What makes someone betray their government? What makes someone take risks that could land them in jail, or even receive a death sentence? How does someone keep secrets from even the most intimate family members? What was the pressure like for someone in thinking any day could be their last?

The heroes of the espionage business were not the case officers who were involved in agent-running. I served in conflict zones and conducted operational acts that involved some danger, but nothing compared to what agents faced on a daily basis. So let’s remove the James Bond images, as the real heroes of espionage are the agents themselves.

What is an agent? First, it’s not an intelligence officer. That’s a mistake repeatedly made by Hollywood. An agent is a Russian diplomat, a Chinese intelligence officer, a Syrian economic official, an Iranian nuclear scientist, or a member of a terrorist organisation, who have done something quite remarkable. All are unique individuals who could take a significant step in their lives, a monumental and perhaps terrifying decision, replete with staggering potential possibilities and consequences, ultimately to betray not their countries but their own deeply flawed governments or organisations. They will choose to spy for the good guys.

There’s an old acronym in the spy business that describes the motivations for an agent. It is called MICE (of note, there’s no secrets here – this has been written about extensively in the press and academia). It is a theory about the motivations of any agent candidate considering espionage, who then carried it out, often for long periods of time in arduous and risky conditions. The four pillars of motivations – money, ideology, coercion and ego – encapsulate so much of what makes an agent tick. There were usually multiple letters of the four that applied to an individual operation.

It is worth reviewing each, in order to dissect the fascinating psychological aspects of agent-running.

Money can often be a prime motivating factor for an agent, particularly if he or she lives in a society in which they are underpaid. In addition, they may need money to fund a lavish lifestyle, or perhaps they are in debt or need money for health care or education for a family member.

Ideologically, an agent is driven by political conviction; in the Cold War, this was the classic competition between capitalism and communism.

So far as coercion goes, an agent can be susceptible to commit espionage through blackmail, and the case officer would utilise a past indiscretion, such as an affair, to push the agent over the line.

Ego matters. An agent wants to feel important, perhaps because they are not given recognition in their regular job.

Handling such agents who possessed either one or, more likely, a mixture of these motivations, required skill and acumen from the case officer. It was not just a Psychology 101 class. It was more a Psychology 501 class. A case officer, even by default, received from sheer experience a graduate-level degree on ‘people’. The best case officers not only received this degree, but could then teach and pass it on to the next generation.

What do I miss the most about my old line of work? For one, the camaraderie of the secret intelligence world, particularly when serving in high-threat areas where either the risk of terrorist attack or scrutiny from hostile intelligence organs was acute. Being together with my brothers and sisters in the line of fire triggers near unbreakable bonds between officers. An intelligence outpost can be a living and breathing organism – as one former CIA Deputy Director Steve Kappas noted – a CIA outpost had a ‘soul’. You just knew it when you walked into an office that was buzzing, that the officers there were at the top of their game.

Even more than that feeling of camaraderie among our own ilk was the idea that we had the lives of people in our hand who depended on us. This was the bind between case officers and agents, the real heroes of espionage. In one example from my book, Clarity in Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the CIA, an established agent in a training session prior to a high-risk deployment noted to his handling case officer that while the officer would probably only think of the agent once or twice a month during scheduled meetings, that was not the case for the agent themselves. Instead, they quite emotionally noted that almost certainly when entering back into his country, they would think about the case officer every single day. Why was that? They stated that ‘you don’t only have my life in your hands, you have the life of my family and my tribe’, adding for good effect: ‘You have to be perfect.’

The psychology of agent-running was not only dealing with the agents and all of their quirks and needs in their high-risk endeavours. It was also the responsibility of the case officer, who understood that mistakes could cost lives. What is it like establishing such a relationship with another human being? After all, this is not conducive to other forms of intimacy, such as a wife, husband or partner. Agents often utilise their case officers as a religious figure such as a priest, confessing their sins and asking for advice far beyond the parameters of the operations they are running. Former senior intelligence officer Jerry O’Shea recalls in vivid detail how one of his agents in a country in which religion was disallowed actually admitted to being a deeply religious man. They would talk religion and even pray together. The one-on-one bond of engaging in joint prayer ended up being an integral part of the relationship with the agent.

Recruitment operations take a variety of forms – a walk-in, for example, may volunteer right off the bat, but other times there is a long process of development in which the case officer must, over time, walk the agent candidate down the path to formal recruitment, using various aspects of the MICE method. This can have positive effects, as the loyalty and bonds of the recruitment process become ingrained in the operation. Yet problems can ensue, which, again, must be handled by both the case officer and agent. Cases must be turned over, passed to another officer, for a variety of reasons, but, more often than not, the recruiting officer departs the scene. How does the agent then feel, when the one individual they have met and entrusted, who asked them the life-defining question of whether or not to commit espionage against his or her government, then departs the scene? Quite often, an agent will have second thoughts on continuing a relationship with the intelligence service. As one agent said to me once: ‘I know I am passing secrets, I know who I work for, but really I am spying for you, not the US government.’ Turnover becomes infinitely more difficult, based ironically on some of the motivations that allowed the original recruitment to be such a success.

Several agents have had their stories published in the media, and it is worth reviewing their cases to dive into the psychology of agent-running. Russian-hand CIA case officer John Sipher notes that Russians, out of all the nationalities of agents that he recruited and handled over his career, committed espionage mostly for ideological reasons: ‘From my experiences over decades working in the CIA, Russians tend to be among the most committed sources. They are often the country’s best and brightest who eventually conclude that there is no hope in changing an evil system from the inside.’

Sipher cites the case in the 1960s of Oleg Penkovsky, who spied for the US and Britain, and ensured that the West had information that ultimately assisted US President John F. Kennedy to successfully manage the Cuban Missile Crisis. Penkovsky hated the Soviet Union to such an extent that he told his handlers he would be willing to set off a small nuclear bomb in Moscow. Similarly, Sergei Tretyakov, the KGB chief in New York City, defected to the US in 2000: ‘I came to the conclusion it was immoral to serve them… Russia has been raped and looted by its leadership.’

One of the CIA’s top recruiters of his time, James Lawler has spoken extensively about agent operations and the psychology of espionage. Lawler defined himself as the ‘sociopathic spy’. Lawler would stop at nothing to manipulate, subvert, and seduce his targets. Yet he also talks of empathy and listening skills as some of his greatest traits. ‘A lot of my assets, I think, considered me their therapist. They would want to look forward to the next meeting. They would want to find out “OK, how can I please Jim? What other secrets can I steal?” And they would go amazing, amazing distances for me. And so my job was really not only to perceive who was vulnerable in this respect and who would do this, but then to keep them highly motivated.’

Finally, can the examination of the psychology of agent-running translate into other lines of work? Jeremy Hurewitz’s superb book, Sell Like a Spy, uses tried and true espionage techniques such as empathy, mirroring, rapport-building, active listening and elicitation to translate into business success. My favourite example of how espionage crosses into other lines of work are the similarities between case officers and journalists. Shane Harris, a dean of the Washington, DC intelligence beat who writes for the Atlantic, published an extraordinary piece in December 2025 detailing his dealing with an alleged US intelligence source in Iran, who had reached out to Harris for assistance. He actually used the MICE techniques in determining if his ‘source’ was legitimate or not. Moreover, several years ago I spoke at length to CNN’s Clarissa Ward, as I was reviewing her book. We spent most of the time exchanging notes on our similar backgrounds in conflict zones, and, more importantly, how her ability to cultivate sources and my career in ‘agent-running’ were so similar. We fell in love with our sources (not literally, of course). But if you are a human being, you care.

In the end, agent-running is all about people. There are always superiors giving advice, and rules and regulations to follow, but at the end of the day it’s about a case officer and an agent in a safehouse, a car meeting, or even conducting a dead drop. The safety of the agent, the sanctity of the operation, is paramount.  John le Carré noted brilliantly that: ‘The natural-born agent-runner is his own man. He may take his orders from London, but in the field he is the master of his fate and the fate of his agents.’

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the US Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as assessing or implying US Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.