Retired CIA expert teaches students secrets of spying
Retired CIA spy master Frederick Wettering teaches the history of American spies at Lake-Sumter Community College.
By Associated Press
Published October 25, 2004
LEESBURG - Frederick Wettering, a 36-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, is sharing secrets.
And Werner Sharp, among others, is taking notes.
"I just think it's fascinating stuff," said Sharp, a retired electrical engineer from New York, who enrolled in Wettering's course on the history of American spies that started earlier this month at Lake-Sumter Community College.
"I'm a fan of Tom Clancy, and I wanted to see how much of what I read is real."
Unlike Clancy, who writes popular fiction, Wettering has a real pedigree as a CIA spy master from 1962 to 1998.
He brings an air of authenticity to the five-week, noncredit course that college officials hope will interest area retirees.
He discusses, from firsthand experience, how spy masters locate and recruit potential spies and the difficulties in analyzing intelligence.
Most of the first class was spent on espionage history, from George Washington, considered the father of American espionage, to President John F. Kennedy's use of satellite photos to identify Cuban missiles.
Later classes will focus on the USA Patriot Act, democracy and ethical issues, congressional oversight, Afghanistan and radical terrorism.
Wettering worked in the CIA's Directorate of Operations and for a time was National Intelligence Officer for Africa.
He served tours in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, taught at the National War College and spent time as adviser to the Department of Energy's counterintelligence office.
Since retiring to Lake County, he has been teaching international relations and government part time at the Leesburg campus of Lake-Sumter Community College.
The course in spies is patterned after a similar class he taught a decade ago at the war college, a Washington-based training center for would-be generals and policymakers.
"People know what they see in James Bond movies, but they don't know real intelligence work," Wettering said. "I know whereof I speak."
The 65-year-old Wettering doesn't look like a spy; he looks like a mild-mannered accountant.
Armed with a master's degree in political science from the University of Illinois, Wettering was recruited by the CIA right after college.
The rest is history, even if some of the details are still cloaked in a shroud of secrecy.
"We have a glorious history of intelligence in this country," he said. "It's nothing new or alien."
Washington was a big proponent of intelligence services, and much of the success of the Revolutionary War can be credited to them as his spies kept tabs on the British. Sam Adams, Paul Revere and Ben Franklin also are early examples of successful espionage pioneers.
Old-fashioned spying represents a small portion of modern-day intelligence, but it is still an important facet.
"Classic espionage is the meat and potatoes of the intelligence business," Wettering said.
