The CIA recruiters work to create what they describe as "false friendships" with targeted potential traitors and informants and seek to discover their needs, desires, and aspirations in order to tempt them into regularly transmitting sensitive information on them, former CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Olson told CNBC in an interview for the network's new seven-part series on espionage operations.
The process of recruiting and suborning sources from other countries is taught systematically at a secret CIA training facility near Williamsburg, Virginia that has been known for generations as "The Farm," the program said.
Olson served in the CIA for 31 years including a tour of service in Moscow during the Cold War, the program said.
The recruitment process was often developed through meetings over restaurant meals, in bars, and even in gymnasiums, Olson explained.