A man who worked for the CIA for 15 years tells us what it was really like to have a top-secret job

Reuters

As a kid, Brian Goral was fascinated with the CIA.

"I started keeping a journal and a folder of news articles on US and Soviet forces," he told Business Insider. "I would copy terms and acronyms from the backs of military-spy novels and try to understand the World Book Encyclopedia's explanation of how nuclear weapons worked.

"I remember at one point during a math class my sophomore year in high school, my multi-year unrequited crush, Denise, and I decided we should go work for the CIA."

Denise, he says, pursued a different career path. But Goral realized his dream when he landed an internship with the CIA — the civilian foreign-intelligence service of the US federal government — as a college student.

We recently talked to Goral, 39, who spent 15 years with the agency, about what it's really like to work for the CIA — a career that brought him to over 30 countries.

Not surprisingly, he couldn't share all the details of the hiring process, his classified jobs, or his experiences, but he did give us a glimpse into his life at Langley.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jacquelyn Smith: Can you tell me about your background?

Brian Goral: I was born and raised in Milwaukee. I went to an inner-city high school and was a minority in more ways than one. I studied chemistry for two hours every day all four years and graduated with honors in chemistry from Michigan State University. Later, I attended UNC Kenan-Flagler for my MBA.

I have always been fascinated by why people make the choices they do and how our brains process information — part of that, no doubt, because both my parents were counselors.

I grew up knowing I wanted to do something really positive but also really cool with my life. I knew I was a smart kid, and quite frankly, knew it too well when I was becoming a teenager.

High school was great for exposing me to others' lives — ones much harder than I'd ever known. It also showed me that I wasn't nearly the athlete I thought I was, though my football teammates helped me get there.

My future career thoughts oscillated between being a brain surgeon and a soldier of some sort — yes, it was an odd specificity. I always thought the civilian life was probably a better path for the energetic nerd in me by the time I made it to college. I figured I was on the way to becoming a doctor with a specialty in neurology. However, I realized I wasn't ready to commit to attending medical school right out of college, so I started thinking about other career options instead.

My freshman year at Michigan State, a good friend of mine — with the help of the University's student services — introduced me to the idea of taking an internship at CIA. That's when the idea became real.

Smith: What sort of experience did you need before applying for your first job at the CIA?

Goral: For the internship program, it's just like many others: They are searching for people who are sharp and loyal, with a real desire to be there.

Unlike many places, it's tougher to know exactly what you're in for in terms of the work. I had a solid advantage over many other candidates in one key (and unplanned) way: I was a chemistry/biochemistry guy. Many other applicants were political science or criminal justice. Even today, not many people think of the natural sciences when they think of the agency — though at least now people do recognize the broader technology part of the CIA more frequently.

However, 1996 was around the time "The Rock" came out, and inspectors in Iraq were looking for chemical weapons while others were analyzing potential connections between Saddam's chemical munitions being "destroyed" during the first Gulf War and Gulf War illnesses.

My qualifications were that I came in with a great academic record in an area of specific interest at the time, and I had a personal interest in the agency and a fair understanding of how the CIA fit into the bigger picture.

And so, as an intern, I was able to aid technical analysis of potential illicit chemical weapons being developed by other nations.

Smith: Can you tell me more about the application process, and the job you applied for and ultimately landed?

Goral: Unfortunately, I'm not able to share that much. However, I can say that after speaking with a recruiter on a couple of occasions, I received an absolutely massive application packet in my dorm room during finals week one semester.

The whole thing had a time-stamp and deadline for return, which did not make studying for finals any easier. Several months later, I received a call inviting me for interviews and testing.

I applied for a position as a co-op/intern in 1996. I received permission from the university to defer my scholarship for a semester to work at the agency from May 1996 straight through the end of the year for my first "work tour."

Once the tour was over, I would go back to campus for a semester, then back to DC, then back to campus, and so on.