Vernon Walters
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General Vernon Walters served as Deputy Director of the CIA, Ambassador to Germany, Ambassador to the United Nations, and as Nixon's occasional secret envoy to foreign leaders. John Kiriakou met him at an early-career analysts' offsite dinner in Annapolis, where nobody dared ask questions of so senior a figure.

Kiriakou raised his hand and asked whether, in all his missions, Walters had ever been afraid for his safety. Walters answered: "No. No. Well, once." Nixon had ordered him to fly secretly to Cuba to meet Fidel Castro for peace talks, with the instruction "Don't tell Kissinger." Sitting at lunch in Castro's house, it occurred to Walters that Castro could poison him and no one in the world would know he was there except Nixon, "and I wouldn't trust Nixon to call my wife and say, 'Hey, I sent him to Cuba.'" Then he looked at Castro and thought: "I can take this scrawny son of a bitch."

See also

- Spies of Arlington National Cemetery
- CIA
- John Kiriakou
