美国国家公共电台 NPR CIA Recruiting: The Rare Topic The Spy Agency Likes To Talk About

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

The CIA does not often speak publicly, which makes sense. It's the CIA. But when it comes to recruiting, the agency can't seem to stop talking. NPR's Greg Myre went to CIA headquarters and brought back this story.

GREG MYRE, BYLINE¹: Want to work at the CIA? Here's some guidance from Sheronda. We can't use her last name, but we can tell you she's the agency's chief of talent acquisition, or head of recruiting.

SHERONDA: We are looking for high school students to come in in certain occupations.

MYRE: That's right. Some kids start summer programs right out of high school. But what happens to your social media accounts?

SHERONDA: People here do use social media. And yes, specific guidelines are provided.

MYRE: And what if you dabbled² with drugs?

SHERONDA: It's actually asked up front on the application, have you done drugs within the last year?

MYRE: No drug use in the past year? No problem, probably. The CIA invited us to its headquarters in Langley, Va., and into a recording³ booth to speak about the evolution of its recruiting with Sheronda and two other women, Mary and Kim - again, first names only.

You have a nice studio here.

KIM: No.

SHERONDA: No, not in this space.

KIM: Yeah, I don't think they put us in the nice room.

(LAUGHTER)

SHERONDA: I've actually been in here.

MYRE: Mary is an undercover officer. And it's extremely rare for someone in her job to speak on the record. Born in South Asia, she's fluent in several hard languages, as she puts it.

MARY: I was in training when 9/11 happened. And it certainly was a wake-up call to my class that we weren't going to be hobnobbing in Paris necessarily but maybe going to some of the not-so-nice places.

MYRE: She was right about that.

MARY: I've been overseas for a majority of my career. I've only come back for a few months to process and then go off to the next assignment.

MYRE: The job is demanding, requiring all kinds of sacrifices.

MARY: In my case, I am undercover. I chose not to tell most of my family, mostly because they worry.

MYRE: In contrast to Mary, Kim has spent her 13-year career at CIA headquarters as an analyst⁴ - much of it focused on Africa - and is able to be relatively⁵ open about her job.

KIM: This is what I've wanted to do since I was 12. I saw a movie. I wanted to be like that guy in the movie.

MYRE: What movie?

KIM: "Clear And Present Danger." I wanted to be Jack⁶ Ryan.

MYRE: Growing up in a small Midwestern town, she had no idea how she'd make her way to the CIA or if the agency would be interested in her as an African-American woman.

KIM: When I decided⁷ to go to the CIA career fair, I had a college professor tell me that I could not have dreadlocks and that I was going to have to change who I was in order to be at CIA.

MYRE: For the record, Kim still has her dreadlocks, and they haven't held her back. She's now chief of staff for the Directorate of Analysis. That means she supervises teams that put together intelligence sent in by officers around the world. The old CIA recruiting cliche⁸ is a college professor tapping a promising⁹ student on the shoulder - a white, male student - and discreetly¹⁰ guiding him to the agency. That still happens. But now there are YouTube videos like this one, featuring Frank, a staff operations officer.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "WHAT DO STAFF OPERATIONS OFFICERS DO?"

FRANK: I plan and guide challenging foreign intelligence collection operations, counterintelligence activities and covert¹¹ action programs.

MYRE: Applications to work at the CIA shot up after the al-Qaida attacks in 2001. The agency became more visible and more widely welcomed at universities. For journalist and author Daniel Golden, this was a sea change from his student days in the 1970s.

DANIEL GOLDEN: Back then, it was commonplace for students to protest the arrival of a CIA recruiter on campus.

MYRE: Golden wrote the book "Spy Schools," which looks at the CIA's multipronged role at universities.

GOLDEN: It hires people from universities. It funds research and other programs at universities. And so an awful lot of things are taking place now that never would've been considered suitable when I was young.

MYRE: The CIA is clearly presenting itself as a modern, diverse place to work. However, an internal study in 2015 showed the agency was falling well short of its own targets for hiring and promoting women and minorities. Still, Gina Haspel, a 33-year CIA veteran, just became the first woman nominated to hold the top job. And here, again, is Mary, the undercover officer.

MARY: I was one of very few people that wasn't a white male walking around the halls here pre-9/11. But now, I mean, the panel speaks for itself (laughter), I think. There are a lot of women. It's very diverse.

MYRE: And that's definitely not your father's CIA. Greg Myre, NPR News, Langley, Va.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 dabbled   

v.涉猎( dabble的过去式和过去分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资

参考例句：

• He dabbled in business. 他搞过一点生意。 来自辞典例句
• His vesture was dabbled in blood. 他穿的衣服上溅满了鲜血。 来自辞典例句

3 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

4 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

5 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

6 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 cliche   

n./a.陈词滥调(的)；老生常谈(的)；陈腐的

参考例句：

• You should always try to avoid the use of cliche. 你应该尽量避免使用陈词滥调。
• The old cliche is certainly true:the bigger car do mean bigger profits.有句老话倒的确说得不假:车大利大。

9 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

10 discreetly   

ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地

参考例句：

• He had only known the perennial widow, the discreetly expensive Frenchwoman. 他只知道她是个永远那么年轻的寡妇，一个很会讲排场的法国女人。
• Sensing that Lilian wanted to be alone with Celia, Andrew discreetly disappeared. 安德鲁觉得莉莲想同西莉亚单独谈些什么，有意避开了。

11 covert   

adj.隐藏的；暗地里的

参考例句：

• We should learn to fight with enemy in an overt and covert way.我们应学会同敌人做公开和隐蔽的斗争。
• The army carried out covert surveillance of the building for several months.军队对这座建筑物进行了数月的秘密监视。