“The sense of isolation and loneliness is difficult to describe to those who have never experienced it.”īecause NOCs do not have the diplomatic immunity that protects CIA officers operating under embassy cover, if they are exposed they are subject to arrest and imprisonment–and they can be executed as spies. “As a NOC officer you are truly alone,” says John Quinn, who spent much of the 1980s as a NOC in Tokyo. During that time, the NOC is truly “out in the cold.” Their contacts with control officers in the CIA station are strictly limited they do not have access to embassy files and they must report through secret communications channels and clandestine meetings. NOCs frequently stay 5, 10, or more years in one place. They also help track the development of critical technologies, both military and civilian. Using their business covers, they seek to recruit agents in foreign government economic ministries or gain intelligence about high-tech firms in computer, electronics, and aerospace industries. In recent years, according to several CIA sources, NOCs have increasingly turned their attention to economics. The CIA’s operations within terrorist, drug trafficking, and arms dealer networks often involve NOCs, who can move more easily in such circles without raising suspicion. They are able to approach people who would not otherwise come into contact with a U.S. government personnel attached to an American embassy, NOCs operate without any apparent links to the U.S. Unlike most CIA officers, who are stationed abroad disguised as State Department employees, military officials, or other U.S. Shipping lines, mineral and oil exploration firms, and construction companies with international operations, like the Bechtel Corp., often house NOCs.īy joining the CIA in clandestine activities, a company tacitly accepts that some of its employees could routinely break the law in another country and, if exposed, embarrass the company and endanger its other overseas employees. companies doing business abroad–such as a tiny Texas firm that deals in spare tractor parts in Latin America, cited by a former CIA officer–have taken part in the NOC program. In some cases, flamboyant conservative businessmen like Ross Perot and the late Malcolm Forbes have actively cooperated with the CIA in stationing officers worldwide. Some of the most familiar firms in America’s corporate hierarchy, CIA sources report, have sponsored NOCs overseas: RJR Nabisco, Prentice-Hall, Ford Motor Co., Procter & Gamble, General Electric, IBM, Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Bank, Pan Am, Rockwell International, Campbell Soup, and Sears Roebuck. One hundred and ten CIA officers currently serve as NOCs, according to a recent CIA retiree. Yet the NOC program has grown to its present bloated size without any public scrutiny–and with no open discussion within the companies whose interests could be harmed by a spy scandal. The story of the CIA’s NOC (pronounced “knock”) program, revealed here for the first time, raises serious questions about the CIA at a time when the agency is already beset by scandal. There, they recruit agents from the ranks of foreign officials and business leaders, pilfer secrets, and even conduct special operations and paramilitary activities. Serving under what is referred to as “nonofficial cover” (NOC), CIA officers pose as American businessmen in friendly countries, from Asia to Central America to Western Europe. corporations–from Fortune 500 companies to small, high-tech firms–are secretly assisting the CIA, allowing the agency to place full-time officers from its operations divisions into corporate offices abroad. Now that the Cold War is over, agency officials have latched onto the idea of collecting clandestine economic data to justify the CIA’s inflated budget, even as the CIA’s competence–indeed, its very existence–is being questioned.Īnd dozens of U.S. That ghost, a Central Intelligence Agency program revived by the late director in the 1980s, marries the spy agency to corporate America in order to gather intelligence on economics, trade, and technology. William Casey’s ghost haunts the Central Intelligence Agency. Robert Dreyfuss’ revelation that the CIA is engaged in economic espionage (“Company Spies,” June 1994) was covered extensively in Japan, but so far no American newspaper or network has touched the story. What is a NOC? For resources on the CIA, see our resource guide. Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
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