116 AMERICAN SPY
guys” and much more difficult for the “bad guys” who sponsor terrorism.
The story of how this successful op came to be does not reflect a textbook
CIA operation and demonstrates what despots the world over instinctively
understand: fake news works. Every now and then, it even works to the
benefit of the good guys.
Although my primary objective during my three-year tour in Latin America
was recruiting foreign agents who could produce foreign intelligence (FI),
I also devoted considerable time and energy to running counterintel-
ligence (CI) and covert action (CA) operations. The CI operations were
typically designed to uncover intelligence fabricators and double agents on
our payroll, while the CA work primarily targeted hostile, antidemocratic
governments. As part of the Palmera station CA program, I ran a large
network of CA assets, including a key, highly productive agent whom I
recruited my first year in-country.
CI and CA are typically unrelated, but the two disciplines intersected
in an astonishing way one year, with very positive results for US national
security interests. Running CI operations won’t always get a case officer
promoted, but it is essential espionage work. The same is true of CA, where
the results are not always easy to measure. Recruiting spies who produce FI
is what gets a CIA officer promoted. As an example of the tension between
CI and recruitment efforts, when I arrived in Palmera, my predecessor
turned over to me the station’s top FI producer, an agent he had recruited
and for which he was likely promoted. A first-tour officer, I was warned not
to screw up the station’s most valuable case. Over time, I cross-checked this
alleged superstar agent’s intelligence against my own sources and realized
that there were serious issues with his honesty and bona fides. I eventually
concluded the agent was a fabricator, and I terminated him. Rather than
acknowledge the importance of this “defensive” CI success, which uncov-
ered the ugly truth about an agent who had been the source of hundreds
of FI reports, my COS dinged me in my performance review for taking
too long to fire him. (Interestingly, the CIA does not retroactively rescind
promotions based on the recruitment of agents who turn out to be bad, but
I believe they should.)