See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism Read Online Free PDF Page A

the federal center in San Francisco on Monday and asked for the CIA’s telephone number. The operator gave me a number in Lawndale, California. The woman who answered the phone took down my name and address and promised to send me a personal history statement - an application - and an admission ticket for a written exam.
    The personal history statement was the longest, most detailed form I’d ever seen in my life. Besides every conceivable question about my current circumstances, there were several pages asking about my extended family, friends, clubs, associations, and political affiliations. It took me two weeks and a lot of telephone calls to fill it out. A psychological questionnaire had arrived along with it. I remember one question about bed-wetting.
    The written exam, which was given at the Federal Building in San Francisco, was a cross between the SAT and the Foreign Service exam. The other people taking the exam looked older than me but normal enough. I wondered if they, too, were taking the test mostly out of curiosity.
    In truth, I figured I’d never hear from the CIA again. Sure, anyone could take the entrance exam, but even if I aced the test, my personal history statement was sure to weed me out. Even apart from my lefty mother, I had absolutely no experience. The last regular job I had held down was washing dishes in Georgetown.
    I was wrong. One morning, about a month after the test, I received a long-distance call from a woman asking if I would be available for an interview. She gave me the time, the address of a downtown hotel, and the name of a man I was supposed to meet - Jim Scott. It wasn’t until after I hung up that I realized she hadn’t said she was calling from the CIA, but since I hadn’t applied for any other job, it stood to reason.
    The night before, I was nervous, not because I was serious about going to work for the CIA but because this was my first interview for a real job. I wanted to do well. I dug my only suit out of a trunk, hung it up in the bathroom, and ran the shower on hot to steam out the wrinkles. I paced the apartment, trying to imagine what Jim Scott would ask me and how I would respond. I didn’t even have a number for him. What if I’d gotten the name of the hotel wrong? I had no way to call the CIA, except the office in Lawndale.
    The next morning I called Scott’s room from the hotel lobby, right on time. He told me to call back in thirty minutes. That’s strange, I thought. It was only nine, and he couldn’t possibly be in another interview. I waited in the lobby imagining all sorts of things. Maybe someone was watching me to see if I was alone. When I called back a half hour later, Scott told me to come on up.
    With his slicked-back hair, tweed coat, and club tie, Jim Scott looked more like a college-football recruiter than how I pictured a CIA agent. I noticed that the bed in his junior suite was made up and there wasn’t a suitcase in sight. He must have spent the night somewhere else. There was no way anyone could see in the window, but he still closed the curtains so that the only light came from a bedside lamp.
    We sat down on either end of the couch. A wafer-thin manila folder sat on the coffee table. It must have been my file.
    ‘You probably already know a lot about the CIA, but I think it would be helpful to give you a quick overview,’ Scott started.
    I wasn’t about to admit that I knew next to nothing about the CIA.
    Scott must have given the same spiel a dozen times a week. Essentially, the CIA is divided into two houses: the Directorate of Operations and the Directorate of Intelligence. There are other directorates, he said, but they play mostly supporting roles. The Directorate of Intelligence - or the DI, as it’s called inside - is made up of analysts: regional experts, psychiatrists, physicists, sociologists, and so on. As the name suggests, the DI analysts evaluate information and put their conclusions on paper. Information collectors, on