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The operations course graduation

The end of CIA field training: a graduation ceremony at which the whole class wore full disguises for the photograph, and a certificate that is itself classified and therefore cannot be displayed — it stays in the officer's personnel file.

The operations course graduation closed John Kiriakou’s field training at the Farm, and did so in character.

The whole class wore complete disguises to the ceremony, and took the graduation photograph in them. Kiriakou calls it hilarious and says he still has the pictures.[1]

What graduates receive is a certificate recording that they are a graduate of the operations course, accelerated — which, being classified, cannot be displayed anywhere and stays in the personnel file.[1]

Kiriakou’s reaction was uncomplicated pride: “Wow, I’m actually a spy now. I’m a spy and I have the certificate to prove it.”[2]

He places the whole course above everything else he did in training — “this was the best training course I ever had in my life” — notwithstanding the knee he lost to it.[1]

Sleeping arrangements

One detail of the Farm’s hierarchy amused him. The facility is over a thousand acres and holds analysts and operations trainees at the same time who need never encounter one another except in the officers’ club afterwards. But because the operations trainees carried weapons, they got their own rooms; the analysts had to share.[3]

See also

References

  1. John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2025-12-29 · Transcript
  2. John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2025-12-29 · Transcript
  3. John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2025-12-29 · Transcript

Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.