The CIA largely recruited only from Ivy League universities well into the 1980s.
I went by their table out of curiosity, or to see if they were giving away any schwag. Because who wouldn't want a "CIA" pen, even if it didn't shoot tranquilizer darts.
Since I was a very nerdy kid, I gave the people at the table my resume, while probably forgetting to make eye contact. There was zero indication of them having any interest in talking with me, so I left.
But, maybe because I'd started working very young, my resume looked a lot better than I did, and they must've later glanced at it.
As I was later leaving the job fair, about to enter the elevator, this CIA representative comes bounding across the room at me, shouting to get my attention. Then she asked if I could come in the next day for an interview.
If I did the interview, they must've mind-control drugged me to forget it. But I did retain a nerdy kid story about being chased by a CIA agent. Still no schwag.
Paraphrasing a sarcastic comment from Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character in Charlie Wilson’s War: “What a wild fucking idea: our spies should probably speak the same language as the people they’re spying on.”
Lest anyone hammer on the LDS for this: missionaries as spies is not a novel concept nor exclusive to Mormons.
- no use of religious/academics/medical practitioners as cover identities
- no high-level clearances to people who had ties overseas and might be vulnerable to blackmail/coercion
Somehow that all went out the locks during the "War on Terror" and I would gladly vote for and donate to a candidate who would make an issue of instances where the above moral considerations were ignored and operations which I would view as war crimes were perpetrated.
It's not worth winning any war at the cost of the moral high ground.
Uh, what? Could you perhaps tell this to the Catholic Church, who DEFINITELY used their capacity as religious leaders to spy on the Japanese on behalf of the Portuguese around, I dunno, the year 1600?
This is simply the easiest answer I could recall because I just watched Shogun.
This limit you’re describing only exists in your head.
I knew what he was really telling me, lol.