Cover position
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A cover position is the ostensible job an intelligence officer holds while operating abroad. Asked which embassy titles should raise eyebrows, whether the economic officer or the political attaché "sticks out like a sore thumb", John Kiriakou calls the question very good and very difficult, and then refuses its premise.

Why no job is diagnostic

Economic officer, political officer, political attaché: "of course those are cover positions. Or they're not." The reason is that the State Department has to do the actual business of diplomacy every day, and so there are genuine State Department officers holding exactly those titles in every embassy the United States operates. From that Kiriakou draws the general rule: "the answer to your question is every position is a cover position. That's what makes it cover." An officer can be the agricultural attaché or the commercial officer, "you can be anything inside or outside an embassy."

Cover outside the embassy

The point extends past official cover. Kiriakou offers Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, until recently the Deputy National Security Advisor, as an example of a deep cover officer whose cover was that she was a fine art consultant, and says he once met a deep cover officer whose cover was wildlife photographer. His conclusion is deliberately unhelpful to the spotter: "You just never know. The answer is anything and everything. So, everything should raise an eyebrow and nothing should raise an eyebrow. That's kind of the bottom line of cover."

See also

- Amaryllis Fox Kennedy
- Central Intelligence Agency
- Surveillance detection route
