Paul Frandano:  

I retired from US government service in 2008 after nearly 30 years as an analyst and manager at CIA (yes, that CIA, not the Culinary Institute of America, although that would've been cool, too). I started at CIA in 1979 as a specialist in Asian politics and afterward held a broad range of analytic, staff, and leadership assignments on both regional and functional issues. Among these were a stint as editor and briefer on the staff of the President's Daily Brief and a 3-year secondment to the National Intelligence Council as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia. I headed the DCI Environmental and Societal Issues Center from 1999 to 2001. In September of that year I co-founded and led the CIA Red Cell, a contrarian (or alternative) analysis program. From 2005 to 2007 I was the Agency's Officer in Residence at Georgetown, where I taught a graduate seminar on "Intelligence in a Democracy." My last CIA assignment was as Special Assistant to the Director of Strategy Management. I'm a recipient of the Director's Award (2004), the highest achievement award personally give...Expand for more