Clandestine HUMINT asset recruiting refers to the recruitment of human agents, commonly known as spies, who work for a foreign government, or within a host country's government or other target of intelligence interest for the gathering of human intelligence. The work of detecting and "doubling" spies who betray their oaths to work on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency is an important part of counterintelligence.
The term spy refers to human agents that are recruited by case officers of a foreign intelligence agency.
Types of agents
Acquiring information may not involve collecting secret documents, but something as simple as observing the number and types of ships in a port. Even though such information might be readily visible, the laws of many countries would consider reporting it to a foreign power as espionage. Other asset roles include support functions such as communications, forgery, disguise, etc.
According to Victor Suvorov, a former Soviet military intelligence officer, a Soviet officer may be under diplomatic or nonofficial cover, handling two kinds of agent: basic and supplementary.
Basic agents can be formed into groups with leaders, or report directly to the controller. Basic agents include information providers, perhaps through espionage or expertise about some local subject. Also in the basic group are "executive agents", who will kill or commit sabotage, and recruiting agents. In US practice, recruiting agents are called access agents.
Both operation leaders and the supplementary group must be clandestine in support roles to basic agents. They may be clandestine officers of the FIS, such as Rudolf Abel, recruited in the target country, or recruited in a third country. One of the supplementary functions is communications, which includes clandestine radio transmission, dead drops, couriers, and finding places for secure radio transmissions. Other supplementary functions include people who can "legalise" agents with cover jobs, and specialists that can forge documents or get illicit copies from the actual source. Safe houses, safe mail drops, and safe telephones are other supplementary functions.
Spotting
Recruiting process typically begins with "spotting". Spotting is the identification of targets—people—who appear to have access to information, or are attractive for some support role. This individual may be "developed" over a period of time before the approach is made or it could be made "cold". Alternatively, the potential agent may approach the agency; many intelligence assets were not recruited but were "walk-ins" or "write-ins" who offered information to foreign intelligence services. Background research is conducted on the potential agent to identify any ties to a foreign intelligence agency, select the most promising candidates and approach method.
Obvious candidates are staff officers under diplomatic cover, or officers under nonofficial contact, have routine contact. Also possible contacts of access agents, existing agents, or through information that suggests they may be compromised.
Surveillance of targets (e.g., military or other establishments, open source or compromised reference documents) sometimes reveals people with potential access to information, but no clear means of approaching them. With this group, a secondary survey is in order. Headquarters may be able to suggest an approach, perhaps through a third country or through resources not known to the field station.
Recruiting people that may have access to the activities of non-state groups will be much harder, since these groups tend to be much more clandestine, and often operate on a cell system composed of relatives and people who have known one another for years. Access agents may be especially important here, and it may be worth the effort to spot potential access agents.
The deliberate spotting process complements more obvious candidates, but candidates who are also more likely to be compromised by counterintelligence, such as walk-ins and write-ins.
According to Suvorov, the Soviet GRU was not always able to collect enough material, principally from open sources, to understand the candidate's motivations and vulnerabilities. It was GRU doctrine, therefore, to use every meeting to continue to elicit this information. Other intelligence authorities also see eliciting information as a continuing process.