Robert had expected to train with other Navy personnel, but to his surprise, the students were a mixture of CIA inductees, marines, and Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel. Each student was assigned a number and housed in a dormitorylike room in one of several Spartan two-story brick buildings. At the Bachelor Officer Quarters, where Robert stayed, each man had his own room, and shared the bathroom with another. The mess hall was across the road from the BOQ cluster.
On the day Robert arrived, he was escorted to an auditorium with thirty other newcomers. A tall, powerfully built black colonel in Air Force uniform addressed the group. He appeared to be in his middle fifties, and he gave the impression of quick, cold intelligence. He spoke clearly and crisply with no wasted words.
“I’m Colonel Frank Johnson. I want to welcome you here. During your stay you will use only your first names. From this moment on, your lives will be a closed book. You’ve all been sworn to secrecy. I would advise you to take that oath very, very seriously. You are never to discuss your work with anyone—your wives, your family, your friends. You’ve been selected to come here because you have special qualifications. There’s a lot of hard work ahead of you to develop those qualifications, and not all of you are going to make it. You’re going to be involved in things you have never even heard of before. I cannot stress enough the importance of the work you will be doing when you finish here. It has become fashionable in certain liberal circles to attack our intelligence services, whether it’s the CIA, the Army, the Navy or the Air Force, but I can assure you, gentlemen, that without dedicated people like yourselves, this country would be in one hell of a lot of trouble. It’s going to be your job to help prevent that. Those of you who do pass will become case officers. To put it bluntly, a case officer is a spy. He works under cover.”
“While you’re here, you’re going to get the best training in the world. You’ll be trained in surveillance and counter-surveillance. You’ll have courses in radio communications, encoding, and weaponry and map reading.
“You’ll attend a class in interpersonal relations. You’ll be taught how to build a rapport, how to draw out an individual’s motivations, how to make your target feel at ease.”
The class was hanging on every word.
“You’ll learn how to meet and recruit an agent. You’ll be trained in how to make sure meeting places are secure.
“You’ll learn about ‘dead drops,’ how to covertly communicate with your contacts. If you’re successful at what you do, you will carry out your assignments unnoticed and undetected.”
Robert could feel the excitement that charged the air.
“Some of you will work under official cover. It could be diplomatic or military. Others will work under unofficial cover as private individuals—as businessmen, archaeologists, or novelists—any profession that will give you access to the areas and types of people likely to have the information you’re looking for. And now I’m going to turn you over to your instructors. Good luck.”
Robert found the training fascinating. The instructors were men who had worked in the field and were experienced professionals. Robert absorbed the technical information easily. In addition to the courses Colonel Johnson had mentioned, there was a brushup course on languages and one on cryptic codes.
Colonel Johnson was an enigma to Robert. The rumor circulating about him was that he had strong connections at the White House and was involved in high-level covert activities. He would disappear from the Farm for days at a time and suddenly reappear.
An agent named Ron was conducting a class.
“There are six phases to the clandestine operational process. The first is spotting. When you know what information you need, your first challenge is to identify and target individuals who have access to that information. The second phase is assessment. Once you have spotted your target, you have to decide if he really has the information you need, and if he might be susceptible to recruitment. What motivates him? Is he happy in his job? Does he have a grudge against his boss? Is he over his head financially? If the prospect is accessible and there’s a motivation that can be exploited, you move along to phase three.