In “How to Hire a Spy,” The Economist reviews a new book by Robert Hannigan, the former head of the British signals intelligence agency GCHQ. The key bits:
Humanintelligence agencies like MI6 and the CIA recruit and run human agents and thus rely on influence, persuasion and manipulation. Meanwhile, signals-intelligence (SIGINT) agencies focus on data and communication technology—cables in the 19th century, radio in the first part of the 20th and now the internet. The aim is to understand those systems and to “attack” their weaknesses, as cryptanalysts say.
To do that successfully requires people who think in different, original and unusual ways. Dilly Knox, a professional papyrologist, installed a bath in the Admiralty office during the First World War and allegedly cracked a German naval cipher during a soak (a process Mr Hannigan connects to modern research on the neurological benefits of warm water). The point is not what you know but how you think: after the war Knox tackled Hungarian diplomatic codes without knowing a shred of Hungarian. gchq’s entry exams have included texts in the fictitious Elvish languages spoken in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
Diversity of thought is often rooted in other sorts of differences. Women excelled as cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park despite making up only a small proportion of pre-war mathematicians. Jewish cryptanalysts played an important role in the Second World War. Mr Hannigan also hints at the pivotal role of Afghan and Muslim staff in GCHQ’s more recent history.
Those with autism tend to have better visual perception, a fact which Israel’s armed forces exploit to interpret fuzzy satellite images. Drawing on research into neurodiversity and autism-spectrum disorders, GCHQ “has actively sought to recruit this kind of diverse workforce”, says Mr Hannigan. Dyslexia (challenges in reading or writing) and dyscalculia (difficulty in understanding numbers) are “prevalent” at GCHQ; Mr Hannigan guesses that one in four of the organisation’s staff has some sort of neurodiverse condition. Such people would not always prosper in traditional job interviews or flourish under the rigid hierarchy of the armed forces or the formality of the civil service.
Ironically, whereas gchq’s best-known figure, Alan Turing, was persecuted by the state for his homosexuality despite his pivotal role in breaking the German Enigma code, the agency later protected many gay people in its ranks, says Mr Hannigan, and “evaded some of the zealotry” that blighted other parts of the cold-war civil service. More recently, GCHQ has begun training vetting officers in DEI in order to decrease the number of ethnic-minority applicants who are refused security clearances—a common problem for people with familial connections to foreign countries.
[…]
The relationship between free thinking, intelligence work and problem-solving more broadly is best illustrated by the wider pursuits of codebreakers. John Manly and Edith Rickert, American cryptanalysts in the First World War, went on to study statistical patterns in poetry. Elizabeth and William Friedman, towering figures in American cryptology, explored—and later debunked—the conspiracy theory that Francis Bacon had secretly written and hidden enciphered text in the plays of Shakespeare. Joan Clarke, briefly Turing’s fiancée, had a long career at GCHQ and became an expert on 15th-century coins. The favoured television programme of staff at gchq is “Only Connect”, a British game show in which contestants must identify the cryptic link between four answers. Like codebreaking, that requires lateral thinking, an open mind and an ability to connect disparate types of knowledge.
It is easy for po-faced culture warriors to dismiss this sort of thing as a distraction from the real work of national security and intelligence. But in fact it cuts to the very heart of good spywork. “Puzzles and play do not constitute a world separate from serious work,” concludes Mr Hannigan. “They form a continuum, and one enables the other.”
The ship has likely sailed but I’ve long that various “diversity” programs would have been more easily sold based on building teams with multiple perspectives rather than in terms of making up for past wrongs. The latter both stigmatizes those hired as tokens and gives those not hired scapegoats.
Additionally, this highlights long-understood but largely ignored-in-practice research into hiring processes. We tend to replicate ourselves or those who look like others on the team because they would be a “good fit.” We reward those who are good at jumping through hoops and playing well with others, as demonstrated by getting into and graduating from elite schools. We screen resumes for those who have taken familiar career paths. And then we have interviews that reward extroversion and the ability to give glib answers on the spot.
Indeed, I know this is problematic and tend to do just this when on hiring committees! This, even though the faculty members at our institution (myself included) who are the best performers mostly don’t fit the pattern. It’s just really card to convince yourselves to hire neurodivergent folks who make awkward impressions in the interview process or those with nonstandard career paths.
