#readwise # C.I.A. Re-Examines Hiring of Ex-Terrorist as Agent  ## Metadata - Full Title: C.I.A. Re-Examines Hiring of Ex-Terrorist as Agent - URL: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/21/world/cia-re-examines-hiring-of-ex-terrorist-as-agent.html ## Highlights - As the Central Intelligence Agency cleans house after the cold war, trimming its roster of foreign agents and writing new rules for hiring them, a retired terrorist who was until recently on the agency's payroll has given it cause for some soul-searching. - Note: “Payroll” is deceptive here as, according to information presented in Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast [[The Road to Damascus]], the asset in question never really wanted any money, only atonement. - The retired terrorist broke with his past in 1987 and soon afterward began providing information to the C.I.A. Despite his value as an informant, some United States Government officials are now wondering whether C.I.A. officers should have hired a man they knew had American blood on his hands. The case is a classic example of the dilemma the C.I.A. continually faces in recruiting foreign agents. The intelligence agency struggles to balance the demand to obtain information with its desire to keep its own hands clean, though it frames the issue in terms of national security, not morality. - "We find ourselves dealing with people who have done things which are illegal and unsavory -- organized death-squad activity, state-sponsored terrorism," he said. "In order to find out what they are doing, we have to recruit them. We have to balance the need for intelligence against the fact that they have killed innocent people. We have grappled with the question for a long time."