THE PROFESSIONALISM OF CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01580R001603300002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 20
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 29, 2013
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 18, 1964
• Content Type: REPORT

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I to Si . Er wnen nuea in rorm IS detached rrom controlled docc ene.
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DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION
REGISTRY
SOURCE
Execytive Director
CIA CONTROL NO.
188611
DOC. NO.
PROFESSIONALISM
DATE DOCUMENT RECEIVED
DOC. DATE December 1964
18 Dec 64
COPY NO. 1
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None
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Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Junior Officer Trainees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
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Training 20
Educational Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Some Typical Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
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ability in professions as diverse as political analysis and
This report presents an analysis of the reservoir of
professional ability in the Central Intelligence Agency--expert
electronic engineering and agent (spy)-
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handling, communications and
Perhaps nowhere in the world has there been assembled
in one organization more highly skilled talent in what goes under
the omnibus title of the intelligence profession--a discipline
which encompasses everything from to paper
It is with the thought that the United States Government
should better know how to utilize this impressive service that
there are herein presented CIA's professional qualifications.
Most CIA senior officers are people who were in intelli-
gence work during World War II. They have continued with it
because they are dedicated to serving the Government in its
principal arm for waging the cold war, and they remain convinced
naissance to
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that the cold war will be with us during their working lives.
The members of the Agency Executive Committee who
meet with the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence and myself
each morning at 0900 to be briefed on the world situation and
decide on the day's actions have an average of 18 years' intelli-
gence experience and 15 years with the CIA.
The senior staff of the Agency--those top officials and
component chiefs in the nearly 50 principal units of CIA--have
an average of 17 years' experience in intelligence work, and also
15 years' average service with the Agency. These statistics do
not include the regular military officers in this group, who
for obvious reasons have not had lengthy experience in intelligence
work.
Of thel employees who were on duty when the Agency
was established in September 1947,=are still with us. More
than 95% of these are professionals.
Of the station chiefs at the major posts throughout the
world, =have been with CIA since the Agency was established
ands had prior intelligence experience. The average length of
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The educational background of the CIA professional is impres-
sive. About 80 percent of our people in GS grades 13 through 15 and
practically all supergrades hold at least one degree. Nearly one-
third of the GS-13/15 group have advanced degrees, including nearly
10 percent who have doctorates. More than one-third of our super-
grades have advanced degrees, including 20 percent with doctorates.
Degrees have been awarded by more than 500 colleges and universities,
including 40 foreign institutions and virtually every major academic
field is represented.
Here are some more statistics on the degrees held in CIA.
In the Deputy Directorate for Science and Technology area, among
the supergrades 62 percent of the professionals have an M.A. degree
and about one-third have doctoral degrees.
Among the supergrades in the Deputy Directorate for Intelli-
gence area (intelligence analysis and research) two-thirds have M.A.
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degrees and about 38 percent hold doctoral degrees.
Here is a bird's-eye view of one component of the Agency--
the Economic Research Area (ERA) of the Office of Research and
Reports. Fifty-eight percent of all professionals hold graduate
degrees, including^Ph.D.'s. More than half of the analysts
have an intermediate reading or high language qualification in Russian
or some other foreign language. About[::]of the professionals have
teaching experience at the university level, and=are now teach-
ing part-time. ERA personnel have published well over 100 books
and articles.
? Even though our people do not identify themselves with the
Agency while so doing, of our professionals have been granted
permission during FY 1964 to publish books and articles ranging in
content from pre-school children's stories to textbooks useful in
advanced academic study.
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Foreign languages of course are of vital importance in
all our fields of endeavor, and in CIA 74% of our people have
some competence in at least one foreign language. These abilities
are distributed among 122 different foreign languages and dialects.
Here are some interesting statistics to illustrate this
language competence. The Agency has overstaff employees
with useful proficiency in Russian; who know Japanese; over
with Chinese;r in Indonesian; n Bulgarian and almost as
many in Hungarian; ^ in Albanian; ^ in Finnish; ^ in Thai; ^in
Swahili;rin Vietnamese; andrin Tibetan. These are just sam-
plings of the languages known by some of our regular staff employ-
ees, and do not take into account a great many skilled linguists
who serve the Agency in other capacities.
These linguistically-skilled employees are concentrated
quite properly in the components engaged in operations and research
concerning the various countries and areas. For example, in the
Soviet Russia Division 70% of the professional employees have
useful proficiency in Russian. Further, this Division has
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with four, uwith two, anduwith at least one. These include
all of the eastern European languages such as Czech, Polish,
Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Lettish, Serbian, Finnish and Yiddish.
In the Eastern Europe Division 70% of the professionals
have German, plus enough additional competence to average two
foreign languages per employee.
The Western Europe Division, naturally heavy on the so-
called world languages, averages two foreign languages per pro-
fessional employee.
The Far East Division is particularly strong in Japanese
has small groups with specialized knowledge of the lesser-known
and less widely used languages of the area. One FE employee
has the unique distinction of being fluent in Chinese, Japanese and
Korean, which are considered to be among the world's most
difficult languages.
The Africa Division is working on native languages and
dialects, with progress being made in Swahili, Hausa, Lingala,
etc., but of more immediate practical significance is the fact that
more than half of its professional employees know French.
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The Foreign Documents Division, which handles most of
the Agency's translation work, is expert in 65 languages.
The specialized research areas naturally are equipped with
the gamut of foreign languages, and our Office of Training has an
outstanding capability. One officer in our Language and Area
School is qualified in 22 languages and has a working knowledge
of 13 more. He and his colleagues can offer instruction in more
than 40 languages.
In the Office of Current Intelligence and the Office of
Scientific Intelligence there is an average of one foreign language
per professional employee.
Within the DD/P complex as a whole there is an average
of 1.;6 foreign languages per employee and in every Agency com-
ponent there are a number of officers who are' proficient in three:
or more languages, some with as many as 10 or 11.
Most of this language competence is put to use in the
normal operational functions of the Agency, but there is an occa-
sional bonus value realized.
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Of perhaps as much significance as the foregoing statistics
is the interest shown by our people in strengthening and increasing
their language competence as a necessary "tool of the trade." In
addition to a substantial and on-going volume of directed language
training conducted during duty hours for specific job-related
purposes, close to= people here at headquarters are engaged
in voluntary language study on their own time, before and after
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duty hours, throughout the year, and are similarly
studying at posts abroad. Many individuals have been working in
this out-of-hours program for two or three years. The teachers
in this domestic program come almost exclusively from among
Agency professionals who undertake this work in addition to their
normal duties. Thus many of our competences do double duty.
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 every year is bringing in new blood.
We maintain our employee strength without compromising
our criteria for selection either in terms of professional qualifi-
cations, physical condition, or security requirements.
Among every twenty applicants interviewed, only five are
recommended for processing, and only one of every three processed
actually enters on duty.
Our policy during the past several years has been to con-
centrate on the recruitment of outstanding young people who are
genuinely interested in an intelligence career, and who indicate
the potential ability and motivation to grow into the highest offices
in the Agency in the future years. .
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We have established a Junior Officer Training Program
which has been judged by many competent authorities as being
the best of its kind in the Government and among the best in the
United States. It is, in fact, the model for a similar program now
conducted by the First National City Bank of New York. Our
screening procedures for entrance into this program are even more
demanding than our normal standards as is illustrated by the fact
that only one of every seven candidates is selected.
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to 80 colleges and universities will be represented. The average
JOT is between 26 and 27 years old. He holds a bachelor's degree
and has a year or more of graduate study; generally has lived over-
seas for at least a school year; has fulfilled his military obligation
(or does so under our auspices); has reasonable competence in at
least one foreign language; has had some academic honor; is
interested in foreign affairs; and is willing to serve wherever
needed.
 or she must have the ability to withstand the stresses of ano-
nymity, the lack of public recognition, an interrupted family life,
irregular work hours, and the ability to live a "cover story."
Junior Officer Trainees are assigned to more than
countries of the world.
Some of our JOTs go to the research and analysis offices
of the Agency; most of these have degrees in economics and the
physical sciences.
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Because we are a unique organization we require talents
and skills in a large percentage of our activities which are not
available anywhere else. Except for the hard core of professionals
who stayed in intelligence work after World War II and a relatively
few people who have joined us since with experience in military
intelligence, we have had to develop by our own resources the
competences we need and find ways to maintain and improve them.
In the process we have developed a training capability which I am
confident is second to none.
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We concentrate our training effort on the skills which are
unique to the intelligence field and adhere to the strict principle
that we will not offer training in anything which can be done effi-
ciently, economically, and securely by other Government agencies
or private institutions. In 1963, for instance, we sentF_~pro-
fessional employees to external training courses at 202 different
facilities. During the same period our own Office of Training
offered 106 different courses to a total enrollment of =employees.
We insist that our own courses be taught by practitioners,
not theorists. Only about 50% of our trainers are career instructors.
The others are experienced analysts, operations, and support
officers. Moreover, our career instructors are required to accept
assignments throughout the world for at least one full tour of duty
so they may practice what they teach and, in turn, teach what they
have practiced.
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