Word: elint
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...suffering a severe jolt. Casey has hiked the agency's budget by 50% (to an estimated $1 billion) during his six- year tenure. He has markedly improved the quality of the agency's intelligence analyses, partly by creating a better balance between the Company's capabilities in ELINT (electronic intelligence gathering) and HUMINT (human intelligence gathering, meaning spies and informers), which had been given short shrift. Having been a World War II operative for the old Office of Strategic Services (the CIA's precursor), Casey has retained a fondness for covert activities, and his reputation and elan have made...
...parallel research and development at home. A secondary but nonetheless vital concern is the collecting of political intelligence and the manipulation and recruitment of foreigners who might influence their governments' policies. Though the CIA, according to U.S. intelligence specialists, is far superior to the KGB in "comint" and "elint" (communications and electronic intelligence), the Soviets excel in "humint" (intelligence gathering through human contact). This was spectacularly demonstrated in Bonn last year, when West German counterintelligence finally caught up with a KGB agent functioning as a madam. For three years the operative had run a brothel catering to politicians...
...cover, the job is given to SR-71s, which have cloud-penetrating infrared sensors and cameras that can take pictures at a scanning rate of 100,000 sq. mi. per hr., making it possible to monitor military targets anywhere in the world. Most important are the Blackbird's ELINT-electronic intelligence-gathering functions that are also known as "ferreting." SR-71s can detect hidden objectives by interpreting electronic signals at extremely high altitudes. In addition, Blackbirds carry a long-range, side-looking radar (SLAR) that can spy deep into foreign countries without actually crossing their frontiers...
...keep track of what is going on in Cuba, the U.S. employs both the most advanced and the most ancient technology: ELINT (electronic intelligence) and HUMINT (human eyes and ears). Apparently there was not enough of either in the case of the belatedly discovered Soviet brigade...
What the spy trade calls ELINT (for electronic intelligence) seems limited only by the range of the human imagination; it is a tinkerer's dream so long as intelligence wizards bear in mind the unofficial motto of space age spying: think big and think dirty. But all their gadgets, no matter how effective and sophisticated, are unlikely to make the man in the trenchcoat obsolete. Satellites and planes and bugs might dig up secret information faster, but HUMINT (for human intelligence) is needed to interpret it, and to decide what to do next...