Richards Heuer

Richards J. Heuer Jr.
Nationality	American

Richards "Dick" J. Heuer, Jr. is a former CIA veteran of 45 years and most known for his work on Analysis of Competing Hypotheses and his book, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis. The former provides a methodology for overcoming intelligence biases while the latter outlines how mental models and natural biases impede clear thinking and analysis. Throughout his career, he has worked in collection operations, counterintelligence, intelligence analysis and personnel security. His latest contribution to the intelligence community is a book co-authored with Randolph (Randy) H. Pherson published in 2010 entitled Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis.

Richards Heuer graduated in 1950 from Williams College with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. One year later, while a graduate student at the University of California in Berkeley, future CIA Director Richard Helms recruited Heuer to work at the Central Intelligence Agency. Helms, also a graduate of Williams College, was looking for recent graduates to hire at CIA. Heuer spent the next 24 years working with the Directorate of Operations before switching to the Directorate of Intelligence in 1975. His interest in intelligence analysis and "how we know" was rekindled by the case of Yuri Nosenko and his studies in social science methodology while a master's student at the University of Southern California. Richards Heuer is well known for his analysis of the extremely controversial and disruptive case of Soviet KGB defector Yuri Nosenko, who was first judged to be part of a “master plot” for penetration of CIA but was later officially accepted as a legitimate defector. Heuer worked within the DI for four years, eventually retiring in 1979 after 28 years of service as the head of the methodology unit for the political analysis office. (Though retired from the DI in 1979, Heuer continued to work as a contractor on various projects until 1995.) He eventually received an M.A. in international relations from the University of Southern California. Heuer discovered his interest in cognitive psychology through reading the work of Kahneman and Tversky subsequent to an International Studies Association (ISA) convention in 1977. His continuing interest in the field and its application to intelligence analysis has led to several published works including papers, CIA training lectures and conference panels.

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