Dr. Stephen Slick, University of Texas and Douglas Wise
February 25, 2018

Can a profession where lying, cheating, stealing, manipulating, exploiting and deceiving have boundaries beyond which a moral intelligence officer cannot cross?  Or did Nathan Hale define it as the end justifies the means when he said, “every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary.”  Should our intelligence agencies be uninhibited in their actions to defend the Nation or should there be standards reflective of our core values as a Nation which the officers of our intelligence agencies must uphold?

Get some answers to these and other questions on the profession and business of espionage when two former senior CIA operations officers discuss these and other issues. Dr. Stephen Slick of the University of Texas, Austin, and Douglas Wise of Albuquerque are both retired senior CIA operations officers who had distinguished careers in CIA. They both served as practitioners and leaders in the field and in senior positions at the national intelligence level.  Together they will outline the ambiguities and the challenges in keeping U.S. intelligence operations moral and how working and living in a “wilderness of mirrors” (where nothing is as it seems) creates difficult to imagine complications for officers and leaders.

The session will be moderated by AIA Board member Jim Chavez, retired Sandia Vice President and former Director of Sandia’s work for the Intelligence Community.

Supported by Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, Sandia National Labs and County Commissioner Wayne Johnson