When the C.I.A. sent me a recruitment letter in 1979, I had not yet stumbled into journalism, where I would end up spending many years writing about spies and their secret world. But I have sometimes wondered whether that odd envelope planted a seed.

It gave “Office of Personnel” and a Washington post office box as the return address. Inside there was a mysterious message: “This Federal Agency” had expressed “tentative interest” in my qualifications. When I returned from graduate school in England, the note said, I should call the phone number listed to arrange an interview. Nowhere did the letter say just which federal agency.

I had sent letters to several government offices inquiring about jobs for Russian speakers. I excluded the spy agencies because I wanted to be free to travel to the Soviet Union, where I had spent a summer studying the language. But the agencies had evidently found me.

I called the number. The woman who answered confirmed that the letter was from the Central Intelligence Agency. When I declined the interview, she told me, “All right, we’ll put your file in the inactive section.” Only after I hung up did I absorb her disconcerting parting words.