# Warrenton Training Center

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Warrenton Training Center," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/warrenton-training-center/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*A secret CIA communications facility in Warrenton, Virginia, which, per John Kiriakou, the KGB used as a decoy to protect Aldrich Ames. When Ames warned Moscow in 1986 that he feared becoming a suspect, a Soviet case officer told a CIA contact that the mole was posted to Warrenton; agency mole hunters then spent almost a year investigating ninety employees there and produced ten suspects, none of them Ames.*

- **What:** Secret [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) communications facility, Warrenton, Virginia
- **Also known as:** WTC
- **Role in the Ames case:** KGB decoy target for the mole hunt, from 1986
- **Employees investigated:** 90, over almost a year
- **Suspects produced:** 10, none of them [Aldrich Ames](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/aldrich-ames)

The **Warrenton Training Center**, known inside the agency as the WTC, is a secret [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) communications facility in Warrenton, Virginia. It enters [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s account of the [Aldrich Ames](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/aldrich-ames) case not as a site of espionage but as the address [Soviet](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/soviet-union) intelligence invented to keep the agency looking away from Ames.[1]

In 1986 Ames told his handlers that he feared becoming a suspect. When the mole hunt eventually resumed, the KGB *"threw US investigators off of Ames's trail by constructing an elaborate diversion"*: a Soviet case officer told a CIA contact that the mole was in fact stationed at Warrenton.[1]

The agency took the bait. Mole hunters investigated ninety employees at the facility for almost a year and came up with ten possible suspects, although, Kiriakou notes, the lead investigator recorded that *"there are so many problem personalities that no single one stands out."*[1][2]

What finally exposed Ames, on Kiriakou's telling, was not the counterintelligence apparatus at all: *"It wasn't so much the agency's work that eventually outed Ames as it was Ames's own complete stupidity. But then greed has never made anyone smarter."* The pattern analysis that did break the case belonged to [Sandy Grimes](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/sandy-grimes).[2]

## See also

- [Aldrich Ames](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/aldrich-ames)
- [Sandy Grimes](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/sandy-grimes)
- [James Jesus Angleton](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/james-jesus-angleton)
- [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)

## Sources

1. Mini Episode 5 Betrayal (2026-02-13), at 10:39. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/698a64aad2345f67c3234536/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-13-dead-drop-mini-episode-5-betrayal/
2. Mini Episode 5 Betrayal (2026-02-13), at 11:13. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/698a64aad2345f67c3234536/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-13-dead-drop-mini-episode-5-betrayal/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/warrenton-training-center/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt