NOC out.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills - Non-official cover - Brief Article

I have often complained about how few real spies the CIA has. Called NOCs for "non-official cover," the real spies operate outside the comfort and protection of U.S. embassies enjoyed by case officers. James Bamford, whose recent book, A Pretext for War, reveals that the CIA failed "to recruit a single source within bin Laden's growing Afghanistan operation," supplies a more precise definition of what 1 meant by the word "few." At their highest point during the 1990s, according to Bamford, there were only about 150 NOCs compared to about 2,500 case officers.

Why were there so few? The CIAs excuse is that NOCs cost too much and are too likely to be caught, with the danger of an embarrassing diplomatic dust-up for the government...