Not every day the US administration issues an urgent telegram to all CIA stations in the world, including secret bases, in which it warns them that there is an organizational failure that has led to too many cases of exposing sources, arresting and murdering them.
The New York Times revealed on Tuesday that the special document was drafted by senior U.S. intelligence officials about a week ago.
The unusual move comes in the wake of an investigation conducted by CIA counterintelligence agencies to find out what led to the exposure or arrest of dozens of foreign nationals recruited by the intelligence organization to spy on the United States.
The telegram, which is classified as "top secret", indicates the specific cases in which these cases occurred, which shows how serious the phenomenon is, since otherwise not all CIA stations would have shared but only the relevant ones.
The telegram also notes that part of the problem is that "sometimes people sanctify the mission at the expense of information security," making it easier for countries like Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan to identify the sources and turn them into dual agents.
Another problematic part of the phenomenon, as noted in a telegram published in part in the Times, is that sometimes agents place great trust in who their sources are and do not conduct an appropriate recruitment process that examines the dangers inherent in conducting the potential source even after becoming a U.S. spy in his country.
"Although the loss of resources is not a new problem, the telegram demonstrates that this issue is more serious than has been understood so far," the paper said.