QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS:

CIA OFFICERS, CONTRACTORS, ASSETS & AGENTS?  The Peruvian AF shootdown
of an American missionary plane using radar info (intelligence) provided
by the US Government brings to the fore a question I have always puzzled
over.  Perhaps some ex-CIA types out there can help on this.

OFFICERS & AGENTS.  As most of us know, the CIA has thousands of
regular, full time career employees -- both overt and in clandestine
service.  Case officers of the DO, the CIA's clandestine service, are
generally career employees, and they recruit and handle "agents," or
"assets," the foreign informants (or spies) who are giving or selling
information to the US Govt.  The relationship between case officers and
their agents, as I understand it, is akin to the relationship between
investigative reporters and the their "confidential sources."
The terms "agent" and "asset," I believe, are essentially
interchangeable.  (I know that other US intelligence services also have
case officers and that career FBI officers are "agents," but let's stick
to the CIA here so as not to get too confused.)

CONTRACT EMPLOYEES?  The aircrew of the (USAF owned?) jet, a Cessna
Citation, that provided radar information that led to the AT-37B
to the missionaries' float plane were, according to all press reports,
"CIA contract employees."
Likewise, according to press, the individual that made the initial
misidentification of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 as the
Yugoslavian Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement that led to
infamous bombing of that embassy was also a "CIA contract employee."  In
that case, an analyst (and retired US Army officer) who worked in a CIA
non-proliferation office.  (NY Times, 11Apr99)
There have been many other reference in press to CIA contract employees
-- some serving at Langley, others, like the aircrew, abroad.  Also, in
some press reports, CIA contract employees are foreigners.  That
"contract" category is what really prompts this post.

SO WHAT IS THE STATUS OF CIA CONTRACT EMPLOYEES?  We can all understand
contractors who manufacture and sell sensors, or maintain exotic
software for the Agency, or fix a leaky roof.  But in many cases these
"CIA contract employees" seem to be doing the real business of
collecting or analyzing intelligence.
 SO MY QUESTIONS?
- What is the status of CIA contract employees?
- Do many of them work full time?
- Do some stay on for 10 years or more, for a career?
- Do they number in the hundreds, or the thousands?
- Do contract employees sometimes move into career positions?
- Also, I am aware that many retired CIA acquaintances of mine,
including former case officers, still work for the Agency from time to
time as, I suppose, retired annuitants.  Is their status then "CIA
contract employees"?

    John Macartney