CIA University (CIAU) is the primary education facility of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Founded in 2002 and located in Chantilly, Virginia, the school holds courses on various intelligence-related subjects, ranging from chemical weapons manufacturing to foreign languages. Students include CIA new hires, experienced officers, support staff, and individuals from other U.S. intelligence agencies. CIAU does not issue degrees.
The CIA was founded in 1947 and in 1950 created its first training establishment, the Office of Training and Education. In the 1990s, following the end of the Cold War, budget cuts forced the CIA to drastically reduce the size and scope of its education programs. [1] During his tenure as Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet decided the agency needed an expanded training program in order to help retain talented staff. [2] Tenet authorized the creation of a new training school soon after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and thus CIAU was established in 2002. [1] [3] Today, the CIAU campus is located within the Dulles Discovery office buildings in Chantilly, Virginia, which were constructed in 2007 and 2010. [4] [5]
CIAU is the primary education facility of the CIA, working in partnership with the National Intelligence University, and serving as a hub that links other CIA education programs, such as the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis. [3] [6] It does not issue degrees. [1]
The school holds between 200 and 300 courses each year. Each course typically runs for two weeks or less, except for the basic training of new hires (designated "CIA 101"), which lasts several weeks, and language courses, which run between 21 and 44 weeks. CIA officers receive training throughout their agency careers, and course offerings are continuously updated to keep pace with current events. Courses are held in a traditional classroom setting or may be conducted either online, via videoconference, or through podcasts. [1] [2] Subjects taught at the school have included chemical weapons manufacturing, communication skills, defensive driving, dirty bombs, geography of critical regions, information technology, intelligence community, money laundering, project management, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, weapons proliferation, and weapons training. [1] [2] [6] Additionally, 16 language courses are taught at the school. [1] [2] At one time, students were taught how to draft the President's Daily Brief (PDB); [2] however, responsibility for producing the PDB was transferred from the CIA to the Director of National Intelligence in 2005. [7]
CIAU trains agency new hires as well as experienced intelligence operations officers, and intelligence scientists and engineers. The school also trains CIA support officers, such as those in finance, human resources, or logistics. Up to 15 percent of the school's enrollment consists of employees from other U.S. intelligence agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. CIAU does not enroll spies, who are typically foreign individuals not considered intelligence officers. [1]
The school's faculty consists of professional educators along with intelligence experts drawn from within the agency. Many of the school's case studies and exercises are drawn from the CIA's historical experience. [1]
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the United States Armed Forces. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda, subversion, and post-war planning.
Chantilly is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Fairfax County, Virginia. The population was 24,301 as of the 2020 census. Chantilly is named after an early-19th-century mansion and farm, which in turn took the name of an 18th-century plantation that was located in Westmoreland County, Virginia. The name "Chantilly" originated in France with the Château de Chantilly, about 28 miles north of Paris.
Allen Welsh Dulles was an American lawyer who was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he oversaw the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, the Lockheed U-2 aircraft program, the Project MKUltra mind control program and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He was fired by John F. Kennedy over the latter fiasco.
George John Tenet is an American intelligence official and academic who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.
The director of central intelligence (DCI) was the head of the American Central Intelligence Agency from 1946 to 2004, acting as the principal intelligence advisor to the president of the United States and the United States National Security Council, as well as the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various US intelligence agencies.
Sidney Gottlieb was an American chemist and spymaster who headed the Central Intelligence Agency's 1950s and 1960s assassination attempts and mind-control program, known as Project MKUltra.
The President's Daily Brief, sometimes referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a top-secret document produced and given each morning to the president of the United States; it is also distributed to a small number of top-level US officials who are approved by the president. It includes highly classified intelligence analysis, information about covert operations, and reports from the most sensitive US sources or those shared by allied intelligence agencies. At the discretion of the president, the PDB may also be provided to the president-elect of the United States, between election day and inauguration, and to former presidents on request.
John Edward McLaughlin is an American intelligence official who was Deputy Director of Central Intelligence and briefly acting Director of Central Intelligence. He is a Senior Fellow and Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University.
The Office of Technical Service is a component of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, responsible for supporting CIA's clandestine operations with gadgets, disguises, forgeries, secret writings, and weapons. The OTS traces its history to October 1942, when OSS director William J. Donovan created the OSS Research and Development Branch, a technical group tasked with creating "dirty tricks and deadly weapons" to combat the US's World War II enemies. Donovan named Cornell University-trained chemist and executive Stanley Platt Lovell as the branch's first head, a man whom the CIA remembers as the "founding father" of the OTS. In the 1950s and early 1960s it also researched, investigated, and experimented with the use of drugs, chemicals, hypnosis, and isolation to extract information during interrogation, as well as to make it easier for American captives to resist interrogation. OTS is part of CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology.
Camp Peary is an approximately 9,000 acre U.S. military reservation in York County near Williamsburg, Virginia. Officially referred to as an Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity (AFETA) under the authority of the Department of Defense, Camp Peary hosts a covert CIA training facility known as "The Farm", which is used to train officers of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, as well as those of the DIA's Defense Clandestine Service, among other intelligence entities. Its facilities are also available to the members of the intelligence community for "off-site" activities such as conferences and working groups. Camp Peary has a sister facility, "The Point", located in Hertford, North Carolina.
John L. Helgerson is a retired career intelligence officer who spent 38 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, his final role was CIA Inspector General from 2002 until his retirement in 2009. He was responsible for investigating CIA interrogations of terror suspects, and compiled a report critical of agency practices in 2005 which was released in 2009 by the Obama administration.
Lyman B. Kirkpatrick (1916–1995) was an American intelligence officer, academic and author who served as inspector general and executive director of the CIA. He also served as a professor at Brown University. He wrote a number of books about intelligence after his retirement.
Richard Mervin Bissell Jr. was an American Central Intelligence Agency officer responsible for major projects such as the U-2 spy plane and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He is seen as one of the most important spymasters in CIA history.
The Central Intelligence Agency, known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations. As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the President and Cabinet of the United States. Following the dissolution of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a Director of Central Intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and this group was transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency by implementation of the National Security Act of 1947.
Jack Gregory Downing was an American field officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He served as its Deputy Director for Operations (DDO) from 1997 until July 1999. He was the only person to act as the agency's station head in both Moscow and Beijing.
The Dulles–Jackson–Correa Report was one of the most influential evaluations of the functioning of the United States Intelligence Community, and in particular, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The report focused primarily on the coordination and organization of the CIA and offered suggestions that refined the US intelligence effort in the early stages of the Cold War.
The Eberstadt Report, officially known as the Task Force Report on National Security Organization, was a study conducted by the United States government which evaluated the structure and operations of the United States Department of Defense and United States Intelligence Community. The report was created by the Task Force on National Security Organization, chaired by Ferdinand Eberstadt, from 1948–49 under the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, also known as the First Hoover Commission. The most important findings of the report include recommendations for better cooperation within the US Intelligence Community, improvement in the internal structure and operations of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the growing need for the development of scientific intelligence in the background of the Cold War. Despite its submission to US Congress, the report was not widely read due to being overshadowed by the Intelligence Survey Group and its report, the Dulles Report.
The CIA publishes organizational charts of its agency. Here are a few examples.
The Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis is a training school for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intelligence analysts located in Reston, Virginia. Opened in May 2000, the school is housed on the second floor of a five-story structure of polished brick and smoked glass that is sheathed with special materials and contains sensors designed to prevent eavesdropping from outside. The school's study area is nicknamed "The Vault" due to the presence of numerous locks, alarms and guards.
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) dates from September 18, 1947, when President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 into law. A major impetus that has been cited over the years for the creation of the CIA was the unforeseen attack on Pearl Harbor, but whatever Pearl Harbor's role, at the close of World War II government circles identified a need for a group to coordinate government intelligence efforts, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the State Department, the War Department, and even the Post Office were all jockeying for that new power.
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