Title: The Extreme Challenge of Marriages and Relationships in the CIA, with John Kiriakou
Show: The Megyn Kelly Show
Date: 2026-04-02
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut9xkBf0_6Y
Duration: 11:31

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[00:00] So, you're at GW University from 82 to 86, a boy from Pennsylvania, and Middle Eastern studies is your thing, and one day a professor pulls you aside and makes an extraordinary admission and offer to you. Tell us. >> Right. I I got a degree in Middle Eastern studies at George Washington University. And to tell you the truth, I wasn't ready to go into real life yet. So, I stayed for a master's degree in legislative affairs with a focus being on American foreign policy analysis.

[00:32] And I was taking a class called the psychology of leadership with Dr. Jerrold Post, who was an eminent psychiatrist. He gave us an assignment, quite a controversial assignment, to shadow our bosses, and then to write a psychological profile of our bosses. I did that. And it was a I worked for a I worked for a sociopath. And I called him on it. And so, I got my paper back at the end

[01:02] of the week, and I got an A, and Dr. Post wrote in the margin, "Please see me after class." So, I went to his office to see him. He had me close the door, and then he said, "Look, I'm not really a professor here. I'm a CIA officer undercover as a professor here. I'm looking for people who might fit into the CIA's culture, and I think you would fit into the CIA's culture. Would you like to be a CIA officer?" And the truth is, you know, I wanted to go into public service. I wanted to see the world. But the real truth was, I was getting married in 6

[01:33] weeks, and I didn't have a job. So, I said, "Yeah, sure. I'd love to join the CIA." And the next thing I knew, I was in the CIA. >> So, what was it about you? Just your ability to profile people? >> That was the start of it, yes. It turned out that I was hired by the office that he had created about 6 years earlier, called the political psychology division. So, I was assigned to Iraq. I became Saddam Hussein's classified biographer,

[02:03] and I did that for years before making a what at the time was a very unusual switch to counterterrorism operations. But, the agency gave me opportunity after opportunity. I learned to speak fluent Arabic. That went with the fluent Greek that I had. And um Yeah, I mean, one day you're sitting in a college class and the next day you're in the Oval Office trying to think of, you know, how not to sound like an idiot when you're speaking to the president. And yeah, the rest of the rest was history.

[02:34] >> And so, do you do you are you Was this the kind of hire that you could tell anybody about? Or like when you joined the CIA? Or did they say, "No, your cover's going to be you too are a university professor." >> Well, at the beginning, I was an overt employee. So, I wasn't under formal cover. But, what that meant for all intents and purposes was that I could tell those closest to me that I was working for the CIA. And then that was it. I mean, even my own wife, she knew that I was a CIA officer. She had no idea what I did.

[03:04] That which caused all kinds of problems later. And frankly, it led to our divorce. You know, you come home and you say, she says, "How was your day?" You say, "Great." "What did you do?" "Nothing." "Who did you talk to?" "Nobody." And then your phone rings at 11:00 and you say, you know, "The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain." And then you leave until 6:00 in the morning. And that's just not conducive to a to a a smooth marriage. >> A healthy marriage. Did you really use little phrases like that? Like the pearls in the river?

[03:35] >> Uh sometimes, yeah. Uh sometimes, if you're not close to the person that you're trying to trigger an emergency meeting with, it would be easy to say, "Hey, Constantine, let's have coffee. I'll meet you tomorrow morning at 9:00." Well, tomorrow morning at 9:00 really means tomorrow morning at 8:00 in the abandoned, you know, parking lot behind the sweater factory because you've arranged that all in advance. So, if somebody's listening to your phone, and nowadays everybody's listening to your phone, they don't have any idea what

[04:06] you're going to do. >> Well, I was interested in your I want to get to all that, but I do I am interested in your relationship with your wife. You you've had two wives as I understand it. And I heard you tell the story in part, and I wanted to hear the rest of it. So, you're in Greece. >> Mhm. >> And I think this is the first wife. >> Right. My first wife. >> son your son said something shocking to you. Can you tell us that story? >> Yeah. I was so focused on the job and and trying not to get killed. You know,

[04:37] there was a there was a terrorist group active in Greece at the time called Revolutionary Organization 17 November. That was the whole reason why I was in Greece at the at the in the at the basis of it at all. Uh it was to to try to infiltrate this group to disrupt their attacks and really to destroy the group from the inside. They'd killed the CIA station chief, two US defense attachés, the Turkish ambassador, the deputy ambassador, the minister of finance. They they just killed they killed 28

[05:07] people. And so she was uh a first generation American. Her parents were were from Greece, and she inherited her grandmother's house on on one of the Greek islands. And so, she started going to the island on the weekends and taking the kids. I thought that was a great idea. The kids can get to know their cousins. Well, leaving Friday, coming back Sunday became leaving Thursday, coming back Sunday, then leaving Thursday, coming back Monday. The kids are missing school. And then one day, I'm shaving,

[05:40] getting ready for for work, and my then 6-year-old is sitting on the floor next to me, and we're talking about his day and what his day is going to look like. And then he said to me, "I told Mommy not to kiss Uncle Stelios on the lips. I told her to kiss only you on the lips, and she told me to mind my own business." I felt like I had been electrocuted. And so I went into the bedroom and I kicked the bed. She said, "What?" I said, "Who is Stelios?" And she said, "Where did you hear that name?" I said, "Who is he?"

[06:12] And she said, "Don't believe everything a 6-year-old says." And I I said to her, and I said it very plainly and clearly at the time, "I'm going to leave right now before I do something that's going to that's going to dog me for the rest of my life." And so I didn't even finish shaving. I finished shaving at work. I got in the car and I drove to the embassy, and it was all downhill from there. As it turned out, 17 November murdered the British defense attaché a few months later, Steven Saunders. Steven was a friend of mine. We were next-door

[06:43] neighbors. And um And a couple of months later they mailed a manifesto to a leftist newspaper, and they said in the manifesto, "Eda meton megalo kataskopos, we saw the big spy, but we knew that he was armed and he was driving an armored car, so we elected to carry out the revolutionary sentence on the war criminal Saunders." Well, I got to the office and the and the chief said he came just barging into my office. He said, "Did you see the manifesto?" I said, "What manifesto?" He said, "The

[07:13] Saunders manifesto." I said, "They didn't leave a Saunders manifesto." He said, "No, they released it today, and you're in it." I said, "What do you mean I'm in it?" He said, "They set out to kill you that morning." And I said, "Oh my god." He said, "You have to go." I said, "Go where?" He said, "Home, like to Washington." I said, "I just dropped my kids off at school. I can't just up and go home." He said, "Listen, you get in an armored car, we're taking you to the airport. We're going to pick up your kids, we're going to pick up your wife. So, we all

[07:44] met up at the airport. And I said to her, I am so sorry. And she said, I want a divorce. I'm not living like this anymore. And so, the plane landed in New York. I caught a connection to Washington. She caught a connection to Cleveland. And that was the end of it. >> Was that the end of it for Stelios, too? >> Yeah. Yeah, I uh >> They didn't wind up together. >> Oh, no. That guy could barely read. That was uh no. She was feeling lonely, and

[08:16] it was because I was so focused on the job. >> It was very hard to maintain a marriage in the CIA. >> so. Very, very much so. And you know, I'll tell you another thing. Um 2 years later, I I was in Pakistan, and I'm dating a CIA officer. And uh in Pakistan, we had this trunk line. So, it was a just a normal phone, but it was a 202 area code. So, it's it's like you're making a local call. So, I think we were like 11 hours ahead of Washington, or 10 and 1/2 hours ahead of Washington. So, I would call her uh

[08:46] every morning when I got to the to the office, because it was already evening the previous day for her. And one of the guys in my branch, um it they were all retirees in my branch. They were all either former chief or deputy chief of Near Eastern um operations. And um And so, one of them heard me say, Okay, I love you. Mwah. And I hung up the phone. And he said, So, are there wedding bells in the future? And I said, Uh I don't know. I just got divorced,

[09:16] and I really don't want to be a two-time loser. And he says, Two-time loser? He says, I've been married four times. Jim, how many times have you been married? Jim says, Five for me. Bill, how many times have you been married? He says, I have four. Dave, Dave has three. He says, Two-time loser. Welcome to the CIA, kid. >> Wow. I mean, I guess I'm not surprised. It doesn't really breed intimacy. >> Or honesty. >> to mention your psychological profiling skills, which if used against the wrong

[09:47] person could be an annoyance to a spouse. >> But it's something you're really good at. >> when you're you know, you're going to do a day trip or something or take your kids to the you know, Luna Park or whatever and you're taking some crazy way. She says, "Where are you going?" And the answer is, "Well, I don't want anybody to shoot us on the way there." And that's like a legitimate fear. >> Thanks for watching this clip. If you're new here, subscribe. We got a whole lot more goodness where that came from. Would love to hear your feedback. You can email me, too. megan.megyn@megynkelly.com

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