Winterveil Academy

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SUBMITTED: PRESS RELEASE, SCRAPPED [ARCHIVED] [CLEARANCE REQ.]

“WAR COLLEGE” FOR YOUTHS TO OPEN IN VIRGINIA COUNTRYSIDE

Washington, DC—A decade-long collaboration between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense comes to light today as

Valeran Academy, a military school for American youth, is slated to open its doors this coming spring.

Valeran, which stands in the remote peaks of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, will enroll teenagers from across the United

States and educate them in the areas of military strategy, tradecraft, and combat. Modeled after DC’s own National War College,

it aims to “instruct a new generation of Americans in all the disciplines that will allow them to be stewards of American

values at home and overseas.”

The school’s founder and inaugural dean is Vice Admiral Lewison Bayne, himself the former assistant commandant at NWC. Bayne

states that the idea was initially conceived in 1951, following the unmasking of two British intelligence officers—Guy Burgess

and Donald Maclean—as Soviet spies.

Both Burgess and Maclean were students at the University of Cambridge when they were recruited by Soviet intelligence; later

three other students would be recruited from Cambridge as well. The “Cambridge Five,” as they have been dubbed, defected to

the Soviets because of their ideological opposition to capitalism. Bayne says:

“The Cambridge Five were all immensely promising, intellectual young men from well-to-do backgrounds. It is a tragedy that they fell prey to communist, anti-Western ideas. At Valeran, we intend to place talented young Americans into an environment where they will be instilled with the values of individual liberty, democracy, and free-market capitalism—and learn to fight for these values in an increasingly fraught global arena.”

Unlike the National War College, Valeran is open only to students from the ages of fourteen to nineteen. There is no application

process; students will be hand-selected by Bayne and the recruitment team, which is composed of a number of other former CIA

and DOD employees. Also unlike the NWC, Valeran will focus heavily on espionage, with a particular attention to emerging cryptographic

technologies. The three official curriculum tracks are Strategy and Statecraft, Espionage and Tradecraft, and Tactical Combat.

When asked if Valeran was a “school for spies,” Bayne replied:

“We are not training spies—we are training patriots. Whether these students end up as military strategists, intelligence officers,

or army commanders, the most important thing is that America’s best and brightest will be serving their country with unwavering

loyalty. This is how the United States will emerge triumphant from this Cold War and bring about a new era of freedom and

US supremacy.”

NOTE: This article was pulled from publication due to national security concerns. It is maintained for archival purposes at the

Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters.