77 Tennis Players and Bowlers: The Historical Sociology of the CIA

Faculty Mentor: Peter Roady (History, University of Utah)

Early CIA case officers recruited during the 1950s were characterized by similar upper-class backgrounds: wealthy families from the Northeast, preparatory school education, a degree from an Ivy League, and previous employment in white collar occupations. Anecdotal evidence reported that the next generation of case officers, recruited in the 1960s-70s, disrupted this stereotype: they came from working-class families in the Midwest and worked blue collars jobs. In interviews, some of these men have reported a cultural divide that separated them from their supervisors and predecessors. Based on data drawn from memoirs, biographies, interviews, and congressional hearing records, there is a demographic shift between the generations, but it is less dramatic than reported. The second generation sees a greater influx of the middle class as opposed to the upper class, a transition rooted in external sociopolitical and ideological factors from the Cold War. Egalitarianism expresses itself as greater opportunities for individuals with working class backgrounds and an expansion of the middle class, but not as a breakthrough of the working class into the sphere of the elite.