When The CIA Calls

The chief operating officer of a small East Coast Internet company had just returned from a meeting in Asia last year with representatives of a nation unfriendly to the U.S. when he got a call from the CIA. The Internet executive had worked in other parts of the Federal Government before his jump to the dotcom world and knew that the agency is always interested in gathering what it can from Americans who travel abroad. So he agreed to meet the CIA officer and describe what he had seen and heard on his trip. "I do this because I and the people at my company are loyal Americans," the executive says. But because his potential business partners are prickly and often paranoid, he is worried about the risks to his business--and his safety--on future trips.

Most people think the CIA is not allowed to collect intelligence in the U.S. In fact, the agency's clandestine service has an arm called the National Resources Division that works entirely in the U.S. It isn't allowed to wiretap Americans or otherwise spy on them but can ask them to volunteer information. So the question for any global executive is this: If the CIA asks you for information about your trip to Cuba or Libya or China, what should you do? Many people, impelled by feelings of patriotism, are happy to help. But things get murky quickly in the spy world. How do you know the person contacting you is not a foreign agent or business competitor? What are the risks to your business and personnel? Are there ethical issues?

Since the CIA's invasion of Americans' privacy during the Vietnam War era, the NRD's employees have been watched closely by in-house lawyers and congressional overseers. The division has about 500 officers and operates in some 36 major U.S. cities, in the regional offices of agencies such as the Commerce Department. "The basic mission is speaking to businessmen who are willing to provide information," says a CIA official. The officers identify themselves openly and, if asked, provide ways in which their identity can be confirmed.

A casual relationship develops. "It's done in a very informal way, over a beer," says the Internet executive. The CIA says information flows in one direction only, but in practice the meetings can benefit businesspeople. For example, an executive asked his handler whether a contact he had met abroad was related to the country's leader, as he had claimed. A few days later the executive got an e-mail saying, "He's not; he's pulled that story before."

As an executive gets comfortable with the relationship, his handler might ask him to look for particular matters of interest on future trips abroad: say, the health of a political or military leader. That's where the slope gets slippery. Another, smaller part of the NRD's activity is the placement in corporations of what are called nonofficial cover officers--paid CIA employees who work without diplomatic immunity. Many companies are leery of accepting CIA officers. Says Norbert Garrett, a 27-year veteran of the CIA's clandestine service and now president of Kroll Associates, a global security firm: "You can jeopardize the company or the officer involved." The Internet executive, asked if he would consider placing a CIA officer, replied, "Absolutely not. I've got to protect my company."