larry johnson sheds some light on the workings of the cia;

Who is Susan Miller? She is a recently retired CIA officer who entered on duty in September 1985, began her career in the Directorate of Intelligence and then, sometime after 1989, changed her career path and moved to the Directorate of Operations, where she spent most of career, including a stint as the Chief of Station in Israel. How do I know this? Well, not only am I relying on press reports… Susan and I were in the same Career Trainee (CT) class. I will let Perplexity tell you about the CT program:

The CIA Career Trainee (CT) Program was the Agency’s long‑standing entry‑level pipeline for young professional officers, designed to select, train, and place people with high potential into substantive intelligence careers (operations, analysis, support, etc.). Historically, it has been an intensive, multi‑stage program combining classroom instruction, tradecraft and leadership training, and early on‑the‑job assignments before trainees move into permanent roles.

By way of background, there are two other members of my CT class who have become public figures — Valerie Plame and Steven Hall. Anyone who has seen the movie, Fair Game, knows who Valerie is and how she was betrayed by the George W Bush administration. Steve Hall, apart from spending 30 years with the CIA as a case officer, was one of the 51 former intelligence officials who signed the now infamous October 19, 2020 open letter suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” That letter is now widely acknowledged to have been wrong on the core point that the laptop was likely part of a Russian influence operation, as subsequent reporting and forensic analysis have shown that the laptop was genuine...........more.........