Title: One America News Network
Show: One America News Network
Date: 2026-02-27
URL: https://youtu.be/ulc3YGqjKvk
Duration: 57:00

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[00:05] [music] Now it's time for the Anchormen podcast with Matt Gates and Pearson [music] Sharp. Welcome back to another episode of Anchormen. We are so excited uh that we are going to be able to bring you such a level of expertise and insight in this program. I'm joined as always by my co-host at Pearson Sharp, host of the Sharp Report here on our network. And the building is a buzz because we've got John Kuryaka with us for uh an hour and uh we so many of our producers whenever

[00:35] we book John on the Mac Gates show uh everyone's excited. Everybody wants to contribute to the discussion because we always learn a great deal. John Kiryaku was a a CIA officer in the leadup to 911 then takes major roles within the CIA counter intelligence in 2007. famously becomes part of this major disclosure that torture is being uh administered by the United States government. John later plead guilty to a crime revol involving

[01:07] disclosure of information. Uh he uh was sentenced to 30 months. He got out after two years and really has been heralded by many as a whistleblower, as someone who saw things going on in the government that uh the the country wasn't aware of, people weren't aware of, and uh you know, has been really out there. John, thanks so much for joining us. Uh I've had I've really enjoyed having you on the Matt Gates show uh talking about >> It's been my pleasure. Lots of fun. >> Well, you're a really smart guy. You've lived an incredible life. Uh my co-host

[01:39] and and buddy here, Pearson Sharp, has been all over some of these things we've seen in the headlines and wants to ask you about them. So, go right ahead, Pearson. >> Hey, John. How you doing? >> Good to see you. >> Good. So, did you see the news that came out about uh the vaccines and the CIA operations recently? >> Yeah. >> Um so, apparently it was called Project Artichoke. And for anyone who's not familiar, apparently it ran from 1951 to 1956. and it focused on uh behavior control, interrogation techniques, uh psychological manipulation, but the

[02:11] interesting part that got everybody paying attention was the fact that it was being administered through injections and vaccines. That was the big one. And um I want to know what your take on on that was do you know anything about it? What's your thoughts? >> Oh yeah. Project Artichoke was a sub operation of MK Ultra which by now most Americans know that MK Ultra was experimentation essentially on American citizens mostly using LSD. There were a bunch of sub operations here, project

[02:43] artichoke being one, where the CIA began by experimenting on its own employees. And after that didn't go well, they began experimenting on just innocent residents of San Francisco. What they did as part of Project Artichoke was to break into um a um a vaccine developer in Switzerland, steal the formula for some of the vaccines, and then tried to manipulate

[03:14] the formula so that they could give somebody a vaccine, have it act like a truth serum, and then get these people to involuntarily tell the truth. with the idea being that you would use it on Russians and Chinese. The way this all got started in the very early 1950s is there was the CIA recruited a Soviet uh intelligence officer KB KGB officer who told him that who told the agency rather

[03:45] that the Russians were developing this kind of technology. That was not true. The Russians were not developing that technology. the Chinese were, but we didn't know that the Chinese were. And so the CIA panicked and said, "Well, we've got to beat the Russians to this uh to this technology, this science." And so they started this experimentation, as I said, first on their own employees and then on just innocent Americans. As part of of uh Operation Artichoke, one of the things they did was they recruited a bunch of

[04:16] prostitutes in uh San Francisco. They rented a safe house where the prostitutes would bring the John's back. They would dose the John's with LSD and then try to get them to reveal their innermost secrets under the the influence of the LSD. I don't mean to smile. >> By the way, by the way, there's plenty of people that you wouldn't even have had to trick to do that. >> Yeah, they [laughter] sign up for that, >> right? It's like, you know, prostitutes and LSD. There'd be there's some places in San Francisco [laughter] there'd be a long line of volunteers.

[04:49] Isn't that the truth? Um, >> so this thing went on for years, for years, and then when it was finally revealed in the church committee hearings in 1975, um, the CIA director was ordered not to destroy the documents. And he went back from Capitol Hill and ordered the destruction of all the documents. And so what we what we know now is is from the 15% of documents that survive. >> Yeah. Um, one of the things that was they said was also the goal was to coers

[05:20] people into committing criminal acts against their will, potentially including assassinations. And unrelated to this, I just came across an article recently about uh Charles Wittman. Are you familiar with him? >> I don't know that name. So, in uh 1966, Charles Whitman, who was just the most upstanding, patriotic guy you could possibly imagine, had an IQ of 138, former Marine, uh married, had a family, suddenly decided that he was going to

[05:51] kill his wife in the middle of the night, kill his mother as well, and then climb the tower at the University of Texas in Austin, >> and with a sniper rifle, kill 13 people, including pregnant women and a bunch of others. And he left a suicide note behind that said, "I have no idea why I'm doing this. I don't want to do it. It doesn't feel like me. I I can't stop myself. I I hope that when I do it and I die that someone will cut open my brain and, you know, see what happens." Like,

[06:22] is there something wrong with me because I can't stop myself from doing this. Um, apparently there was like a tumor or something that had grown and was pushing on his amydala. But this guy seems like the exact kind of case that you would see from a project like Artichoke or MK Ultra. I was just curious what your thoughts were. >> Well, you have to ask yourself too, you know, there were references to Los Angeles County Community College in the MK Ultra documents. There was some kind of experimentation going on at the LA community college and it just so

[06:53] happened to be exactly the same time that Sirhan Sirhan was taking classes there. And so there's been speculation over the years that Sirhan may have either volunteered to be a part of these um these experiments for money or was you know tricked or somehow duped into taking part of the experiments because he too later said and he's been relatively consistent about this that he doesn't know why he killed Bobby Kennedy. He doesn't have any memory of killing Bobby Kennedy. And >> well that was one of the goals was they'd have no memory of doing the

[07:24] things. >> Exactly. And you know that gave rise to the whole Manurion candidate fear in the 1950s. I >> if this technology was being developed um what was its end point and is it is it is it a working assumption that these types of programs and activities are ongoing today or or did we reach some reckoning on on these tactics? >> That's what I want to know because that's why I asked John. That's that's our fear is that we've seen them using vaccines for this project artichoke and after 2020 I think a lot of us were

[07:55] concerned what's going in these vaccines. Why are why is everybody demanding that we take these vaccines? What is going on here? And so yeah with MK Ultra and this we know the government does this. We know they lie to us. We know they inject us with things that we don't willingly consent to. So what are your thoughts on that? >> Yeah. And isn't it ironic that the government just tells us, "Take our word for it, right? We're the experts." >> Of course. >> Yeah. We're the experts. Well, you know, I I don't mean to sound cynical, but I I almost can't help myself after the odyssey that my life has been over the

[08:26] last 25 years, but um you know, we've got the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. These are supposed to be the the two oversight committees, and they're really not oversight committees so much as they are cheerleaders for the CIA. So, we've been told that MK Ultra and all of its associated sub operations ended by 1975. How do we know that? We don't know it. We're just supposed to take their word for it and trust these cheerleaders,

[08:58] senators, and congressmen uh with for with telling the truth that these programs don't exist any any longer. But you know what though, even if they do exist, they would be so tightly controlled, so compartmentalized that only the gang of four or the gang of eight would uh would have access to the information anyway. And it would be so highly classified that they wouldn't be able to say anything. Do you think do you think Trump knows? >> No, I don't. >> So, uh, I can confirm your concerns

[09:30] about how people get on those committees. Uh, the the, uh, usual way a committee is populated is by a steering committee. We have, of course, in Congress, we have a committee on committees. Uh, and it democratizes power. It dilutes power. So, you know, ostensibly if you talk to a lot of members, you could get on the armed services committee, you could get on the agriculture committee, but the intelligence committee is unique. It is direct appointment by the speaker of the house. The speaker of the house hires

[10:01] and fires every member of the intelligence committee. And what that turns into is the intelligence community selecting their own overseers. Uh, I remember what a what a coup it was to get Congressman Scott Perry on the intelligence committee and we kind of had to leverage Speaker Johnson on that one a little bit. We had to tell Speaker Johnson that if he wanted an outcome a certain way on the floor with the votes, we needed to see Scott Perry on uh on the intelligence committee that would

[10:32] give us confidence. And when we did, because he wasn't he was picked by us, not by the IC, the attacks on him, the op-eds written about this is a guy who's a general and and and they couldn't they couldn't take it because >> he wasn't part of the club. >> They want to know, I frankly think they want to know they want to hold compromising information over the people that are on those committees, but they certainly want to know that they're on the team and are not going to ask ask too many questions. And John, you know,

[11:03] did you have other questions about artich choke? Uh, no. Go ahead. Yeah. So, I >> before before, Congressman, before you ask your question, may I add one little thing just to sort of prove to prove your point? >> A couple of weeks after I got out of prison, I was invited to dinner at the at the Greek ambassador's residence. So, I went and there was a Democratic senator there from the Senate Intelligence Committee and he walked up to me and he said, "Hey, welcome home. we were so worried about you. I said, "Thanks, Senator, but I got to tell you,

[11:34] I was disappointed. I thought I thought you would stand up for me." And he got angry. And he said, "Look, it took everything I had just to not lose my security clearance." And I said, "Oh, you're afraid of them." And then he just walked away from me. So what you're saying is exactly true. >> Yeah. It's I I saw it and the the the unique opportunity though is one person can put people on and take people off. And so if you if you play the game right

[12:05] and utilize leverage right, there are opportunities to get eyes on some of this. >> I mean John, you said he was afraid the people in power, the highest people in power are afraid of these people. >> Yes. >> How should the rest of us feel? >> I know, right? Right. some system we've given ourselves and and we all thought that was going to change in 1975 and it changed for a minute and then by 1982 you know the CIA was the old CIA again doing the same CIA things it was doing in the '50 >> but but it it does suffer from some of

[12:38] the like normal bureaucracy stuff that is common to all of the agencies in Washington. I had a CIA uh person who's still still with the agency who said, "Matt, everybody thinks it's all Jack Bower, but it's way more the office." Uh, comment to like comment to that, John. I mean, how this it's this mystical force that people um you know, opine about, but but you were inside the belly of the beast. Is it is it more Jack Bower or more The Office? >> Oh, it's decidedly more The Office. We

[13:10] used to have this ongoing joke that when you went into a meeting, don't touch the table because you don't know who was having sex on it last night. >> Um, >> I thought that was going to be a fingerprints reference. >> That's true in Congress now, too. >> Well, in the committee hearing rooms. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Yikes, man. Total lack of creativity. >> John John F. Kennedy once called the CIA the best and the brightest. And oh, how I wish that were true. Um, yes, there are some really brilliant people in

[13:40] there. And for the most part, these are these are whatever it is now, 30 40,000 people who who want nothing more than to serve the American people. But without appropriate oversight, you know, it's human nature just to push and push and push the envelope until somebody or something pushes back. And as a result, you have a CIA that, you know, in a cycle of every 20 or [clears throat] 30 years, it goes out of control. >> You've heard me talk about all family pharmacy before. I'm going to keep

[14:10] talking about my great friends there because they're doing things the right way. They are fast, reliable, and they actually care about getting people medications they need without the usual crazy runaround. So, if you don't want to wait in line for your medications, if you don't want to have to fight with your doctor, you just need to go to allfamilyfar pharmacy.com/matt. when everyone else around you is sick, you will be prepared. Now, uh they've got a great opportunity going on. If you enter code Matt 10, you get 10% off your order. You need all family pharmacy. They've got everything. Antibiotics, antivirals, tamlu, ivormectin,

[20:58] their family. Um you know, maybe wrong is like the stuff we've seen uh in the Epstein files where where real people are enduring incredible harm and the people who are administering that harm believe it is in service of some of some broader virtuous goal like put put the harm in buckets for us. >> Yes. I was unwilling to break US law. Listen, when you're a CIA officer, your job is to break the law. It's to break the laws of other countries. I was

[21:29] thrilled to get on a plane, go overseas, and commit espionage. That's what I was paid to do. And it was fun, and it was rewarding. But I drew the line where it came to breaking US law. And I said to my my superiors at the time in in the middle of 2002, we have something called the Federal Torture Act of 1946, which specifically prohibits us from doing exactly the things that you're telling me we're going to start doing. Plus, not only were we signitories to the United

[22:00] Nations Convention Against Torture, we wrote the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and it was uh uh >> clear that was a law for everybody else. >> Yeah. Right. And so, >> but torture at the time was romanticized in interrogation. Yeah. No, but it was uh you 24 was the affforementioned 24 was one of these iconic television shows and you always rooted for Jack Bower to to to administer pain on the bad guy

[22:32] until they gave the critical information and it in in Hollywood torture worked in Hollywood. It worked in Hollywood. Is that was was that not your experience in the CIA? That was a big problem for us actually through through the as uh because torture had been romanticized. Americans did come to believe that torture worked. You know, I'll tell you a little side story. After I led after I left the CIA, I uh I was uh made an

[23:02] adjunct professor of intelligence studies at the Helm School of Government at Liberty University. And so I worked I worked alongside a a senior professor had been there 30 years but who had also been a CIA officer early in his career. He showed me the final exam that he gave his students one day and it was such a powerful exam. It has stuck in my mind all these years. It was just a handful of questions. So he the first question he he put on the board um you have

[23:33] captured a bonafide terrorist. You know that a bomb is going to go off in a major American city. You have 2 hours to get the information and diffuse the bomb. Do you torture this man? Yes. No. Explain yourself. That was 15 minutes. 15 minutes later, the guy is a true believer. He didn't give you anything. But you have his wife in custody. Do you beat his wife in front of him just to get him to give you the the information? Remember, American

[24:04] lives are on the line. Yes. No. Explain yourself. The third question is, the wife's a true believer, too, but you have their children in custody. Do you beat the children or threaten to beat the children? Yes. No. Explain yourself. >> Where do you draw the fourth question? >> Yeah. The fourth question was you've died and you're at the gates of heaven and Peter uh refers you to God himself and he says now you explain yourself.

[24:35] What do you tell him? >> Do we do that stuff? >> Do we beat people's children in front of them? [sighs] >> We we've certainly threatened to do worse than just beat the children. Yes, we yeah we I I was unaware of any children being beaten but yes it was common to threaten to beat the children and the children are always separated from the parents so the parents don't know if the kids are being beaten or not >> but yeah we would make that threat quite frequently >> there's a big gulf between threatening

[25:06] and doing though >> um uh when you say uh US laws you know that was your that was your north star um so are do you believe today the CIA a is breaking US laws uh abroad and what what are the laws that you're most worried about being violated today? >> In all honesty, the the US laws that I'm the most worried about are are laws surrounding uh the weaponization of intelligence. I really truly believe that the CIA was weaponized uh during

[25:39] the Obama administration especially to go after the uh the CIA's enemies or the DNC's enemies. Listen, it it it wasn't I I blew the whistle on the on the George W. Bush torture program and the Bush Justice Department investigated me for a year from December of '07 to December of08 and decided in the end that I had not committed a crime and they dropped the case. It was the Obama administration, specifically John Brennan, who personally asked Eric

[26:10] Holder to reopen the case against me secretly. It was the Obama administration that prosecuted me. And not just me, eight national security whistleblowers, which is almost three times the number of all previous presidents combined. So, you know, while the CIA's mandate is to break laws overseas, I think that they're breaking laws in the United States. >> Yeah. One of the concerns I always had was when we developed these exquisite tools of deception, mind control, uh,

[26:43] uh, sigant gathering and processing, when we develop them abroad, it's human beings who'd have those skills and those human beings end up coming and living back in the United States and a whole lot of them end up working for contractors where those tools that were intended to be used against America's enemies abroad are visited in these internal struggles we have we have here. Uh what is the scale of that do you think John? >> I think the scale is huge. The scale is huge because look at the the the scandals that have already come to light

[27:13] in places like Greece or the United Arab Emirates where where Israeli um uh software a Pegasus software specifically has been used first through a an American contractor and then through the Israelis directly uh where it's being used against Americans. There was a scandal what two years ago where it was like the American soccer team or something was being intercepted in Greece. It it literally brought down the Greek government.

[27:44] >> So yeah, we need to be very careful. >> And so people understand Pegasus because I got I I got pretty concerned about this on the judiciary committee. It is a tool that that will give uh the holder of the Pegasus technology full access to your phone and you don't have to take any action. So you don't have to click a link, you don't have to mash a button. They they can use your phone and they can exploit all the information on it. They can exploit the camera, the microphone at any time they want. And so so uh this was technology that was

[28:14] developed in Israel. The major commercial user is the cartels. Uh they are the major commercial commercial user. Okay, that's not like government. Terrifying. And then we found that the FBI had paid $5 million for this to to to pick us. And so we we bring Christopher Ray in and and some of these guys and say, "Why why is the FBI doing this?" And their answer was, "We paid $5 million just to test what its capabilities were um in in the event

[28:45] that we had to defend against it." In the event that we had to defend against it, which I thought was totally bogus at the time. Um, do you think that this is going to be PEG do you think Pegasus will be used to topple other governments and do you think that there's a there's a political node to it or is it just like a a mercenaryized technology? >> I think it's I think it's more sophisticated and more broadly spread uh than than what we know right now. And

[29:15] one of the one of the terrible things is that first of all, it's so good. And like you said, Congressman, you're exactly right. You don't have to take any action to activate it on your phone. You don't have to click a link. You don't have to respond to a text message or anything like that. It just works just like that. And you have no idea. We wouldn't have known that similar uh similar software programs were being used by NSA against American citizens. It's illegal for NSA to spy on Americans. It's a part of NSA's charter,

[29:47] its founding charter, that it can't spy on Americans. And thanks to Ed Snowden, we know that, you know, easily 50% of what NSA does is to spy on Americans. Well, now when Pegasus or systems akin to Pegasus are available commercially, I mean, how how do you protect yourself? Somebody asked me the other day if there were any um chat apps that were truly secure and I I I wanted to give a an intelligent answer. So I called my friend Tom Drake, the NSA whistleblower,

[30:20] and I asked him and he said no. The easy answer is no. Nothing's secure. Even Signal, even if it's not true that the US intelligence community has a backdoor into Signal, Signal is only encrypted when you hit the send button. That's when it encrypts. They can intercept your message as you're typing it before you hit send, >> right? >> And so it doesn't matter if they can't break the encryption. >> So that I kind speaking of Pegasus and what you just said about Signal, um

[30:50] because I use Signal and I picked it up after I did a documentary in 2018 about the NSA and Obama spying and surveillance and stuff and that terrified me. So I got Signal cuz Edward Snowden recommended it. But is there any such thing as privacy anymore? Is there any private communications or any privacy in your life that you would reasonably expect? President Trump signed the order to end the looney's war on crypto. And with the Genius Act now law, America is officially the crypto capital of the world. I'm not just talking about this. I am a client of

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[32:24] >> there's no such thing. No, I I'm I'm just not. I'll tell you I'll tell you what. Wikileaks, an offshoot of Wikileaks was working 10 years ago on on a new chat app that was not just encrypted, but where the where the chat would disappear like after I think it was 30 seconds of of disuse, right? So, you finish your chat, you've exchanged your messages, and then poof, 30 seconds later would just disappear. but they couldn't get past this notion that it can be

[32:56] intercepted before it's encrypted. Nobody can figure out how to get around that. >> One of the things that um was frequently debated in in the back rooms in in Congress was this blend of investment into signals intelligence exploitation versus human intelligence exploitation. And uh you know, you'd get the the the wizards of of tech to say, "Look, all this human stuff is all like the stuff of the Cold War 80s. Everything we're going to need, we're going to be able to exploit with signals intelligence." What

[33:27] do you think is the right blend? And is there any is there any experience you've had that might be a cautionary tale to those who would deplete some of the human capabilities in service of of these uh sant ambitions? >> That's a great question. That's a that's a not just an important question, but I think it's the most important question for any incoming new CIA director. Uh, SIGant is not going to save the day. Yes, sigant is great. You can grab every every phone call, every text message,

[33:58] every email out of the air and put it in your giant Cray computers in the Utah desert and have it sit there for 500 years until you need it. That's great. But Sigant isn't going to be inside the room when Saddam Hussein makes a decision to invade Kuwait or when, [clears throat] you know, the Chinese decide to go to war with India over their border or Vladimir Putin makes the decision to invade Ukraine. You have to get that information from a human source. And every new incoming CIA

[34:28] director says, "It's time to get back to basics. We're going to rely on human intelligence. Our job is to recruit spies to steal secrets." Everybody says that and then you know they they get distracted by these you know shiny objects called signals intelligence and uh and they walk away from human intelligence >> and and what do you think is the cost of that ultimately? Oh, ultimately we don't know that the Berlin Wall is coming down, that Israel

[35:00] is on the verge of attacking uh Iran and they've made the decision to do so, that Saddam is going to invade uh Kuwait. Any of these these momentous global events were missed by the CIA for the most part. I mean, analytically, yeah, we made the the judgment that Saddam was going to invade Kuwait. Yes, we made the analytic judgment that that Putin was going to uh invade Ukraine, but you got to have somebody in the room who can report back to you so you know exactly what the the thought process is.

[35:32] And that helps the president to create his own policy to counter whatever the decision was. It's always surprised me how how many foreign officials the CIA really did control um either through I mean and sometimes like payment sometimes um just uh foreign officials admiration for the United States and they would love to know who the station chief was. They would love to be you know having meetings with the embassy and and talking about stuff. How would you describe to our audience um the

[36:03] scale, scope, and meaning of the United States government basically having foreign officials doing our bidding by hook or by crook? I was at a cocktail party once, a diplomatic cocktail party, and uh and I met a guy who I immediately recognized as a former prime minister. And I thought, "Oh my god, he's a former prime minister. Now he's a member of not just a member, he's a founder of a of a

[36:34] less populous less popular party. He's probably not going to be prime minister again, but maybe he will be. Who knows?" So I rush back to the embassy. I fill out a a template for this cable and I say, "Hey, I met this I met the former prime minister. Give me a name trace on him. Looking for any vulnerabilities. I'm going to invite him to dinner. I'm going to try to get him. And then they send me a cable back the next day and they said, "Cease and desist. He's been ours since the 70s."

[37:05] [laughter] And and and is that is that largely maintained through through financial distributions that like what what what is the what is the waterfall of of uh choices that you make when you're when you're >> turning someone like that? >> Blackmail. Let me let me address blackmail because that's important. People raise this with me literally every single day. The CIA doesn't blackmail. Um we used to, but they they haven't done that since the 70s. Uh because it's not effective in order to really squeeze great information out of

[37:37] a source. The source has to love you. The source has to think that you're his best friend. that sure, you know, you're doing it, you guys are doing this because you're paying him, but but really it's because you're in a bromance and he loves hanging out with you and he's going to give you the plans to the the new generation Russian tank just because he loves you. Um, studies have been done about this internally at the CIA. 95% of these relationships are based on cash exchanges.

[38:07] Simple as that. We have money. You need the money. I'm happy to give you whatever money you want so long as you give me the information I want. And we shake hands. You sign this ridiculous little contract that I made up in MSWord and uh and everybody's happy. The other 5% is interesting. The other 5% is ideology. Sometimes they just love love love the United States. Sometimes it's excitement because they've seen all the James Bond movies and the Jack Reacher movies and all these others and

[38:38] they just want to experience the excitement of the clandestinity of these operations. Sometimes it's revenge. They got passed over for promotion. They're angry [clears throat] at their bosses and they just want to screw the boss. And so by God, they're going to they're going to reach out to the CIA and they're going to volunteer. But 95% of it is money. It's a cash transaction. And if you, you know, let's say you have access to the local Communist Party, that might be good for $23,000

[39:11] a month. But if you're going to give me Osama bin Laden, I'm going to give you 25 million, $50 million, and I'll give it to you in cash, in gold, in diamonds, in Bitcoin. I'll give it to you any way you want to receive it. If you want it in land, I'll give it to you in land. And just because I'm a nice guy and I like your face, I'm willing to resettle you in any country in the world where you would like to live. >> How do we get access to those uh to to those different asset classes to

[39:41] redistribute in exchange for information? >> Yeah, that's also a great question. And you know, early on in my career, uh, the instructors told all of us that the best agents that you will ever recruit are going to be people you had never heard of who are just going to walk into the American embassy and say, "I want to speak to a CIA officer." Like for example, I can't name an Iranian nuclear scientist, and I follow the issue. I can't name a single one of them. But if

[40:12] one of them walks into the American embassy in Vienna, Austria, because he happens to be in town to attend some seminar, I'm going to grab him and that recruitment is going to make my career. I'm going to send him back with some sort of listening device that he can use to issue burst transmissions and send me classified reports on the Iranian nuclear program. >> Wow. >> U But >> does that happen the other way, John? Because you did you did counter intelligence work, too. uh talk to talk to the uh frequency, scope, and concern

[40:44] about other countries using these exact tools you've described, bribes, um ideology, whatever, to to get our our our countrymen to to do their bidding. Good. >> Well, there was that story that just came out about I think it was the Air Force pilot who was giving our information over. >> Well, no, he was training the Chinese on on uh >> Yeah, he was training the Chinese. >> My guess is he wasn't a volunteer. >> Probably not. No, I I don't think it was a volunteer. I can't get my glasses straight. No, I don't think it was a volunteer. Uh, but you're right. You

[41:15] know, other countries aren't stupid. These are not secret techniques that we're using. We're just trying to exploit human nature. And so certainly there are there are other intelligence services that are actively trying to recruit Americans. It's a little recruit CIA. >> Well, hold on. Rate the ones that are the best at getting our people to flip. >> Is it MI6? Israel. Yeah. >> Well, hold on. No. In order. Okay. Go ahead. >> Okay. In order. In order. I would say

[41:45] the Israelis. Number one. >> They're our greatest ally. Why would Why would Why would they be trying to get our people to flip? >> Right. You know, the thing about the Israelis um and and I'm not talking just about Jonathan Pard. That's that's ancient history. My very first day at the CIA. The very first day, the first thing we did is we stood up, we put our hands in the air and we swore to uphold the constitution and to protect it against all enemies, domestic and foreign. And then we got a briefing by the director of security for the whole CIA.

[42:17] Now granted, this is 36 years ago, but but it it is, you know, still current. And he said, "Our greatest challenge as individual officers was going to be counter intelligence because there are going to be temptations out there and our friends and our enemies are going to try to exploit our own vulnerabilities. Do you drink maybe to excess a little bit? Do you like to gamble? You know, whatever the problem is, tell us now so

[42:48] we can help you work your way through it." But he said that day that the Israelis have two declared intelligence officers at the Israeli embassy in Washington. One from Mossad and one from Shinbet. Shinbet being the domestic uh intelligence service akin to the FBI. and he said the FBI has been able to identify 187 undeclared Israeli intelligence officers spread all across the United States actively trying to recruit employees of our defense contractors and

[43:20] I'll give you an example why we developed the F-35 and the Israelis were the first ones they said we want the F-35 we said sure we'll give you the F-35 we're going to slightly degrade the avionics just slightly just so that god forbid if one gets shot down the Russians or the Chinese can't take it and reverse engineer it. We're going to call it the F-35i for Israel. They said, "No, no, we want the F-35 and with the same one you have." We said, "No, we'll give you the F-35i." In the meantime, the Emiratis came to us and they said,

[43:50] "We want this F-35." We said, "Great. We're going to slightly degrade the avionics. We'll call it the F-35E for Emirates and we'll sell you that." They said, "Great, we'll take it." The Israelis have been out there trying to steal the F-35 avionics ever since we said the word F-35 because they really believe that at the end of the day they stand alone against the rest of the world. And if we're not going to give them literally everything that they say they want, then by God they're going to recruit spies and

[44:21] they're going to steal it from us. >> Mhm. [clears throat] >> And this is worse than what China does. The Chinese are very very laser focused, no pun intended, on technology. The thing is is the Chinese don't really have a a a true understanding and appreciation of American culture. So the Chinese will walk up to you and say, "I will give you money. You give me technology." And you know, there's no like there's no, you know, at least buy me a drink first. Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah.

[44:51] >> There's none of that. The Russians have a long view. They're they're quite good at it, too. Um, >> are they the second best? >> Yeah, the Russians. I I would put the Russians at second best. >> The Cubans are third best. >> The Cubans >> really, I would think UK. >> Cubans are good. >> Cubans are very, very good. In fact, um, the the CIA has never recruited a Cuban who didn't turn out to be a double agent. >> That says something. Yeah. >> Wow. >> Well, well, the Cubans don't operationalize the intelligence. They're

[45:22] just a marketplace for it. They they have commoditized it. Pearson, I promised that you would get some questions about current events. I could talk for hours about the intelligence, John, but but but please go ahead. >> So, heading heading into this interview, I was doing some research and um I was reading about some former CIA operations. Uh you obviously know about Operation Ajax uh in 1953 in Iran where we overthrew the government. Um well, then we have also operation PB Success in 1954 in Guatemala where we overthrew the government. operation in Congo uh

[45:52] where we overthrew Patrice Lamumba 1965 operation in Chile where we overthrew the president uh Salvador Alende um and now we're seeing a lot of things happening in Iran um that well in operation Ajax we had um the CIA funded anti-government protests >> we had paid journalists to publish propaganda we had CIA backed street mobs rioting in the streets And all this is just seeming very

[46:23] familiar. And I'm just wondering from your perspective if you think that what we're seeing right now is another CIA operation. >> Yeah, I think it is. I think it's more um a joint MOSSAD CIA operation. And the only reason I say that is because the Mossad has bragged about it in the Israeli press. >> Yeah. that they were working with the MEK, the Mujahedin Khulk, formerly a a terrorist group, and u they were able to lightly arm the MEK. Uh they were able

[46:53] to get MEK operatives in Iran to set fire to mosques and then to burn 38 fire trucks. So there was no way to put out the the fires at the mosques. So the Israelis were they couldn't help themselves but to brag about it in um in the Israeli media what 2 3 weeks ago. I think that look, history has proven that it is it's easier, it's cheaper, and it's safer for Americans if you let

[47:26] controlled mobs do your dirty work rather than putting your own operatives on the ground and, you know, carrying out close-in assassinations and things like that. The risk is just too high for something like that. And so to answer your question, yeah, there's a long history, as you as you correctly noted, there's a long history of the CIA doing things like this. I've got to tell you, the Guatemala operation is one of my favorite to talk about because it is so outrageous. There's a long history. >> There's a long history that went into

[47:56] that operation in Guatemala that started actually before there was anything called a CIA. It started in the late 19th century. There was an American railroad tycoon who bought a narrow strip of land from from Guatemala City to the coast with the idea being that he could transport goods from the coast to Guatemala City and make money being the the sole way of transporting these goods. So they hired, you know, local indigenous people to lay the track. And he went down there to uh just to take a

[48:29] look at his investment, watch them lay the track. And every day at lunchtime, the workers would take a break and they would pick these fruits off of the trees and they would eat the fruits. And so the tycoon said, "What are these fruits that uh that the workers are eating?" And he was told, "They're called bananas." He had never seen a banana before. He had never heard of a banana. So he tried one and it was delicious and sweet and he said we should take the bananas and send them to America and he did and got even richer than he always

[48:59] was. He also changed the name of the company to the United Fruit Company. Well this went for the next 3/4 of a century and finally in 1954 uh the Guatemalan government said you know we're sending all these bananas to the United States. We're not making any money on these bananas at all. The United Fruit Company owns the the train. It owns the tracks. It owns the land on the two side of the tracks where all the bananas are growing. We're not making anything on this. We should nationalize

[49:29] the bananas. Well, three of the members of the board of directors of theiteiite of the United Fruit Company were John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state, Alan Dulles, his brother, the CIA director, and President Eisenhower's secretar's brother. And so, we overthrew the Guatemalan government. We installed a military dictatorship that brutalized the population for the next 20 plus years. And that country still hasn't gotten

[50:00] over that coup. It's still one of the most dangerous places in the world. I went to Guatemala a couple of years ago to volunteer for a couple of weeks at an orphanage. And thank God that the orphanage had a 20 foot high concrete wall all the way around it because I could barely get to sleep at night for all the gunfire outside. >> Oh jeez. >> It's still a terrible place. And it's terrible place because we made it that way. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. We don't have a great record of overthrowing these governments and having positive. really don't, you know, we're we're good at overthrowing. >> I thought there would be more like

[50:31] United Fruit, Standard Fruit resentment over our Venezuela operation. I spent a lot of time in Latin America. I covered Latin America extensively. I I I thought that that would sort of tickle those um frustrations of yester year. And I'm surprised it didn't. Uh almost everyone I know in Latin America was thrilled that Maduro was removed. And I I did ask, you know, the question is, is this is this a precedent that that we're going to be excited about when Democrats are in power? Like, are they is is like a future president AOC going to order

[51:01] Delta Force to go and like yank Javier Malay out of [laughter] Argentina if she doesn't doesn't like, you know, the fact that he fired teachers who were trying to teach pronouns. I I don't know. >> You're absolutely right. >> I I have burned my hour with uh with John. Did you have any Any any final questions? >> Yeah, one one final question. We talked about privacy before. There's the the popular myth that the CIA knows all and sees all and is in your phone and in your email and watching through your TV,

[51:32] uh, knows everything that you're doing. But we constantly see cases where there's domestic terrorism or someone goes out and kills somebody and has been texting with people and posting on forums and leaving a trail that you'd think would be caught. So, how really omnipotent is the CIA? are these agencies and how much of that is just popular mythos >> and and I guess how much of it is allowed to happen? >> Now that's the $64,000 question right there. Um they're not omnipotent. Their

[52:04] computer systems are near omnipotent, but you don't have a human being that's going over all this this data. You know, it's it yes, it's all being collected. It's all being just pulled out of the ether and stored in these computers, but human beings don't actually look at it until after the fact. Look at the San Bernardino attack from whatever it was, 2017 or 2016. The the terrorists in that case in San Bernardino, California, were communicating through the chat function

[52:36] of a game app. Well, I'll tell you who pioneered that was was the Mossad. That's how they would communicate in their anti-Hzbala operations. Um, but the FBI, it never occurred to the FBI that they should be working with NSA to to collect, you know, in-game chat apps. I mean, who would even think of such a thing? So, yeah, the information is out there. It's just not necessarily being seen by a human being. for the CIA. I mean, the CIA will tell you right off

[53:07] the bat um that they recruit spies to steal secrets and they only do that overseas. Okay, I want to believe that. I'm not sure that I do. But I would be more worried domestically, far more worried about NSA and FBI. And one other thing about FBI that I think we should be worried about for for you know 250 years practically, well not 250 since the FBI was founded in the early 1920s. If they wanted information, personal information on an American or from an American, they had to get a warrant.

[53:38] Right. You have to go before a judge. You have to have probable cause. You have to do it with a warrant. They don't anymore for a while. Right. Right. Yeah. Right. After 911, they FISA number one. Number two, right after 911, they started using these things called national security letters, which were just like threatening letters to the to the ISP providers saying, "We're the FBI and you're not, and we want this information, and you have 48 hours to to cough it up." Okay, that's not a warrant. If hearing all these crazy stories about spycraft is making you

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[54:41] this, but the customer service is so great. You're going to get the investor guides, the report, you're going to see the durable value of gold and silver, and you'll see what people are saying about the potential ahead. Protect your family's financial future now. Call 800511-3700. That's 800511-3700. Number three, the the social media platforms sell our metadata to anybody who wants to pay. And so why would the FBI go before a

[55:12] judge and have to make a a probable cause argument when they can just go to Meta and just buy it? >> We we we tried to pass laws to say that the uh that the FBI could not buy like use data brokers to get information that would otherwise require a warrant. And I mean you might you might as well have been cheerleading the fall of the Twin Towers making that suggestion. people were saying, "Oh, we're going to have the next 911. The blood's going to be on your hands." We uh I pursued that along

[55:43] with some of the some of the folks like Daryl Isa and and we totally lost that legislative effort. But the national security letters, guess who's receiving those letters at the big tech companies, former FBI leadership, >> right? If you f if you follow the revolving door between FBI, CIA, and big tech, that's where they go to cash out. And so it's a it's a CIA FBI person writing a letter to someone who months before was a CIA FBI person and you're just the deliverable. You you the

[56:14] American public. What a cheery note to end on. Uh John Kuryaku, we always appreciate your uh your insights, your perspective, your expertise. Uh it's added so much to our network and our program to introduce you to our viewers and uh and we wish you well and hope we check back with you soon. Pleasure. I look forward to it. We'll get you next. Uh, what what a discussion. So, long story short, we are the bad guys. [laughter] >> We're just going to change the name of this podcast to Pearson Sharp is not satisfied. >> Like I said yesterday, are you

[56:45] satisfied? >> Never. Thanks for joining me, but we'll be back next week to be unsatisfied together. >> Want to see more great videos like this? Click on the link below to subscribe to Oen Live and watch Dan Ball's Real America and the Matt Gate Show on Dish Channel 212. Tune in, subscribe, and watch today.
