page_title: Clandestine cell system
section_title: Operations under official cover
hierarchical_section_title: Clandestine cell system / Classic models for cell system operations / Operations under official cover
caption_attribution_description: English: Representative clandestine operations run from diplomatic cover
context_page_description: A clandestine cell system is a method for organizing a group of people such as resistance fighters, sleeper agents, or terrorists so that such people can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization.
  In a cell structure, each of the small group of people in the cell only know the identities of the people in their cell. Thus, a cell member who is apprehended and interrogated will not likely know the identities of the higher-ranking individuals in the organization.
  The structure of a clandestine cell system can range from a strict hierarchy to an extremely distributed organization, depending on the group's ideology, its operational area, the communications technologies available, and the nature of the mission.
  This sort of organizational structure is also used by criminal organizations, undercover operations, and unconventional warfare units led by special forces.
context_section_description: Station BERRY operates, on behalf of country B, in target country BE. The station has three case officers and several support officers.  Case officer BETTY supervises the local agents BEN and BEATLE. Case officer BESSIE supervises BENSON and BEAGLE.
  Some recruits, due to the sensitivity of their position or their personalities not being appropriate for cell leadership, might not enter cells but be run as singletons, perhaps by other than the recruiting case officer. In this example, asset BARD is a different sort of highly sensitive singleton, who is a joint asset of the country B, and the country identified by prefix AR. ARNOLD is a case officer from the country AR embassy, who knows only the case officer BERTRAM and the security officer BEST. ARNOLD does not know the station chief of BERRY or any of its other personnel. Other than BELL and BEST, the Station personnel only know BERTRAM as someone authorized to be in the Station, and who is known for his piano playing at embassy parties. He is covered as Cultural Attache, in a country that has very few pianos. Only the personnel involved with BARD know that ARNOLD is other than another friendly diplomat.
  In contrast, BESSIE and BETTY know one another, and procedures exist for their taking over each other's assets in the event one of the two is disabled.
  Some recruits, however, would be qualified to recruit their own subcell, as BEATLE has done. BETTY knows the identity of BEATLE-1 and BEATLE-2, since he or she had them checked by headquarters counterintelligence before they were recruited.
caption: Representative diplomatic-cover station and networks
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