There’s not a lot of personal happiness to be had doing this work. There is a lot of purpose, but it is very lonely. It is a very lonely way to spend your twenties. I think, on the other hand, for me, as an American citizen, and a citizen of the world, I want the people who do this work to be the kind of people who it doesn’t make happy.
If you’re the kind of kid who grew up watching James Bond movies and you want to join the agency because you want to run around and shoot guns and feel powerful, that’s not who we need doing this work. If you are somebody who will feel the weight of the moral responsibility incredibly heavily – and will feel very lonely and isolated because you are not able to have those moral conversations with people whose advice you respect – then you’re the kind of person who I hope will do this work. I think we are seeing a new generation there who are much more refocused on the relationship-building core purpose of human intelligence, rather than the kind of paramilitary distractions that can happen during warfare …
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I am happy that now, under largely female leadership, we’re seeing the return to the relationship-building core competence of the work.
Amarylls Fox on service and human relationships as a CIA operative