Title: Favorite CIA Work, NATO Espionage, Is Privacy Dead? & More I Going Deeper with JK - DEEP FOCUS
Show: The Deep Focus Show
Date: 2026-02-10
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL3hLxeEA1E
Duration: 34:03

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[00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Deep Focus Questions and Answers. I'm John Kiryaku. As always, thank you, thank you, thank you for all your excellent questions. Thank you for for liking, sharing, subscribing, and all that good stuff. Growth is fantastic. It's all because of you. I really appreciate you doing this. So, if it's okay, I'm going to jump right in. Our first question today is from Sean Wilkinson. Sean says, "Hey, John. I first want to say thank you for everything you did in

[00:30] the CIA and what came after. Thank you. My question is, what was your own personal favorite thing you did in the CIA and whatever that was? How do you think doing that would be different in the 2026 version of the CIA? Much respect. Thank you, Sean, for that. You know, it's hard to it's hard to to give you one specific answer. I will I'll give you two. Overall, the most fascinating to me, the most

[01:00] important um thing that I did at the CIA was the work I did against Revolutionary Organization 17 November in Greece. More so, more interesting than anything I did in Pakistan against uh al-Qaeda. Uh and it was because I had to immerse myself in Marxist ideology. I read more about Marxism and communism um especially Eurocommunism

[01:30] um than than I ever had before. And it opened up a whole new world for me, a whole new way of thinking. And then you had to try to put together this Marxist ideology with with the group's decision to use that ideology to assassinate uh people with whom they disagreed politically. So it was so cloak and dagger. It's it's like what you would see in the movies, you know. Sure,

[02:00] Pakistan was kind of like what you see in the movies in terms of in terms of um you know stuff blowing up and people running around with guns and all that stuff. in Greece. It was a battle of of wits and uh and it was very very fulfilling. Secondly, I did an operation once, man. It included a a hypnotist who actually had been the president of the American

[02:30] whatever it's called, society of hypnotists or whatever. And we hypnotized a guy who had seen an assassination. He sat there with his right arm in the air like this for 4 hours. And he didn't speak English. So I was the translator during the hypnosis. So I would go like I would speak in

[03:00] Otoa. So, counting backwards very softly in Greek and then he was out. And I thought to myself, "Oh, come on. This is ridiculous. He was actually out." And held his left arm in the air like this for 4 hours. And then the hypnotist said, "When I snap my fingers, you're going to come out a bit." And he snapped his fingers. The arm dropped. The guy looks around and he said, "What happened?" And then he goes and just

[03:30] vomits everywhere. Ran to the bathroom to clean himself up. And the hypnotist said to me, "I've been doing this for 50 years. I've read about that in the literature, but I've never seen anybody vomit when they came out of the hypnosis. Never saw anything like it in my life. It was fascinating." Thanks for that excellent question, Mahm Alani. Aan. So he says, "Mr. John, you're an American hero." Hero. Thank you, Mahmud. my friends and I can't get

[04:00] enough of your stories. Can you share your thoughts about the current situation in Iraq? Do you think the Iranian influence will be diminished? Do you see any improvement in the economic uh stability uh of the country in the near future? Wish wishing you the best on your pardon. Thank you, Mahmud. Um you know, I feel I feel like I should apologize to every Iraqi for what the United States did to their country. Saddam Hussein was a very bad man. Very

[04:30] very bad man. Like epically historically bad. But it's not up to the United States to decide who should lead what country. Um so first my apologies to the Iraqi people. It it was unforgivable what we did. Uh secondly, Saddam was the only Sunni bull work against Iran and the Kuwait situation aside, which was absolutely horrible. What what Saddam did to Kuwait in 1990 and 1991,

[05:00] uh he essentially protected the rest of the Gulf from Iranian expansionism. I do not think that Iranian influence will be diminished in the near term. I think that the Iraqi central government is weak because we destroyed the country and uh they don't have a long history of, you know, rule of law. Uh and so the

[05:30] Iranians have taken advantage of that. Now, the only reason I think that things aren't worse is that the Iranians are weak. Sanctions have made them weak. uh American and Israeli bombings have made them weak and so that has at least allowed the Iraqis a little bit of time to get on their feet. Uh this is certainly an issue that bears watching. Uh it's very important. Iraq is obviously one of the most important countries in the entire region. It sits on an ocean of oil and um and its people

[06:00] are very resourceful. So something to watch. Thanks for that question. Molly A. Block says, "Hi, John. Love your stories." Thank you, Molly. Hope you get that pardon. I'm retired, blind my entire life, and was wondering, are there any positions in the CIA for a blind person? We do have excellent listening skills. Not interested in joining, just curious. Thank you. Hailing from Florida with Love and Sunshine. The answer is absolutely yes. There are many, many positions for blind

[06:30] people. I mean, you probably couldn't be a case officer because how would you do a surveillance detection route and know that you're not being followed, but uh but oh my god, there are a thousand other jobs um in the CIA that that any blind person with the right education or right language or right skills would be absolutely perfect for. You know, that's that's one good thing about the agency, too. um discrimination against women until 1994

[07:00] aside, uh people who who um had what we used to call disabilities and you know now call just different abilities had a place at the CIA and still do. So any blind person can be you know a language instructor or an analyst uh or you know somebody in science and technology. It's it's what you have up here that that matters. Excellent question. Nobody's ever asked me that

[07:30] question before, but the answer is a resounding yes. There are many positions at the CIA for a blind person. Folks, before I go on, I want to give you a word from one of our sponsors. A single government appointee could cost you your retirement, and most Americans don't even know it's happening. What you do know is that Kevin Walsh is being positioned to lead the Federal Reserve. What you might not know is he is the quiet architect behind a central bank digital dollar. Programmable money. We've been talking about this for some

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[08:30] centralized control. So go to johnlovesgold.com to get your free copy or call 888 gold053 to request one by mail. That's johnlovesgold.com or 888 gold053. Jeff says, "Hi, John. Really appreciate your efforts on making these videos. Just one question. You've been talking about the Chinese intelligence services a lot. As a citizen of China, we don't really get any opportunities or ways to

[09:00] know about our intelligence service. Is it possible for you to dive deeper about this topic? I'm very interested. Much appreciated. Man, I'm so glad that you wrote because there has been a major development relative to the Chinese intelligence service just in the past three days and that is that a Greek colonel assigned to assigned to NATO to the communications division of NATO which is very very

[09:30] high level highly classified. He was just arrested and charged with espionage for spying for the Chinese intelligence service. This is important for a number of reasons. First of all, NATO leaks like a civ. It always has. So many people from so many different countries and a lot of them have flapping gums. And so word leaks out almost always to the Russians. The Chinese were never

[10:00] interested in NATO before. But what the Chinese intelligence service appears to have done is several years ago, as it turns out, they were able to recruit this Greek Air Force colonel, they paid for him to fly to China. That was a trip he never disclosed to his superiors. And they recruited him formally in China. They gave him a cell phone that he also did not disclose to his superiors. and

[10:30] they told him that they would give him between five and 15,000 euros for every classified NATO document that he was able to steal and send back to the Chinese. What happened was the CIA found out about it. I'll get to that in a second. And they informed the Greek intelligence service, you've got a problem with the communications colonel in NATO. The Greeks watched him for a

[11:00] year just to see how often he was he was uh talking to the Chinese and really to see if his Chinese handler was in Athens so they could grab him and expel him from the country. There was no handler in Athens. He was doing all of this remotely. He was taking pictures of the documents and sending the pictures back to China. Um he was arrested. He confessed to absolutely everything and he now faces

[11:30] 20 years in prison. He'll get probably the full 20. Uh, the reason why I mention the CIA here is that one of the things that almost never occurs to people who agree to be moles or spies for other countries is that the CIA probably already has those other intelligence services infiltrated. Like, it never occurred to this guy, the Americans have recruited a penetration

[12:00] of the Chinese intelligence service. he's going to find out my my identity and he's going to tell the Greeks that I'm working for the Chinese. They haven't released any specific information, but I believe strongly that that's what happened. And so I'm I'm very disturbed by this whole Chinese thing because the Chinese have never been interested in NATO before. Now, it turns out that not only are they interested in NATO, but they are interested enough that they're going out and recruiting spies as penetrations of

[12:30] NATO to report back to them. Very disturbing development. So, thank you, Jeff. I'll add to that the Chinese intelligence service is very good, very, very good, and they're active in literally every country in the world. Mora Kellaher says, "I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I'll ask it again. While you were in the CIA and you were not able to tell people what you did for work, what did you tell family and friends you did for a living?

[13:00] How did you navigate and maintain the lie? Did you ever slip up or did it just come naturally? Thanks. Great question. So, what they tell you in training is to make the lie as simple as possible because the simpler the lie, the easier it is to remember. So, at first I just said, I work for the State Department. Oh, you're in the foreign service? No, I'm in the civil service. That's why I have these long stretches in Washington. If people asked more specifically, the

[13:30] instruction was to say something that was so boring that they wouldn't ask follow-up questions. Oh, what do you do at the State Department? Oh, I'm involved in international training related to to trade and trade negotiations. They're like, "Oh." And then that would be the end of the conversation. That almost always worked for me. When I went undercover and I actually was, you know, a State Department foreign service officer, the lie became more specific because I had

[14:00] to work for a specific office inside the State Department. Um, I I actually can't get into those details, but I had an office at state. I had a phone at state. I had a part-time secretary at state. And so, you know, that that was there was a lot more work involved in in keeping up that uh that cover. Um I I've told a story a couple of times where, you know, I I generally never talk to people on airplanes. I I listen to music or I read a book or a

[14:30] magazine or something. I just don't say anything. I was flying from Milan to Eastern Europe one time and there was this Italian guy next to me who just would not shut his mouth and he kept asking me what do you do for a living? What do you do for a living? And yeah, I said, "Well, I'm involved in uh the import export business." Oh, what do you what do you export? I said, "Ah, whatever. Whatever you know turns things into money." He just wouldn't stop. And finally I

[15:00] said, "Look, I smuggle women and cigarettes from Eastern Europe, okay? Are you happy now?" And he goes, "I don't think I approve." I said, "I didn't ask for your [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] approval." And then he just kind of sat there with his head down the rest of the time. I only had to do that once, but the guy just would not shut up. Otherwise, did I ever make a mistake once? Once I was in a I was in a hotel meeting with a

[15:30] source who knew me by an alias. Um, he did not know my name was John Kuryaku. And I picked up the phone to call room service cuz he wanted a cup of coffee. And I said, "Hi, this is John Kiryaku in room 610." And uh, he kind of perked up and I was like, "Shit." And when I hung up, he said, "Why did you use that name?" And I said, 'Well, to protect your safety, I had to check in in an alias. And so that's the madeup name

[16:00] that I'm using. And he was like, oh, of course, of course. That was the only time I ever made a mistake in my cover. Hydra or Idra says, and thanks for the two bucks. He says, "Hello, my name is Daniel, 27year-old Canadian. I first of all want to say that I just recently found your content and discovered your story and all the sacrifices that you've made for bringing the truth to light. Thank you for that. What your government did to you is beyond shameful and I have the

[16:30] utmost respect for you. Thank you for that, Daniel. My question for you is hypothetically if a future president were to offer you the director of national intelligence position, would you take it to in a heartbeat? if you would, what would be your initiative on American foreign policy and the United States role in geopolitics. Thank you for everything you've done and keep up the amazing work the people stand with you. Thank you for those thoughtful things and kind things uh that you've said, Daniel. I appreciate that very much. I would jump at that

[17:00] position. And to tell you the truth, so I I had a conversation once with uh with Bobby Kennedy Jr., we're not friendly like we used to be ever since he kind of went nuts on some of these issues. But anyway, um he said to me, this is when he was running as a as an independent. He said, "As soon as I'm elected, I'm appointing you CIA director." And I said, "No, no, don't do that." I said, "I'll never get confirmed by the Senate, but make me the national security adviser, which is above the CIA

[17:30] director, and that doesn't require Senate confirmation." I said, "That I would take." So, what's the first thing that I would do as director of national intelligence? Um, man, if I had my brothers, I would zero out the CIA's budget. I think that the CIA has become a malevolent force. Well, the CIA has been a malevolent force for a very long

[18:00] time. uh it's it's out of control and um and everything it does is also done by other organizations. Now I've said many times most countries have one or two intelligence services. Most have one. Some have two like they'll have an internal and external intelligence like the UK has MI5 domestically and MI6 overseas. We have 18 intelligence services. Like do we really need Coast Guard intelligence? Really? Do we need

[18:30] really need an intelligence office at the Department of Commerce? Seriously, I think not. So, when you get right to the meat of what the CIA does, Defense Human Services, Human Intelligence Services at the Pentagon does exactly the same thing with the the CIA's Director of Operations does. They recruit spies to steal secrets. It's already being done. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research does some of the finest intelligence analysis anywhere in the

[19:00] world. They do exactly what the Directorate of Intelligence does at the CIA. DARPA and NSA do exactly the same thing that the CIA's division or director rather of science and technology does. So, do we really need all this, you know, doubling up on on we're spending billions and billions, tens of billions of dollars, and I think we don't need it. And frankly, we don't

[19:30] have a whole lot to show for it. So, the first thing I do I would do if I could [snorts] is to zero out that budget. Big Mitch says, "Hey, John. Q&amp;A question for you. The issue of privacy has largely faded from the mainstream conversation. True. But I think it has only gotten more important. Agreed. Do you think privacy is still possible in 2026? And is it possible to reverse the loss of privacy we've gone through? I do not think privacy is possible in 2026

[20:00] because we've just given it away. No problem. Here's my privacy. Oh, you want to know who I'm calling, who I'm texting, who I'm emailing, what I'm saying. The Ring camera reports directly for to the cops. The Alexa reports directly to NSA. There's no privacy. You can't do anything other than to completely go off the grid, not own a computer, not have connectivity, not own a cell phone. That's the only way to protect yourself.

[20:30] And even then, you're probably not going to be very good at it. Is it possible to reverse the loss of privacy we've gone through? Um, sure. Anything's possible. Is it likely? Absolutely not. And why? Because it would take real bravery. I was trying to think of a of a word that was not crude. Real bravery on the part of Congress uh to to reverse the damage that we did

[21:00] through the the Patriot Act and the FISA uh act. And nobody's got the guts except maybe Tom Thomas Massie, maybe Ran Paul, maybe Roana, and that's it. And when there are 535 people on Capitol Hill, three is not going to do it. So I I hate to say that I'm not optimistic about the future uh as per our privacy. Well, folks, I want to talk to you about

[21:30] something that really matters to me, and that is medical freedom and being able to make your own health care decisions. That's why I am proud to partner with All Family Pharmacy. They are a US-based licensed compounding pharmacy that works with licensed providers to give people access to medications like Ivormectin and Meend Meendazol. I always have trouble with that one. And they ship it directly to your door. So, let's be honest. When flu season hits or when the

[22:00] system gets overwhelmed, the last thing you want is to be scrambling, dealing with delays, being told you can't get what you and your family might need. Being prepared is not political. It's just smart. I like All Family Pharmacy because they believe, as I do, that patients should have options. They should have privacy and the right to be proactive about their health. You don't wait until your house is on fire to buy a fire extinguisher. Same idea here. So take control and get prepared today. Go to allfamilyfar pharmacy.com/jjoh

[22:30] and use my code john10. john john john john john john john john john john john john john john john john johnn and the number 10 to get 10% off your order. That's allfamilyfarm pharmacy.com/jo promo code John10. Okay. Otis says, "Hey John, I just wanted to say I appreciate what you do keeping people informed. It's really important to have a perspective view on things these days. Thank you. My question is, is there anything you found hard or disliked about being undercover

[23:00] in the Middle East? And did you ever find it hard to befriend or to recruit someone knowing that they are a bad person/criminal? Anyway, love your content. I think I've watched all your Q&amp;As's. Thanks. Thanks, Otis, for for all of that and thanks for that great question. Um, in the Middle East specifically, no, I never had any problem. Uh, I I've said before, I love the Middle East. I love Arab history. I love the Arabic language. I love Arab poetry. I love I

[23:30] love the food. I love everything about it. I was just there again two weeks ago and I just wanted to kiss the ground when I got off the plane. I was so happy. So, that was easy. Um and and you can sort of agree to disagree with the ideologies of the people that you're targeting. In Greece, it was much more difficult. Um, there were people that I had to befriend in order to recruit in Greece

[24:00] whom I was afraid of like in terms of my physical safety. That the fact that I was Greek American was actually made it more dangerous for me because they hate Greek Americans so much. They just assume that we're all right-wing extremists, fascists. Um, so we're like the worst part of both Greece and America.

[24:30] So that was tougher. I I got a lot more push back, a lot more push back in Greece than I did uh in the Middle East. I love Greece, too. Don't get me wrong. It's awesome. But um but that was that was no easy job. Stiff Tumor says, "Hi, John. I really love all your podcasts, especially when I'm working. Keeps me through the day. Thank you. I have three questions for you. Number one, out of all your deployments as an analyst and as an ops

[25:00] officer, what was your favorite destination deployment?" I I'll tell you that right off the bat. So, it's two answers. In terms of physical beauty, the physical beauty of the place where I was, Oman, Muscat, Oman. Oh my god. I've never seen a more beautiful place on earth between just the natural beauty of the place where these these thousand foot cliffs go right to the to the ocean, right, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea.

[25:30] And everybody goes camping in the desert. They they call these cliffs escarments. Everybody goes camping up there right at the top of the cliff and and you look out over the ocean. It's just stunning, stunning scenery. I've never seen anything like it anywhere in the world in terms of history where you look around and and you're like, I can't believe I'm looking at what I'm looking at. Damascus, Syria. Oh my god. You know, you go to Rome and you say, wow, this stuff was built right around the

[26:00] time of Christ. You go to Athens and you say, "Oh my god, this stuff was built 500 BC." You go to Damascus and everything you look at is mentioned in the Bible. Like the the the ancient gates to the to the city of Damascus are mentioned in the Bible and they're still used as traffic thorough affairs. You drive right through, you know, Damascus gate, for example. Absolutely incredible. I still look at my pictures from the first time I went to Damascus

[26:30] in 1992. Second question, when you look back, what moment made it impossible for you to stay silent? And do you think most people would actually make the same choice if faced with real consequences? What made me I I remember the moment um it was actually split between two moments. One was when President Bush was giving a press conference and he looked right in the camera and he says, "We do

[27:00] not torture like that." And I said to my wife, who was a senior CIA officer, I said, "He's a bald-faced liar. He's looking the American people in the eye and he's just lying to us." And then a few days later, he's walking from the south portico of the White House to the helicopter to fly to Camp David for the weekend, and a reporter shouts a question to him about torture. And he turns and he says, "Well, if there is torture, it's because of a rogue CIA officer."

[27:30] And I thought, "Oh, no you don't. You're not pinning this on me." That was the moment I decided to go public. Um, the moment that I decided to quit the agency was also just as clear-cut. I was serving at the United Nations in New York and I was summoned back to headquarters for a meeting, a briefing that I had to give. And so I went I took the train back and I um I had gone to

[28:00] the cafeteria for lunch and I was standing at the elevator to go upstairs to another meeting and somebody had posted a flyer right there next to the elevator buttons and it was for a class that was being offered and it was called raising your children in a war zone. Well, I had already been to Iraq and now they were forcing us to cycle through Iraq a second time. So, they were like, you know, volunteer and qualify for, you

[28:30] know, an exceptional performance award or be forced to go to Iraq and get nothing. So, of course, I volunteered. I didn't want to go back, but I'll I'll go to hell before I raise my children in Iraq during a hot war. And it was that instant when I saw that flyer that made me think, I quit. I'm done with this. Um, do I think most people would have made the same choice? Absolutely not. In fact, there were probably 150 people

[29:00] who had the same information that I had and I I was the only one who said who said something. I'm sorry to say. And the third question, what was harder, losing your career or watching how quickly people distance themselves? PS. Sorry for the long comment. Love you. Um, thank you. What was harder, losing my career or watching how quickly people distance themselves? Um, yeah, the latter. Um, I lost an awful lot of friends. And not just friends, I had family members walk away from me. Family members walk

[29:30] away from me. I had one cousin in particular, excuse me, [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] that he always has been. He said to me, he says, "You know, I have to cut you off because you brought shame to our family." That's what he told me. And I said, I brought shame to my family. You used to smuggle drugs in from the Colombians, and I'm the one who brought shame to to our family. You're the one that used to brag about standing on some isolated beach waiting for them to throw a load of cocaine out of the plane. And

[30:00] I'm the one who brought shame to our family. [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] you, I told him. Never spoke to him again. And he's named Kiryaku. And he knows who he is. Okay. R. Mullins says, "Hi, John. Recent follower after watching you on a lot of podcasts the last few months. Big fan and good luck with a pardon." Thank you. My question is with the nine people you recruited. You mentioned with one of them that sadly passed. What happens with these people? Do they go on and live a normal life or are they in prison? That goes with any people that

[30:30] have been recruited before. And lastly, did you ever meet or know of any Scottish spies? Um, no. every almost every one of them just went on to sort of live their lives. Uh they continue to work for the CIA until they don't have access to the information anymore in which case they just sort of retire. We give them a nice fat, you know, cash bonus for retiring and then they just sort of go on with their lives. One of them I ran into in

[31:00] Dallas airport. He actually after after I had gone my separate way, he had actually become an American citizen. I was shocked. He was given refugee status. He was a baggage handler at at Dulles airport. And when I saw him, he he called my name and I turned and I looked and I was like, "Oh my god, Abdullah, what are you doing here?" And he's like, "It's crazy. I became an American." And I said, "Oh my god, you speak English." I couldn't even believe he was speaking

[31:30] English. But yeah, just about all of them, you know, lead long, happy lives and and um I'm happy to say I was able to contribute significantly to their retirements, even if I don't have a retirement of my own. Uh and did I ever meet or know of any Scottish spies? Yes. Not necessarily spies spies in the MI6 u uh way, but uh MI5 I knew actually a a bunch of Scots that were in MI5. Terrific officers. it all all great

[32:00] guys. I I genuinely liked everybody at MI5 that I ever met. MI6, you know, we had some personality issues just culturally between MI5 and MI6. MI6 created the CIA uh between CIA and MI6. MI6 created the CIA and there's a little bit of resentment that you know MI6 was uh was sort of the parent for a long time and now MI6 is the little brother

[32:30] and so um you know they work with us we work with them we like them they like us less uh they lost a lot of respect for us after 911 when we just started wantingly killing people and they were very vocal about it I got it as recently as a year ago a former MI6 guy that I worked with um uh had very uh loud complaints about what we did after 9/11. But you know, what are you going to do? That's the nature of the job. You're not

[33:00] doing the job to be everybody's friend. You're doing the job to recruit spies to steal secrets. So, thanks for those outstanding questions. I got to tell you, you know, our policy was always just hit us with questions. We're going to answer them. The response has been so incredible that we have literally hundreds [snorts] of them and I apologize that I can't I can't answer all of the questions, but we're going through we're taking as many as we can. So, keep them coming. I'm going to try really hard to get to your question. I

[33:30] really am. But again, it's because of you, because of your your commitment to this show that we are able to do any of this at all. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please continue to like, to share, to subscribe, and to tell your friends and family. I appreciate it very much. And uh we'll see you next time. I'm John Kuryaku. This is Deep Focus. Bye-bye.
