Memorie.al / The “School of Agency” (the Intelligence course), with a 3-year duration, was opened for the first time by Order No. 229, dated 6.8.1965, of the former Minister of Internal Affairs, Lieutenant General Kadri Hazbiu. According to the relevant financial calculations, this 3-year course for the preparation of 35 new intelligence cadres, with a financial treatment as Category V officers at that time, civilian and sports clothing, food, didactic material base, and technical and logistical support, etc., reached a total sum of 12,236,610 Leke… This amount was specified in the summary sheet of expenses for this 3-year course, signed by the head of the secret services of Political Foreign Intelligence at that time, Lieutenant General, Zoi Themeli, on 5.8.1965.
Lieutenant General Zoi Themeli’s Order for the Preparation of New Intelligence Cadres
“Today, the State Intelligence, political or military, being restructured, has other aims and objectives…! What still remains unchanged, even today, is the high objective and goal of this service: the protection at all costs of the integrity, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and borders of the Republic of Albania, from old chauvinistic aims for its dismemberment.”
The Preparation of Cadres
On 29.10.1965, Zoi Themeli issued the order regarding the organization of this course by the Political Intelligence Directorate, with the following content:
ORDER
In order for the preparation of the trainees participating in the special three-year Intelligence course to be carried out at the appropriate level and to complete the curriculum of this course,
I order:
To successfully realize the curriculum with the trainees of the Intelligence parallel, the main cadres of the Directorate must pay special attention to raising the quality of the teaching and educational work with the trainees, viewing this as an important issue in the preparation of new cadres for this Directorate.
To address the teaching issues and other matters in this course, the following commission for the Intelligence course shall be created:
- Colonel D.R., Chairman
- Colonel Gj.Dh., Member
- Colonel H.R., Member
- Colonel M.G., Member
- Captain B.A., Member
The school commission shall meet once every three months to review the status of teaching work, the problems that arise, and the topics to be referred to in the course. After reviewing the topics, it shall make remarks and corrections and give approval for each topic. The topic must be signed by the commission chairman. The referral of topics not reviewed by the commission is strictly prohibited, with the exception of topics that are already approved.
The status of the course and teaching issues shall be analyzed twice a year by the Directorate staff and the United School (of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, – my note).
The heads of the branches shall work with responsibility and insistence to draft the topics and operative-agency tasks planned to be done by themselves or their subordinates within the set deadlines. To this end, subordinates shall be actively assisted, so that these materials come out as complete as possible, with concrete, positive, and negative examples from our work and duties, without de-conspiration and within the set deadlines. The topics must be well and cleanly typewritten on white paper and carbon paper. Before these are given to the commission, they must be checked by the head of the respective branch whose subordinate drafts the topic.
The heads of the branches and the main cadres of the Directorate shall become closely acquainted with the new cadres, so that they can later correctly determine the positions where they intend to assign them upon completion of the course, according to profiles and foreign languages, in accordance with the abilities of each.
The course instructors shall draft the thematic plan of the topics and special orders regarding who will prepare, the preparation deadline, and who will refer. Based on the approval given, the implementation of these with quality and within the set deadlines shall be checked by the heads of the Branches.
For the control and smooth running of classes in the foreign language courses, I task the undersigned comrades to check this course once every three months, make their remarks, and report to me on the findings they will have.
- For the English course, Captain B.S.
- For the French course, Captain K.H.
- For the Yugoslavian course, Lt. Colonel H.R.
- For the Italian course, Lt. Colonel G.Xh.
- For the Greek course, Major D.A.
For the organization of the practical lessons of the special discipline, the Heads of the Branches and the Chiefs of the Sections shall provide the necessary assistance, by making available to the course the comrades who will be requested to assist in this practical training.
The Directorate’s administration sector shall assist the course instructors with their issues related to securing the material base for the normal functioning of the course.
On the 5th-7th of every month, the course instructor shall come for a meeting with me and report on the status of the intelligence parallel, the program, and the orders I have given.
I task Colonel Gj.Dh. with the daily direction and control of the functioning and realization of the program in the course, as well as for the issues that arise.
Besides the heads of the branches, the chiefs of the sections shall also be acquainted with this order.
Director of the 1st Directorate
Lieutenant General
Zoi Themeli (seal)
The School’s Curriculum
The entire approved thematic content, according to the above order of the former head of the secret services of Political Intelligence—both the theoretical and practical parts—encompassed not only the already rich theoretical and practical experience gained over the years in this field but also the experience, forms, methods, and practice of the secret services of other countries and their intelligence schools, whether from the East or the West…!
In the first year of this course, the thematic content began with knowledge given on the history of the birth and development of Intelligence, and then continued with:
The organization of socialist and capitalist State Intelligence;
Conspiracy and Vigilance in agency intelligence, the moral and political figure of the operational worker of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Intelligence and Counter-intelligence;
The types of intelligence and the objects of penetration (bases of agency-operative work); agency recruitment within and outside the state;
Agency liaison in intelligence, Counter-intelligence surveillance; methods of obtaining information, processing and analyzing it; elements of the internal regime;
Knowledge of the Albanian emigration abroad, as well as the exploitation of legal sources…!
In the second year of this course, the approved thematic content focused on providing knowledge about:
The leadership of agency work in intelligence, which occupied the largest quantity of program hours;
The organization and carrying out of illegal agency operations across the border;
The ways and forms used for studying the objects of intelligence and the penetration of our agency into these objects;
The insertion and illegalization of intelligence officers in the target state; the organization of American, Greek, Yugoslav, Italian, Turkish, French, English, German, Austrian, etc. intelligence and counter-intelligence… followed by an annual exam.
Subsequently, topics such as: the nation, agency concepts and the creative activity of intelligence, and then, the history of the formation of the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the tactics and strategy of our Intelligence; Legal Residencies, etc. were addressed. Throughout this three-year program, practical actions and the resolution of concrete tasks were naturally provided for, according to various situations and legends…!
The year 1965, due to the developments and international political situation of the time, the situation within the country, the need for high-quality agency information on contemporary developments, especially regarding the states that were the object of intelligence, the raising of the professional quality of the new cadres of the secret services of Political Intelligence and their perspective, the experience gained in the secret war, the successes achieved, but also the defeats suffered by the secret services of political intelligence in their activity, etc., dictated the need for the creation of the Albanian School of Political Intelligence, just like all other states…!
It is the year when the agency sector of the II Directorate of Military Intelligence of the Ministry of People’s Defense was annexed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (?!…). / Memorie.al
