The cover story wasn't just for kids, at least not 30 years ago.
It's what I was directly told when I interviewed at Langley for a job as an image processing/remote sensing specialist. They were in the business of "analyzing intelligence, not acquiring it". They eventually made me an offer, and I turned it down, primarily because I was earning more in the private sector and I knew how expensive it would be to live in the DC area.
Still, it sounded like interesting work, and nice people to work for. And the nature of the work was described as not particularly cloak-and-dagger, just software development and applications programming, just like I was doing in my other job.