There’s a certain irony in listing things you might not know about the intelligence community. Since most of what they do is classified, a more accurate headline would be ten things we actually do know. At any rate, here are ten reasons why spies have the coolest jobs ever.
1. The Library of Congress shaped the early FBI.
J. Edgar Hoover served as director of the FBI for forty-eight years. Hoover had no police work experience when he took charge. He did, however, have a keen analytical mind and an affinity for meticulous organization. To pay for college, Hoover worked at the Library of Congress, and many of the skills he would use as director were honed during this time. His first major innovation at the Bureau was overseeing the reform of the Bureau’s hopelessly disorganized files. He created a new indexing system not unlike the library’s catalog, and Hoover extended each file to include detailed cross-references. This innovation allowed G-men to “connect the dots” between crimes and criminals, and resulted in a massively effective law enforcement agency.
2. INSCOM tried to recruit Jedi Warriors. Really.
In the early 1980s, the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command established a secret project centered on psychic warfare. The goal was to build units of super soldiers capable of walking through walls, becoming invisible, and killing with only their minds. Special Forces teams were the most likely “Jedi Warrior” candidates, as they already operated at peak physical and mental fitness—psychic powers were the obvious next step. Major General Albert Stubblebine, the commanding general of INSCOM at the time, was the program’s chief proponent. He retired in 1984. It is unclear whether the Army presently has a battalion of Jedi commandos.
3. Before DHS had an Office of Intelligence and Analysis, it had an Information Analysis division.
There are two Offices of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA) in the intelligence community. One belongs to the Treasury Department, and the other belongs to the Department of Homeland Security. But that wasn’t always the case. Before the DHS had an OIA, it had an Information Analysis division, which was led by a “Chief Intelligence Officer.” In keeping with DHS tradition, that division proved ineffective at the collection, synthesis, and dissemination of intelligence—pretty much its entire reason for existing. In 2005, the office was reorganized for tighter integration with the intelligence community, and renamed the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis. The position of Chief Intelligence Officer was elevated to that of Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis.
4. Four of the sixteen intelligence agencies have female directors.
Presently, four agencies of the intelligence community are led by women: Betty J. Sapp is the director of the National Reconnaissance Office; Letitia A. Long is director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; the head of the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis is Caryn A. Wagner; and the top person at the Treasury Department Office of Intelligence and Analysis is Leslie Ireland. (U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command had a female commanding general until earlier this year, when Lieutenant General Mary A. Legere was promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence for the U.S. Army.)
5. Chester A. Arthur was president when the oldest member of the IC was established.
According to its 1882 charter, the Office of Naval Intelligence was founded to gather information “as may be useful to the Department in time of war, as well as in peace.” In service now for 131 years, the ONI has the distinction of being the oldest organization in the intelligence community.
6. George W. Bush was president when the youngest member of the IC was established.
The Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency was founded in 2007. Its purpose is “to organize, train, equip and present assigned forces and capabilities to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.” Its mission is accomplished with planes, unmanned drones, cyber tools—and even people. In 2008, the Air Force formed Detachment 6, a human intelligence unit based out of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
7. The National Reconnaissance Office had a couple of Hubble telescopes lying around.
In 2011, the National Reconnaissance Office asked NASA if they wanted some of the spy agency’s “unused hardware.” The equipment turned out to be two telescopes with optics more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope. Presently, NASA plans to employ the telescopes to study dark energy. The telescopes are valued at $250 million—and this is the old stuff that the NRO didn’t even bother to uncrate. You have to wonder what their new stuff can do. Hubble can see distances of ten billion light years. What must the NRO be able to see on Earth?
8. The first American killed in combat in the War on Terror was a CIA officer.
On November 25, 2001, Taliban fighters killed Johnny Michael “Mike” Spann during a prison uprising in Afghanistan. Spann was paramilitary operations officer for the CIA Special Activities Division. He was the first American killed in combat in the War on Terror.
9. The DIA is building its own CIA.
Last year, the Defense Intelligence Agency announced the creation of the Defense Clandestine Service, a new spy division whose mission is to gather sensitive intelligence in war zones and beyond. In short, they’re attempting to build a mini-CIA that’s focused on combat support intelligence rather than national security intelligence. The DCS is intended to work alongside the CIA National Clandestine Service and the Joint Special Operations Command.
10. The NSA’s first headquarters was a school for girls.
In 1942, the Army used the War Powers Act to seize the hundred-acre campus of the Arlington Hall Junior College for Women. The school’s main building soon became home to the Armed Forces Security Agency, and later, AFSA’s successor, the National Security Agency. In the 1950s, the NSA would relocate to some abandoned Army barracks at Ft. Meade in Maryland.
