Philosophers at the CIA? An Insider’s Account

Congratulations!

You’ve finally completed the requirements for the PhD, including dissertation and oral defense, and graduation is only a few weeks away. Your folks will attend the ceremony to help you celebrate and take videos for the entire family to enjoy. A good time will be had by all.

Now what?

The answer for most people with an advanced degree in philosophy is to embark upon an academic career. Of course, everyone realized going in that it wouldn’t be easy to find a teaching position right away, even part-time or as a visitor. But love of subject is the main driving force and many of us take for granted that that is enough to keep us going; fingers crossed that something turns up.

I should note right away that quite a few Brown grad students of my acquaintance, just as dedicated to philosophy as I was, decided not to pursue a teaching career. One became a librarian after getting his masters in library science; one was computer savvy and got a job in private industry; two became university administrators; one went to law school and then private practice; another also went to law school and later became a judge; and one attended business school and became a successful banker.

There might well have been an opportunity for me to pursue a non-academic career as well, at the CIA in fact. A fellow grad student suggested that I contact Lyman Kirkpatrick, a political science professor at Brown and a former CIA official, about employment opportunities with the Agency. Knowing what I know now about the Agency, I wish I had. When I spotted a CIA ad in a newspaper in August 1984, I didn’t hesitate. I applied, was interviewed, and was offered employment a year later. I came onboard in May 1986, worked on a variety of assignments, and retired at the end of 2010, receiving the Agency’s Career Commendation Medal upon retirement. 

I hope there is enough information in the Q&A below to persuade philosophers to consider applying to the CIA. I believe people with our training can do a lot of good in the intelligence business.

1. What is the process of getting a job at the CIA?

The Agency website www.cia.gov provides information on this question. In general terms, applicants are screened in various ways to assess suitability for employment considering they’ll be working in an environment that includes access to classified information, which must be protected for obvious reasons. Screening includes a background investigation and a polygraph examination. Make sure factual details in your application are true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief—as a lawyer would put it.

2. What jobs are available at the CIA?

Go to the Agency website and click on the Jobs tab. You will see occupational categories all the way from Accountant to Visual Media Designer. Feel free to browse through all 14 screens of information—yes, that many! You will be surprised at the number and variety of opportunities that are available, far greater than in my day. Keep in mind that philosophers:

• Have the skills needed to do analytic work in a variety of disciplines (I did).
• Have strong writing skills and can work as editors (I did).
• Have strong organizational skills and can work as project managers (I did).

You’ll be pleased to learn that CIA jobs are effectively “tenure track.” If you do well, you can expect to be rewarded accordingly. As in academia, productivity is key. As a philosopher, your special skills will be a valuable and valued resource. Be flexible and look for opportunities to help others. Depending on the circumstances, you may be considered for the management career track, which can mean faster advancement.    

3. How were you able to apply your skills as a philosopher?

The assignments closest to my training were as an analyst and analytic methodologist. However, there are careers at the CIA that philosophers might find just as rewarding that don’t necessarily involve analytical work of the sort described below. Consult the Agency website. While you’re at it, check out Graduate Studies Program opportunities.

Analyst

Directorate of Intelligence (DI) analysts produce finished intelligence on issues of interest to policymakers. There is a writing style that must be mastered, which is similar to (though more disciplined than) what we read in newspapers, entailing a learning curve away from the formal style standard in academia. I had no difficulty adjusting. With a bit of practice, skills philosophers already possess transfer readily to DI work, such as being able to write clearly and concisely and to defend judgments logically, keeping in mind the need to get one’s points across in ways that a busy and demanding reader can grasp quickly.

Everything analysts write goes through several levels of review; it must be remembered (and accepted) that the final product reflects the Agency position as a whole and may well contain judgments not in the original analysis. It is important for analysts to stick to their guns if they disagree, though a willingness to achieve consensus and reach a middle ground in incorporating input from others in the review chain is highly valued. Depending on the issue, dissenting views can be included in the final draft. Politicized analysis is not tolerated.

Keep this in mind:

• Reporting gaps are pretty much the norm in intelligence analysis, so you will need to acquire an ability to supply missing links, which can be used as guidance for future collection.
• It will help matters if you’ve puzzled through Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, though there isn’t always a right answer in intelligence work.
• You’ll also have to get used to policymakers who have unrealistic expectations, don’t always listen, prefer to do their own analysis, and are under no obligation to share it with you.

Analytic Methodologist

I had two assignments as analytic methodologist. My article “Philosophers at CIA?”, forthcoming in The Journal of Intelligence and Analysis, recommends changes to CIA’s analytic methodologist occupational category to attract applications from philosophers.

First Assignment

Working in the Office of Research and Development’s Advanced Concepts Staff (ORD/ACS), I produced an article published as a Studies in Intelligence monograph titled “Improving Argumentation in Intelligence: A Guide to Formal Review.” The monograph explained that philosophers:

• Can help achieve rigor through the application of techniques of formal logic.
• Understand that valid argumentation means instantiating rules of logic, which they know how to apply correctly.
• Can help analysts improve the clarity of intelligence analysis by explaining how premises (evidence) and conclusion (bottom line) can be stated explicitly.
• Can help make sure the logic of arguments is readily apparent. Policymakers will dismiss arguments whose logic is unclear.
• Are sensitive to conceptual distinctions and can help analysts avoid ambiguity, vagueness, and bias, which can result in invalid argumentation.
• Know how to spot and avoid logical fallacies, of which there are quite a few (some obvious, some not) waiting to trap the unwary. 

Feel free to use items from this list as selling points in your application. To exemplify, pick a bit of analysis from a newspaper that seems to contain an argument, take it apart, and then rewrite it in a way that enhances clarity, validity, and soundness. Another way to demonstrate your critical skills is to refute an analysis by showing it fails to satisfy one or more of these three criteria. If you decide to include articles you’ve published, use those without jargon or special symbols.

Second Assignment

Working in the Office of Policy Support’s Product Evaluation Staff (OPS/PES), I produced a monograph showing that intelligence analysis explained the “why” behind the “what” and the “so what” covered in DI intelligence publications. Specifically, I focused on the “why” in analyses of plans and intentions, which is a topic of great interest to our policymakers.

• Understanding what a foreign leader seeks to accomplish in pursuing a course of action goes to the heart of intelligence analysis.
• A key challenge for collection is to obtain information about a foreign leader’s assessment of a policy’s odds of success.

I spent weeks studying DI production looking for evidence that analysis had indeed answered “why” questions on a broad range of topics. I was able to show cite examples of DI plans-and-intentions analysis that instantiated the schema (S):

(S) If person X wants to accomplish goal G and believes that action A will accomplish G, then X will (or most likely will) do A

I then instantiated the antecedent of (S), and finally derived by modus ponens an instantiation of the consequent of (S). I assembled my evidence in a report that was briefed to John McLaughlin, then Deputy Director for Intelligence at the CIA.

Finally, it would be helpful for philosophers to emphasize the following when applying:

• You have the training required to state abstract schemas such as (S).
• You can recognize instantiations of abstract schemas in any context.
• You can apply rules of logic such as modus ponens to draw valid inferences.

Additional information about my contributions to the CIA’s mission may be found in “Philosophers at CIA?” The Journal of Intelligence and Analysis (2023, forthcoming).

Author’s Note: This article was approved for publication as written by the Central Intelligence Agency. Approval does not represent endorsement or verification. The views expressed are solely those of the author, who thanks Nathan Eckstrand for helpful comments on earlier drafts. 

Arnold Cusmariu

Arnold Cusmariu has a PhD in philosophy from Brown University and is the author of Logic for Kids. He joined CIA in 1986 and retired in 2010. Also a sculptor, Arnold described his artistic development in “Turing Algorithms in Art,” Symposion 10.1 (2023): 31-80. This and other publications are available in PDF form at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arnold-Cusmariu.