I still had to get the formal okay from National Security Advisor Jones, who would be my new boss. As I awaited my interview with him, I drove to the FBI field office in downtown Boston to be fingerprinted for the investigation that was required before I could obtain a security clearance. I also started making my way through a mountain of government paperwork. I had to complete forms for ethics, medical history, and financial disclosure, but it was the SF-86, the national security background questionnaire, that stunned me with its breadth. The form had twenty-nine separate sections, each with
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