Does NBC's 'Allegiance' accurately depict the CIA?
NBC's new drama Allegiance follows Alex O'Connor (Gavin Stenhouse), a rookie CIA analyst who doesn't know he grew up in a family of Russian sleeper agents. The show premieres tonight.
It's an unbelievable premise, for sure, but as for the depiction of the CIA, is it realistic?
At a screening of Allegiance in the International Spy Museum in D.C. last week, we asked a former CIA analyst that question.
Dr. Mark Stout, a former CIA intelligence analyst who worked in Russian military, has a PhD in history and directs the global security studies program at Johns Hopkins, was more than qualified to assess the show for us. Here are his answers, edited for clarity:
Q: On 'Allegiance,' the new CIA analyst Alex O'Connor studies a document some 400 pages long and memorizes it in one night. Do CIA analysts really do that?
A: There are not a lot of people who can read 400-page documents and memorize all of it overnight -- there's a bit of hyperbole in that -- but, yeah, you'll be up until 2 a.m. studying major points, absolutely. Analysts aren't walking encyclopedias like Alex, who knows the melting point of different metals, but they're good at separating the wheat from the chaff. It's a fair point, however, that as an analyst I did know utterly boring stuff about my narrow field of expertise, the Russian military — most of which I probably don't know anymore, the rest of which I can't tell you.
Q: On the pilot episode, Russians wiretap Alex's parents' house and car. Does that really happen?
A: That struck me as very realistic. When you’re running humans operations, you want to be watching your potential source and making sure he or she is doing and saying what they’re telling you they’re doing or saying.
Q: In 'Allegiance,' Alex is trying to determine whether a defector is lying. Have you dealt with that?
A: Yes. You worry someone who's been sent to us is a potential set-up.
A: What did you find really truthful about the show?
A: I've had that conversation that the character Alex has with his younger sister, when she calls him a spy. "I'm not a spy, I'm an analyst." Also, Allegiance shows how CIA operations folks and analysts look down on each other. A lot of times in television and movies there's no distinction made from analysts and operators. Jack Ryan is a prime example of that. He's an analyst ... then out in the field shooting bad guys.
Q: Is there anything about being a CIA analyst that you thought was misrepresented in 'Allegiance'?
A: It's more drama than real life is. The reality of doing intelligence is eight or nine hours a day at a computer, looking through e-mails. The rest of it is having really geeky conversations.
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