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Another job that might be interesting (they used to advertise it in college papers and recruit in college campuses) would be a foreign 'case officer' with the CIA. If you can put up with a massive background investigation, thorough physical and psychological exams, as well as a polygraph it might be a decent career. People looking for the James Bond lifestyle need not apply.

I applied for a CIA staff job back when I was living in Washington DC some years ago. You first go to this non-descript building in Rosslyn to get a presentation about CIA careers and take a basic aptitude test to receive an application. The application is something like 20 pages in length and extremely thorough (they need at least 15 years of background data to process at least a TOP SECRET clearance). You send it in and... wait something like at least six months or so for the initial background investigation to be completed. Don't call them, they'll call you.

If you get called, you'll be told where to report (another nondescript office building in the Beltway) to take your physical exam and psychological tests, then sent to another building where you take your polygraph. The polygraph testing is practicallly the 'make or break' part of the application process; it is tough, no-nonsense, and has the atmosphere of a police interrogation. You get an initial exam, if the polygraph examiner feels you're hiding something, you get a second go with the box along with a hard-a** examiner. Following the tests, it takes anywhere from three to six weeks for them to send you a letter whether you got a job with them or not. If you didn't make the final cut, the letter will even inform you that you cannot even ask for the results of any tests nor the reasons why you failed to make the cut. (Because of the high security clearance, you have to take a polygraph exam every five years.)

If you do make the final cut you get a briefing, badged and sworn in to the CIA. Depending on your career field, you may be working in Langley or overseas as a case officer (there is no such thing as a CIA agent, only foreign nationals are recruited as agents for the CIA), probably under minor diplomatic cover.

If you're a math or computer whiz, the National Security Agency in Fort Meade (NSA, sometimes referred to as 'Never Say Anything') has a similar application process. NSA handles communications intelligence, cryptography and cryptanalysis.

Up until the early 1990s the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) officially did not exist; even its name was classified. They handle the spy satellite business.

The three military services have their own intelligence branches, and the DoD had its own umbrella organization called the Defense Intelligence Agency.