SpyTalk

The job does require "Five years experience in Offensive  Counterintelligence Operations, Knowledge of Operational cycle,  Bilateral Operations, Surveillance Detection," according to the ad.
 
"And must have the following: Top Secret Clearance with eligibility for  access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI), Knowledge in  technical, polygraph, and psychology to support CI operations, report writing, and Portico."

Carson Edmondson a spokesman for the contractor, Circinus LLC, in Alexandria, Va., called the omission of an education requirement "a mistake," and vowed to track down the person responsible and correct it.

"It's obviously not true," Edmondson said in a brief telephone interview. "We don't list any job that has a 'no education' requirement. Most jobs we advertise require at least a bachelors degree or higher."

Informed of Edmondson's statement, Lenczowski said he would take a wait-and-see attitude toward changes in the job description.

But Lenczowski, who also served as a Soviet expert in the State Department during the Reagan administration, emphasized the value of a liberal education for any kind of intelligence work that involves the recruitment and management of foreign spies.

"If you're dealing with human intelligence types of situations, you have to understand who you're dealing with and where they're coming from, their culture," he said.

"Sure, there's lots you can learn on the job, but not all of it."

As an example, he cited disinformation techniques used by Soviet intelligence in the 1920s that were duplicated by the Cubans decades later.

"If you don't know history, you can be fooled," he said.

"Since CI (counterintelligence) is arguably one of the most complex and cerebral of the arts of statecraft, since it involves not only life and death consequences, but also, at times of war, the possibility of defeat and all that this can mean, and since the requirements in the advertised job announcement included the 'planning and conducting' of offensive CI operations,' the people teaching in this field must have" a broad knowledge of intelligence history and foreign cultures, Lenczowski said in an e-mail.

He listed them as:

* the history of counterintelligence, not only in the U.S. but in other countries;

* all the dimensions of counterintelligence;

("Unfortunately, too many people think that CI is just counter-espionage when it involves countering all the activities that foreign intelligence services undertake, including: strategic deception;  perceptions management, propaganda and disinformation; covert (and even overt) political influence operations; strategic psychological operations; acts of political warfare; and other activities, including elements of economic statecraft, that are designed to mislead and confuse our national leadership, divide the ranks of that leadership, derail U.S. strategy, psychologically and physically disarm our country, etc.")

* that counterintelligence, therefore, must be conducted not just at the tactical, gumshoe, spy-catching level, but at the national political-strategic level.

* the epistemological issues surrounding intelligence, including sensitivity to our own intellectual and cultural biases, the perceptions management efforts of foreign powers, the techniques and themes of strategic deception; etc.

* the entire profession of intelligence and how it is conducted not only by us but by foreign intelligence services.  But this, in turn, requires knowledge of.....

* the political and strategic cultures of foreign powers.  But this, in turn, requires in-depth knowledge of....

* the languages of those foreign powers;

* finally, the categories and methods of counterintelligence analysis.

John Weisman, who writes spy thrillers when he's not teaching corporate counterintelligence to businesses, said the market for counterterrorism experts is draining counterintelligence professionals from the pool of instructors.

It's where the money is.

"So far as I can see, until Congress and/or the administration starts to emphasize CI, it will remain on the back burner," Weisman said.

"I know a fair number of veteran CI guys--former Navy, and FBI types.  But they're all doing something else now and making damn good money," Weisman said by e-mail. "And every kid I know who's applied to an intelligence agency in the past year and a half wants to do CT and only CT."
 
Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@q.com.