Central Intelligence Agency: "Elegant Writing in the Clandestine Services"

From the CIA:

APPROVED FOR RELEASE
CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM
22 SEPT 93

UNCLASSIFIED

In which it appears things aren't getting any better

ELEGANT WRITING IN THE CLANDESTINE SERVICES

Richard T. Puderbaugh
How I came to be designated CWH/WW (Chief Word Watcher, Western Hemisphere) was that a certain Senior Officer called me into his office the other day and showed me a paper from one of the stations, which spoke of giving an operation "short shift."^* My God, he said, who ever heard of a short shift? I knew what he meant, so I didn't make the mistake of mentioning Volkswagens, 1970 petticoats or the Redskins. The Senior Officer went on with his denunciation, and ended up by asking me "Don't they know what 'shrift' means?"
It is a good question. How many people do know? It is one of those terms everybody knows about and thinks he can define, and one which should really lead people inexorably to the dictionary. But it doesn't, not even those people who know how to spell it. I didn't say these things to the Senior Officer, because he is more senior than I am, and has a quick temper.
Anyway, in that conversation, the Senior Officer appointed me Official Word Watcher for the Division, by I don't know what authority, and charged me with the following duties:

To collect from all CS communications outstanding examples of elegant writing, and to report upon my research at opportune times so that our writers may be edified and instructed thereby.

As soon as my appointment became known, I had a great deal of help 'from other headquarters personnel, but I will acknowledge that help specifically only if the danger of lynching becomes clear, and I need help (or company).

Here, then, is my first report. I should like to begin it by listing some of the most elegant words we have in our correspondence, words which I urge one and all to use at every opportunity. I should like to see the day when not a single page of our prose escapes the use of at least one of these words. I especially urge our writers to try new uses for all these words, and not be bound by such things as tense, gender, number or mode. Caveat, for example, is in the Latin imperative mode, but that is much too restrictive, and we have quite properly used this word as a noun for some time now. Imagine my delight when I observed recently the first attempt that I know of to use it, as is, in the present indicative. When you consider that we have long since expanded its original sense of "warning" to include the sense of "conditions" or "provisos," you can understand why the word is so important to us. I can right here remark that I should caveat some of the remarks I am about to make in this essay, and you will not have the slightest idea what I mean, but it sounds distinguished and important, and that is what matters.
Here is the list:

caveat
rationale
thrust
interface (used as a noun and a verb)
dichotomy
lacuna^*
forthcoming (in the sense of "candid")
profile (can be either high or low)
silhouette (can be either high or low)
options
life-style
posture
rapport

Rapport is an especially fine word, but so far we have used it only as a noun. Perhaps we should offer a prize to the officer who first devises a successful sentence using rapport as a verb, although we may have been beaten to the punch on this one by the folk-rock expression "to rap." Even employing "rapport" as a noun, nevertheless, we can do great things. Note the following excerpt from a field report:

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Also at the CIA:
Elegant Writing – Report Number Two

HT: Improbable Research

Cryptic, boneheaded writings by spies

The CIA invites the public to read these two documents:
 ELEGANT WRITING IN THE CLANDESINE SERVICES
 ELEGANT WRITING-REPORT NUMBER TWO
Both documents purport to be written by Richard T. Puderbaugh. Puderbaugh collects and savors boneheaded writing by spies. The CIA web site calls this kind of writing “tortured prose“. Here’s a passage fromPuderbaugh’s first report...