The FBI’s Border Coverage (BOCOV) Program and the Ambiguity of Intelligence Missions

Abstract

Abstract Intelligence services must routinely operate in liminal spaces, both operationally and bureaucratically. The Border Coverage (BOCOV) Program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was a Cold War example of an agency seeking to address the vulnerability inherent to a geographic liminal space. Its implementation of the program illustrated the impact of bureaucratic borders—between the FBI and Central Intelligence Agency and between Intelligence Community (IC) and non-IC agencies. Lessons learned, through the implementation of BOCOV, about interagency relations continue to be applicable as the United States contends with the cyber environment, an even more porous space than the physical U.S.–Mexican border.