining information about an opponent’s intelligence collection capabilities that may be aimed at one’s own country
• Defensive: thwarting efforts by hostile intelligence services to penetrate one’s service
• Offensive: having identified an opponent’s efforts against one’s own system, trying to manipulate these attacks either by turning the opponent’s agents into
double agents
or by feeding them false information that they report home
 
The world of spy and counterspy is murky at best. Like espionage, counterintelligence is a staple of intelligence fiction. But, like all other aspects of intelligence, it has less glamour than it does grinding, painstaking work.
INTERNAL SAFEGUARDS
 
All intelligence agencies establish a series of internal processes and checks, the main purposes of which are to weed out applicants who may be unsuitable and to identify current employees whose loyalty or activities are questionable. The vetting process for applicants includes extensive background checks, interviews with the applicants and close associates, and, in the United States at least, the use of the polygraph at most agencies. The ideal candidate is not necessarily someone whose past record is spotless. Most applicants likely have engaged in some level of experimentation—either sexual or drugs, or both. Some may have committed minor criminal offenses. It is crucial, however, that applicants be forthcoming about their past and be able to prove that they are no longer exhibiting behaviors that are criminal, dangerous, or susceptible to blackmail.
WHO SPIES ON WHOM?
 
Some people assume that friendly spy agencies do not spy on one another But what constitutes “friendly”? The United States and its “Commonwealth cousins”—Australia. Britain, and Canada—enjoy a close intelligence partnership and do not spy on one another. Beyond that, all bets are off
In the 1990s, the United States allegedly spied on France for economic intelligence. In the 1980s, Israel willingly used Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. Navy intelligence employee who passed sensitive U.S. intelligence that he believed Israel needed to know. Some people were surprised—if not outraged—that post-Soviet Russia would continue using Aldrich Ames to spy against the United States. (Subsequent revelations about the espionage of Robert Hanssen stirred less surprise—perhaps a sign of increased maturity gained through painful experience.) In the late 1990s, a House committee found that China stole nuclear secrets from the United States at a time when the two nations were strategic partners against the Soviet Union.
In the 1970s a “senior U.S. government official” (probably Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger) observed, “There is no such thing as ‘friendly’ intelligence agencies. There are only the intelligence agencies of friendly powers,”
 
The
polygraph,
sometimes mistakenly referred to as a lie detector, is a machine that monitors physical responses (such as pulse and breathing rate) to a series of questions. Changes in physical responses may indicate falsehoods or deceptions. The use of the polygraph by U.S. intelligence remains controversial, as it is imperfect and can be deceived. A 2002 study by the National Research Council found that polygraphs are more useful in criminal investigations, where specific questions can be asked, than for counterintelligence, where the questions are more general and therefore are more likely to yield false-positive responses.
At least two spies, Larry Wu-tai Chin and Aldrich Ames, passed polygraph tests while they were involved in espionage against the United States. Advocates of the polygraph argue that it does serve as a deterrent. They are also quick to assert that the machine is only a tool that can point to problem areas, some of which may be resolved without prejudice. However, an individual’s inability or failure to resolve such issues can lead to termination. In addition to new employees, current employees are polygraphed at intervals of several years; contractors are subject to polygraphs; and the machines are used with defectors. Polygraphs are not used consistently throughout the national security structure, however. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Reconnaissance Office, and National Security Agency (NSA) all use polygraphs; the State Department and Congress do not. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began using polygraphs in the aftermath of the 2001 Robert Hanssen espionage case, which revealed that polygraphs had not been in use at the FBI. This is not to suggest that some agencies are more rigorous or more lax than others. But it does underscore a range of standards in terms of personnel security.
Despite the fact that so many agencies use polygraphs as part of their security practice, there is no standard procedure for these tests. Each agency administers polygraphs to its own standards, which, according to press accounts, can lead to different results for the same subject. Also, agencies do not accept one another’s polygraph results, which can be interpreted as either rigor or the lack of an agreed baseline.

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