NOC, NOC.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills

You may have been puzzled when I referred earlier to the "occasional CIA officer" who had the enterprise to break out of the embassy. Weren't all CIA people out there spying on someone? The fact is that usually it's been mostly the NOCs who were "out there." NOC means non-official cover, which in turn means the spies who are really spies, as in Kim, operating without diplomatic immunity, their covers ranging from street-sweeper to businessman. The trouble is that NOCs--Valerie Plame was one--have been a small minority of agency operatives abroad. Most of...