Schooling Spies: Where spies go to learn their trade

Well, it’s that time of year again! To the delight of some (and the sorrow of others), the return to academic studies is in full swing. From toddlers to teenagers to teachers, the school year is now here. And whether students are finishing a degree in social engineering or just learning how to be social with other five-year-olds, everyone’s learning something that will hopefully prepare them for the future.

In this blog, I’m going to dive into some espionage and intelligence training facilities—aka “Spy Schools”—that have provided the necessary instruction to Intelligence Officers from some well-known International Intelligence Agencies.

I have personally had a chance to train and work with some of these highly professional Intelligence Agencies and individuals, and I can say from personal experience that although some of the methods and techniques vary, the level of expertise and the devotion to providing the best possible training remains the same.

There is a high expectation of practitioners of spycraft, and rightly so. Intelligence professionals are needed to perform every aspect of their duties with the idea that any misstep can be their last. The reputation of their agency, their government, and their country may be at stake. To add even more pressure, the world of intelligence and espionage can have deadly consequences for Intelligence Officers—not to mention their sources—if something goes wrong.

With that in mind, let’s dive into some of these training schools.

The Farm

Although widely known, the US Government has never formally acknowledged “The Farm” as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) training facility. Officially known as Camp Peary, this place is named after Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary and located in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The Farm was constructed in 1942 for the training of United States (US) Naval Construction Battalions (also known as the Seabees).

Legend has it that Camp Peary acquired its moniker “The Farm” from the raising of hogs by base Commander Captain J.G. Ware. Recruits were known to call Camp Peary “Captain Ware’s hog farm,” with the hogs originally located in the centre of the camp, on higher ground. After multiple complaints by enlisted men began to pile up concerning the hogs having high ground and the enlisted men being stuck in the muck of lower areas (which tended to flood), the hogs were eventually moved to another area of the Camp. Once word of the hogs at the camp hit the news, the story of “The Farm” and its moniker stuck.

After WWII, Camp Peary / The Farm was turned into a state forestry and game reserve, until 1951 when the US Navy returned to the property.

A decade later, the US Navy opened a facility at Harvey Point Base in Hertford, North Carolina. This new facility was then used by all branches of the US military for testing and evaluating various classified materials and equipment.

Training for CIA at The Farm

Open-source media—including various news articles and “Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA” by Amaryllis Fox—provide insights into the type of training that CIA officers are given.

Trainees are immersed in a fictional (although highly realistic) scenario where they face the same challenges regarding intelligence collection, agent recruitment and spying that they would experience on foreign soil.

This includes the implementation and use of alias names, so that even their classmates are potentially unaware of who they really are. Once new names have been given and used, it’s time for the recruits to begin attending fictionalized embassy parties and gatherings, where they can interact with diplomat role players and try to identify who could be a potential target of recruitment.

But what’s the use of having a secret agent in a foreign country if they can’t keep themselves from being caught? This is where trainees get plenty of practice conducting long surveillance detection routes to identify any potential surveillance that may be trying to suss out their true actions and intentions.

The Fort

Fort Monckton is the training facility for Britain’s Military Intelligence Foreign Branch (MI-6), located on the Southeast shoreline of Gosport peninsula in Hampshire, England. It was completed circa 1789-1790 and is named after Lieutenant General Sir Robert Monckton, who was also the former Governor of Portsmouth.

After WWII, the Fort, which was still under the British Ministry of Defence (BMD), was basically left abandoned. That is, until 1956, when the facility became a military training establishment for the BMD Army.

At the Fort, Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) officers train alongside Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS) officers.

In his autobiographical novel “The Big Breach,” former MI-6 officer Richard Tomlinson describes the Intelligence Officer Entry Course (IOEC) as a six-month-long course for MI-6 trainees. According to Tomlinson, MI-6 officers received training in cover identities, agent handling, weapons training, and basic spycraft techniques. This includes secret codes, unloading and loading dead drops, surveillance, and counter-surveillance techniques.

Camp X

Although it is no longer operational, Canada’s Camp X has had significant historical impact on the Five Eyes relationship between western governments and intelligence agencies since it was established on December 6, 1941—just one day before the infamous attack on Pearl Harbour.

Camp X—which was identified by several names including S25-1-1, Project J and STS -103 (Special Training School 103)—was located on the shores of Lake Ontario, between Ajax and Whitby, Ontario. The area is now known as Intrepid Park, named after the code name for Sir William Stephenson, Chief of the British Security Co-Ordination (BSC), who was placed in charge by then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The Camp was a joint effort between the Government of Canada and the previously mentioned BSC.

The land chosen for Camp X had several advantages for a secret war time training facility. The location was close to a large munitions manufacturer, and it was directly across from the US via Lake Ontario—allowing for radio signals to be bounced from Europe to South America and to London, England, from the British Security Co-Ordination Headquarters in New York.

During the Second World War, potential secret agents needed to be trained to work behind enemy lines in Europe. But given that England was under constant bombardment and threat of invasion, Canada was understandably a better place to ensure the training and the potential danger of losing recruits to wartime casualties were minimized, before they had a chance to be sent into action abroad.

Potential secret agents were trained for wartime espionage and intelligence activities. As such, their training was focused on deadly skills as well as information gathering and recruiting.

The purpose of the training was to develop agents who could conduct silent killings, sabotage, partisan work (a partisan is an individual who could be recruited to work against Axis powers / Nazis), methods of recruitment for the Resistance movement, demolition, map reading, weaponry, and Morse code.

The initial training lasted for 2.5 months—after which the trainees, who were evaluated by their instructors and commanding officers, were sent on to Britain for further specific training and assignments.

In 1942, officers from both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency) were sent to Camp X for training. Some famous attendees of Camp X include the author of the James Bond novels, Ian Fleming; and children’s book author Roald Dahl, who wrote such books including “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “James and the Giant Peach.”

Never stop learning

So, as you make sure you and/or your kids have books, lunch money and laptops—and while you wave as the bus pulls away—think to yourself what it might be like to start your first day of Spy School. I’m one of the fortunate few to know exactly how that feels, but I can’t tell you much more about it. After all, it’s classified! 😉