[The Hudson Institute] The Central Intelligence Agency is once again mired in crisis. CIA Director John Brennan finds himself "deeply concerned." The spy agency he runs suffers from an affliction that he says has "persisted despite repeated efforts by Agency leaders to address it."A newly discovered shortfall which must be corrected well in advance of Presidential Inauguration Day 2017.
What is ailing this vital
Mr. Brennan was commenting on the "Director's Diversity in Leadership Study," an unclassified report released that day. The study comes to the "unequivocal conclusion," he said in a statement, that there has been a major failure at the agency in the "crucial" area of diversity and inclusiveness.
Mission failures were not mentioned.
The CIA director commissioned the study last year, convening a panel of experts to perform a comprehensive assessment of diversity in the agency's workforce. The study is partly based on the results of an "Agency-wide instrument"--in non-spy-speak, "instrument" means questionnaire--developed in conjunction with research psychologists attached to the CIA's Office of Medical Services. It also draws on hundreds of formal and informal interviews and 28 focus groups, including not only spies based at headquarters in Langley, Va., but also agents working incognito in a dozen undisclosed locations out in the cold.
The report is unsparing. Senior positions at the "highest levels of the CIA" are "consistently occupied by white male career officers." While minority officers make up 23.9% of the CIA workforce, the higher echelons of the CIA don't come close to that number. For example, the Senior Intelligence Service, the creme de la creme of the spy agency's personnel, manages only a 10.8% minority composition. Spies with disabilities and LGBT spies, according to the report, are no better represented in the CIA's upper leadership, though women are generally faring well.