Title: Wall Of Power Radio Hour w/ Kiriakou
Show: AM950 The Progressive Voice of Minnesota
Date: 2024-01-05
URL: https://youtu.be/cEa_k3SAguU
Duration: 43:00

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[00:05] [Music] good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Wall of Power Radio Hour it is whistleblower week in Washington DC this week and we have patriotic whistleblower on who paid the price for doing the right thing John kyaku is a

[00:37] Greek American Author journalist and a retired CIA intelligence officer he was the senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a consultant for ABC News he was also the first government official in December of 2007 to tell the world that we were water boarding al-Qaeda in secret prisons he also turns out to be a man I've known before I knew he was a CIA

[01:09] agent as his brother Emanuel kyaku played guitar with me from 1990 to 1992 John kirak kiraku thanks so much for taking time to speak with us today oh it's always good to speak with you Paul thanks for having me you must uh uh have been as uh as alarmed and in a way excited about uh the information that we're coming across this week with the uh uh The Whistleblower behind the Trump Ukraine debacle and give us a little

[01:40] insight into what your feeling is about what's going on right now in real time well I am excited but but maybe not for the same reason that most Americans are excited or many Americans are excited I'm excited because all of the mainstream media Outlets are using the word whistleblower freely they're not uh putting it on the screen with quotation marks around it as they did uh in my case you know when I first went public with my Revelations on the cia's torture program it took my attorneys a year to

[02:13] convince the the news networks specifically CNN Fox and MSNBC to stop calling me CIA leaker John kiraku and to start calling me CIA whistleblower John kiraku and finally after a year after I was convicted that converted to whistleblower but then even after that MSNBC at least uh kept quotation marks around the word uh with Ed snowden's Revelations it became a mainstream word and um and now with this new CIA

[02:44] whistleblower I'm glad to see that that they're using it and before we get too deep into the conversation Paul let me let me tell your listeners too that there is a legal definition of whistleblowing it's very simple it's bringing to light any evidence of waste fraud abuse illegality or threats to the public health or Public Safety a whistleblower's motivation is irrelevant if he meets those other requirements he's a whistleblower H uh will

[03:15] you did what three years in in uh uh federal prison for 20 23 months what yeah a long long time uh it is John tell uh you know we've had you on uh uh twice before but it was a couple years ago so we have new listeners that have been uh listening to the wall and power radio and for those that heard the first couple of shows and would like to uh be refreshed about your history tell the people out there in wall Power Radio

[03:47] Hour land how you uh became a CIA agent and uh and and your motivations for doing that sure um I was in graduate school at George Washington University here in Washington and I was taking a class called uh the psychology of leadership in which we had to uh as an assignment we had to Shadow our bosses for a week and write a psychological evaluation about them I was working at a labor union at the time the United Food

[04:17] and Commercial Workers Union and my boss was nuts and I was actually a little bit afraid of him he was one of these old school Union organizers he had had his back broken by scab in a strike one of these old school guys and so I'm uh I'm shadowing him and at one point in the middle of the week we had an an argument and I called him a racist which he was and he he got so angry he set a stance and he put his fists up and I actually recoiled I

[04:49] remember recoiling because I thought oh here it comes but instead of punching me he blurts out my penis is bigger than yours and I looked at him and I said I quit you're nuts and I quit and I walked out well I wrote this up in my paper and I gave it back to my professor and uh and a week later he sent me the paper back and um gave me an A and then wrote in the in the margin please see me after class wow so I went to see him after class he asked me to follow him down to

[05:20] his office he closed the door and uh and he turns and he looks at me and he said listen 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 would you like to work for the CIA wow and I was recruited so I went from grad school to the CIA John I just want to jump in here and say my boss is nuts too and I'm

[05:51] self-employed oh that gonna use that please do John that must have been an incredible moment for you it was incredible because it really was clandestine you know there was so much more to the story I I had to uh I had to go to an unmarked office building in Rosland Virginia I was interviewed by a guy who never told me his name and uh and then I had to go to an unmarked building in Vienna Virginia I was

[06:21] interviewed by a psychologist a psychiatrist and an anthropologist they asked me crazy questions like describe your relationship with your mother or have you ever betrayed a friendship or uh was your father the disciplinarian in the family and then they told me uh to go into the next room and give them some some hair some piss and some blood and next thing I knew I was in man oh man oh man now did they tell you while you're going through these preliminary uh

[06:53] procedures uh before you became a Bonafide CIA agent not to tell anybody what you're doing yeah I couldn't tell anybody and I said listen I'm going to have to tell my wife because I had I had gotten engaged the year earlier and and I got married during the process and they said tell your wife but don't tell anybody else wow and I didn't I didn't well you know John it was so I remember the night and I believe it was December 2017 when you

[07:24] came out and uh uh and said that we were uh illegally water boarding Al-Qaeda prisoners overseas and I was watching the uh I believe it was on I believe I saw on ABC News and I saw your picture and with your name John kyaka go oh my God that's emanuel's brother I met I Met You John at emanuel's uh uh wedding in Newcastle Pennsylvania along with your lovely uh family and it blew my

[07:57] mind it was a crazy uh day to tell you the truth I thought that I was just sort of stating the obvious I didn't expect it to be this major International story I was the front page of of every newspaper every major newspaper in the world the next day and um and it opened up a Pandora's Box that I've never been able to uh get closed again let's go back uh to because the stories you told on the last couple shows were so phenom

[08:29] phal so what was your first mission as a CIA uh operative my first overseas mission was to go to uh TF Saudi Arabia right after the invasion of Kuwait most of the members of the royal family of Kuwait had escaped uh to Saudi Arabia and they set up a government in Exile in TF which is um in the mountains north of jeda Saudi Arabia and so I was an expert on the crazy as it sounds I was an expert

[08:59] on the Kuwaiti royal family what year was this John what year was this this was 1990 so the the invasion of Kuwait was was August of 1990 I went to tyf in October of 1990 really to liaz with a Kuwaiti resistance and to try to Buck up the royal family and get them ready for war huh and you know crazy as it sounds I was 25 years old wow and I'm meeting I'm meeting with the king and the Crown Prince and then the king is crying the crown is you know depressed and then I

[09:32] have to go back and and report all this and it's these reports were going directly to the president because he was friendly with the King and and I'm saying he's crying and he's talking about his Rose Garden that the Iraqis have dug up his Rose Garden he's not making any sense like I don't know what to do huh so I tried to befriend the man and try to C him and say look you know I know I'm young but I'm telling you it's it's not unusual for countries to go to war it's highly unusual for

[10:02] countries to go to war with us we've made a commitment that we're going to liberate this country and I I had to keep repeating it as a mantra to all of these royal family members they were just despondent wow and I said no no we're going to get you your country back just hang on did they know you were working with the CIA or did you have to have a cover to while you were doing that um I had a light cover just for travel purposes but they they knew I was CIA I went out there as a CIA officer did do did you feel on your

[10:33] first mission and I know and we're going to talk about that alqa number three that you personally arrested in bed in the middle of the night and in a few other Capers you were a part of but when you first got into it you're 25 years old you must have been in a way kind of fearless I mean I would think you'd have to be you know the only other person who ever asked me that question was my mom um and it's a good question and the

[11:04] truth is Paul that you are so busy and you are so focused on the mission that you're really not thinking of being afraid you're not thinking of the danger I I can get into more detail when we talk about Al-Qaeda and Pakistan but you know looking back I think to myself what was I insane like I should have been I should have been frightened I should have been worried about my safety tell you a story um if we have you know what yeah let's let's wait for the the second part I just want to jump in here John

[11:35] because we've only got about 20 seconds left in this segment on the wall of par radio but your mother was an absolute Delight she reminded me of my mother and I got to be able to hump your dad's equipment he was a great piano player was a 4our gig and then help him go home in about 3 or 4 in the morning more with John kyaku on wall power radio hour after these messages [Music]

[12:11] breaking rocks in the hot sun I bought the LA law one I bought the law law one I needed money cuz I had nought the welcome back to the wall power this is your host Paul metah my guest for the whole show tonight retired CIA operative John kyaku John at the end of the last segment you were talking about uh what

[12:41] it took in terms of being Fearless to get into the whole CIA World tell us more about that through an awful lot of training right I mean when when I first when I first went into operations uh I was sent the CIA sent me to their uh training facility in the South it's colloquially known as the farm and in the handgun I took handgun uh courses and explosives courses and counter terrorist driving courses in the handgun

[13:12] course the instructor in the very first meeting he said does does anybody here not own a gun and I put my hand up and I looked around and I was the only one whose hand was up and he said you don't own a gun and I said truth be told I've never actually touched a gun incredible and said oh my God he says okay we're going to start at the beginning well eight weeks later um I was decorated for Marksmanship I had a knack for it just a natural ability and I actually went into competitive ski shooting I was so

[13:44] good but I had that's incredible I had good teachers and then they moov you from there into explosives uh and then from explosives into lots and lots of driving courses so when you go over let's let's let's hear about these driving courses yeah yeah they send you out to uh to the desert north of Las Vegas and um you you start you start in small towns you move to cities and you do these uh these exercises on ranges that

[14:17] the CIA either owns or contracts and you're crashing through roadblocks and you're crashing through you know through well I I probably shouldn't say exactly what you're crashing through you crash through a lot of stuff to the point where I actually got injured and I had to have my knee replaced um but this is serious crashing right I guess so and yeah yeah I've got the nasty scars to to prove it uh and then they send you out to the desert in uh in Nevada to do the

[14:49] uh the counterterrorism part so they teach you how to you know Drive in sand and drive over dunes and how to get out of a dirt Road Village when somebody's trying to kill you and you know you internalize it Paul and it becomes a normal part of your your way of of living and so you're you're overseas in these dangerous areas or in some cases what are called denied areas places where Americans aren't really supposed

[15:19] to be and um and you're driving like a normal person because you know that if if it hits the fan in one Split Second you're going to fall back on your training and you're going to be able to get out of there now I have to think though when you're over in the states training knowing nobody uh no bad guys were chasing you driving through the dunes driving really fast doing the sharp must been kind of fun for a little bit you know it's it's fun except you do a lot of vomiting like you know to drive

[15:51] anymore yeah it's not your turn to drive anymore so you get in the back seat while your buddy can drive and Bo the windows better be open it's like sounds sounds like something in the 70s when I was coming home from rock concerts but anyway um so uh you get all this training so how long does the training uh routine last well it depends if if you go into operations as soon as they hire you it lasts about 18 months uh for the it lasted about a year yeah it's a it's a

[16:22] long time I didn't need the whole CIA 101 course because I had already been in the CIA as an analyst for seven years before I switched to counterterrorism operations so I knew what the CIA did I know I knew who did what and what offices handled what issues I didn't need to do all that stuff I just needed the Hands-On operational training and I'm glad I did because when I finally got to to Pakistan it saved my life H let's talk a little bit because that's an incredible story you've got a couple incredible stories uh concerning uh

[16:55] handguns and bad guys but uh so what was as this CIA analyst what did that entail yeah you know it's pretty simple you um you become the expert the US government's leading expert on an issue and you sit in a cubicle in Langley Virginia and think the big thoughts and you write papers for the president the secretaries of state and defense the National Security advisor and then you sort of jet around the world as your expertise is needed wow um I I had the

[17:27] curse of uh of speaking Arabic and so uh I was rarely needed in London and Paris and Rome I was usually needed in Yemen and Sudan and lovely vacation destinations like that when did you all learn to speak Arabic um the CIA taught me to speak Arabic um let's see I started in 1993 I did I did a year uh at a at the CIA language school and then I went to

[17:57] Tunis to to learn uh golf dialect Arabic and then I spent two years in Bahrain um as it's a little tiny country in the Persian Gulf just off the coast of Saudi Arabia same size and same population as Pittsburgh and uh I was the head of the US embassy's economic section there well it must have kind of worked for you being a Greek American with kind of olive skin and dark hair you kind of had some of those qualities of of those people uh so blending in ability to

[18:29] blend in yeah I can blend in in a lot of places around around the world H so when did your uh when did you start being the analyst and how long did that take before the counter uh terrorism I I started as an analyst and um and I did that uh let's see from 1990 to 97 I went into the counterterrorism operational training in 97 through 98 and then I was in Greece from

[19:00] 99 from 98 to 2000 uh doing counterterrorism operations and and that was that was trial by fire or I should say baptism by fire because people don't realize or didn't realize at the time Greece was one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an official American we spent more money on on security and counterterrorism in Athens than we spent in Beirut uh there was a a group called revolutionary organiz ation 17 November which had killed our station

[19:32] Chief Two of our defense attaches a couple of soldiers there was an Associated group called Popular revolutionary struggle that killed dozens and dozens of Greek policemen and um and they targeted the American Embassy as well and that was uh that was the first attempt on my life was in Athens I had to be evacuated in August of 2000 and that particular uh I know you're very proud of your Greek Heritage that must have

[20:02] been a fighting hard to take yeah it's hard to take but it must have must have been a very personal oh boy yeah it was very personal because you know I've been to Greece a million times before being assigned there and you go and and the beaches are beautiful and the islands are beautiful and the food is great and the people are friendly but when you're living there as an official American especially as a CIA officer working on uh on terror ISM issues uh it's a completely different world uh you know I

[20:33] I was specifically working against this group 17 November hey John hold on for one second we've just got a few seconds left in the second uh segment here we've got John kako retired CIA agent on the air and uh I want you to continue that story working in Greece and then we got to get to Pakistan and then when things get really nuts John kyaku I'm Paul mits and the wall and Power Radio Hour back in a bit Power

[21:06] Radio welcome back ladies and gentlemen to the Wall of Power Radio Hour this is your host Paul metah my guest for the whole show is a man who has a storied history working with the CIA spent some time in prison as a whistleblower and happens to be a very good friend of mine John kyaku at the end of the last segment on the Well ower Radio you were telling us about working against a particular terrorist organization in your in Greece right it was called

[21:38] revolutionary organization 17 November and uh what is 17 November what does that what does that signify ah yes on the 17th of November 1973 uh the military hun that ruled Greece at the time drove tanks onto uh the grounds of the University there the Athens poly Technic University and open fire on unarmed students the government says they killed 38 students the students say that more than 500 were killed and um it was that event that led to the downfall of the uh of the

[22:09] military government and the reinstitution of of a democratic government in Greece November 17th is also happens to be the uh uh uh birth birth date of one of the greatest Electric Blues guitar players of all time who became a friend of mine Hubert sumlin who played guitar with Allin W for years but that's uh uh beside the point but but I remember when you said November 17th I go oh yeah that date uh reminds me of something but anyway uh back to John

[22:42] kyaku so I had a a new neighbor move in uh sort of caty corner from from me he turned out to be the British defense at he was a brigadier general by the name of Steven Saunders and a couple of weeks after he moved in we were at a dinner party together and he was jokingly making fun of me because I drove an armored car and I always carried two guns one on my ankle and one in a holster under my jacket and so he was making fun and he said you Americans

[23:13] you're so obsessed with security he said look around you this is an EU country it's a NATO country what are you so afraid of and I said semi jokingly in response you Brits live in a dream world if you think that because they have palm trees and pretty beaches they're not going to kill you well you know what if they have the chance they're gonna kill you wow and two weeks later they killed him oh my goodness gra way to work holy

[23:45] cow yeah he was I was a quarter of a mile behind him in my car I didn't see it happen but I was able to report on on the aftermath from traffic that's a that's a long story what we can talk about a different time but the reason why this affected me directly was because whenever November whenever 17 November would do a hit they would leave a u a a Manifesto or a communic either at the site of the hit or they would

[24:15] hide one and then call a friendly newspaper and tell them where it is well they left one at the site of the hit and in it they said it means we saw the big spy but we knew that he was armed and he was in an armored car and we elected to carry out the Revolutionary sentence on the war criminal Saunders well as soon as they released this this Manifesto my boss called me and he said hey they were after you this morning I said what I

[24:46] said no my tradecraft is excellent I said I have eyes on the back of my head he said no they knew your car they knew you had a gun they were watching you he said you have to get out of here I get to the Embassy and um and they were waiting for me my my colleagues were waiting for me they put me in a different armored car another armored car went up and picked up my wife and two sons we met at the airport and we were on the 12:00 flight to New York and

[25:16] then the embassy went and packed us out I don't know how they I unless they were watching Saunders and stumbled on to me I I've never been able to figure out how they were able to find me because I really was conscious of my personal security but it was a close call it was it was one of two attempts on my life in my career number one it must have felt great to get back with your family safe and sound on American soil well my wife left me in part

[25:47] because of that whole incident oh wow so yeah I was I was home uh on American soil so I could hire a divorce attorney and that's that's the way it working out I don't mean to laugh I'm not laughing at you I'm laughing with you John you know people ask you know she go ahead she said listen I I can't live like this this isn't a normal life so she said I'm going back to Ohio I'm taking the kids that was the end of it you know people uh they ask me they go meta have you ever been married and I said no but I've never been divorced either so there you

[26:20] go there you go you know what there's something to be said for that oh my goodness gracious well I live uh vicariously I've got great nephews and nieces said so what I'm missing in family I enjoy with uh my friends like you uh and uh that have successful kids and Liv so uh I I lead a full life that way John tell us about the second time the second uh attempt on your life well um a friend of mine who was a station Chief in a Middle Eastern country uh

[26:50] emailed me one day we have a classified email system at the CIA and he said look we've recruited a guy and it turns out he's a double AG and it's too dangerous for my people to meet with him because he doesn't know that we know he's a double agent working for one of our greatest uh enemies in the world he said could you pretend to be me and come out here and handle this guy and I said that I could it sounds like an exciting prospect something totally different yeah but when they say handle what exactly do they mean so

[27:22] handle means meet with a guy extract intelligence from him but all the while don't tip him off that we know that he's really not working for us so there's there's a lot of there's a lot of security and Counter Intelligence that goes into this counter terrorism was my specialty not Counter Intelligence so this was a real learning experience and it it ended up resulting in me becoming the chief of Counter Intelligence for the cia's counter terrorism Center

[27:52] anyway that's a i i digress you're a badass John kyaku let me tell you that right now wow I'm impressed it was a crazy life yeah so I I fly out to the Middle East I actually made 25 trips to the Middle East in the in the year after the September 11th attacks and um I would meet with this guy and I would give him instructions and task him and and he would give me intelligence pass me intelligence and then we would we would follow him with a team of of uh

[28:23] surveillance and they would follow him right back to this enemy country's Embassy and so finally uh our friends in Maryland told me that they were on to me and um and I was really really careful again but there was nothing I could have done about this this was inevitable they were going to figure out that I wasn't who I said I was and they said to him look we know who the CIA station Chief is and it's not him so he said well what do you

[28:55] want me to do and they told him we want to kill him in the next meeting so I got a cable from headquarters and they said abort the operation and they told me why I said absolutely not I said this guy's afraid of his own shadow he's not gonna kill me in the next meeting I said I can take him down before he even realizes what's happening wow and this became a back and forth between headquarters and me and and the station was very supportive of my position because they

[29:25] had invested so much in the operation so I said 'l every hotel room in the world is the same you walk in and the bathroom is right there by the door right and then farther in is the room is the bedroom so I said let's just get two rooms that are connected we can have our liaison friends in the Next Room I'm going to leave the door open so when the guy knocks I'm gonna say come in I'm going to be in the bathroom he comes in I'm going to take him down the other Arabs are going to bust through the side

[29:57] door and everybody's gonna be happy so except that guy except that guy and boy he wasn't happy Paul let me tell you so sure enough this enemy country they have six officers doing surveillance in the lobby we had four doing surveillance in the lobby so they're all staring at each other down there and um and he comes up to the to the room and he knocks on the door and I said come in and he comes in and I dart out of the bathroom and I just tackle and I take him down I

[30:29] wrestle the gun away from him he was trying to get the gun out of his waistband but I got the gun and my Arab colleagues came in from the side and I'm sitting on this guy and he's swearing at me and I said did you think I was so stupid did you think I was such an amateur that I didn't know that you were coming here tonight to kill me I said what's the matter with you shame on you show some respect you know talking to he's like

[31:00] I'm going to kill you I'm going to kill your family and I was like yeah yeah yeah so my Arab Co colleagues uh gave him a shot and he was out we wrapped him up in a sheet we had an ambulance waiting we took him out the back door as a dead body because people die in hotels every day sure and and what you do is you just wrap them up you put them on a gurnie and you take him out the b right that's what we did well when he woke up he was he was tied to a chair uh and cuffed behind his back in the chair in this country's intelligence

[31:32] service and I said now it's time for you to start talking and so um the the enemy country they they never figured out what happened to him wow because they were all down in the lobby waiting for him to come back out after he killed me and he never came back out incredible John kyaka this is so you describe these stories in such detail I could see him in my my mind's eye and it's it's like uh man there's

[32:03] got to be I hope you're working on the uh uh the film script for your life because this is really you know the funny thing Paul what a tough industry I sold the rights to it three different times to Universal 20th Century Fox and Paramount and all three let it lapse because they said that there was so much detail and there were so many stories that they just couldn't cram it into two hours wow well you got to of you've got yeah I'm sure well it should be you know think I mean I'm being serious here you

[32:34] should think Netflix you know with these series you know six8 10 episodes I mean it's incredible yeah thank you Sean uh before we get to the last segment here we got uh about a minute and a half left tell people how they can uh uh follow you uh get your books etc etc thanks thank you yeah uh I'm on Facebook and and Twitter uh John kiraku K i i a kouu also John kiraku dcom I've got um uh the only

[33:07] existing hardback copies of my first book which which did well it made number five on the New York Times bestsellers list and uh there are a lot of great stories in there that's at John kiraku dcom um yeah so otherwise I'm pretty much on all the social platforms and you have a radio sh too right I do here in the Washington DC area on uh let's see 105.5 FM and 1390 a.m. it's called loud and clear uh by the end of the evening it's also up on uh iHeart Radio uh

[33:38] spreer uh iTunes Spotify cool loud and clear you know what Jen I was in uh Memphis for the Blues Awards as my buddy uh Willie walk was nominated for five or six Blues Awards and I was standing on the corner of the Lorraine Motel and talking to this yeah an that that's a whole show right there that experience yeah I I made that pilgrimage once too it's incredible but I was uh speaking with this uh gentleman and his

[34:08] uh girlfriend or wife he was a guy named Chris plant he's a right-wing talk show host in DC you ever heard of him no I don't know him yeah anyway we don't need to give him any more uh props more with John Kaku after these messages let it all go set it all free you let the whole wide world see exactly what is going

[34:41] on exactly who's looking on stories start to they col your name welcome back ladies and gentlemen to the Wall of Power Radio Hour this is your host Paul metah my guest and friend on for the whole night tonight it's just been a fabulous show I'm so enjoying enjoying it retired CIA operative John kiraku now John you told the story in

[35:14] one of our last shows we've had you on twice but it's such a dynamic story I'd love to have you tell it again when you got uh when you got Al-Qaeda number three out of bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night the middle of the night indeed uh it was late March of 2002 I was the chief of counter terrorism operations for the CIA in Pakistan and uh we got word that Abu zubeda was somewhere in Pakistan and we

[35:44] had to catch him um but the the problem there is Pakistan is the size of Texas and it has it has 180 million people in it and you can't just say he's somewhere in Pakistan go catch him so it took me about six weeks before I was able to finally narrow it down I I asked headquarters to send in a what's called a targeting analyst to help me uh you know I told you earlier that as an analyst I was thinking the big thoughts and writing papers for the president a targeting analyst has a completely

[36:15] different job his job is to just go through through metadata Reams reams of data sometimes thousands hundreds of thousands of pages of data to fi to try to find somebody to try to to geolocate them usually so we can either kill him with a drone or snatch him with a with a Seal Team so um we brought in uh one of the best targeting analysts in the CIA who happened to be a friend of mine and um he worked on it for several weeks and

[36:46] then finally he came to me and he said look I can't narrow this down to any fewer than 14 sites he could be in any one of these 14 sites I don't have any idea which one it is well we had never done more than two raids in one night before you know you break down the door of two places simultaneously you grab everybody inside and then you interrogate them and how many let me just ask you quickly John so when you do something like that how many uh Navy SEALS or or the CIA operatives or how many people are on a mission like that

[37:17] at one time on on a normal Mission if you're if you're hitting one target it's one CIA officer uh maybe two uh one or two FBI a agents and then as many people as the pakistanis want to bring and and the pakistanis always brought a a whole party to these things so five six eight Pakistani Special Forces guys but then for this thing 14 sites I I cabled headquarters and I said listen I need a lot of stuff I said I need guns

[37:48] I need ammunition I need night vision goggles I need secure Communications and I need well several million dollars in cash because there are a lot of people that are going to need to be paid off so um most importantly in that cable I said I need a I need a big team so they sent me 36 people on a chartered 737 it uh it landed the next day half CIA half FBI we divided everybody up and we decided we're going to hit every single one of

[38:19] these places at exactly 2 a.m. so we reconed at the uh at a safe house I had purchased and um and around 10 o'clock I stood on the on the coffee table and I said listen at the risk of sounding melodramatic we're g to have to synchronize our watches so we synchronized our watches and um you know there were some Chuckles and I said here's what we're going to do 0130 everybody leaves their safe houses 0145 be in place 0150 make sure you have

[38:51] direct line of sight and you're ready to go 0158 get out of your car at exactly 0200 break down the door we had battering rams I said grab all the men and separate the women and children from the men so to make a long story short that's what we did now there was one of these sites in particular where we couldn't break down the door because it was a steel reinforced door like

[39:21] imported from Germany so we worked on that dog on door for 20 minutes and I could hear it in the distance I was on the roof of the of the safe house and I said to a colleague of mine that's not good and then we heard shots fired I said well that's definitely not good so we jumped in a car we drove over to the site and it was chaos so I said to one of the pakistanis I said what happened and he said we got him we got your man and I said where is he and he points to this guy who's like

[39:51] he looked to me to be dead M and um and I said that doesn't look anything like the the guy we were looking for the pakistanis never knew who the target was we were afraid they would they would leak it to him and help him Escape so we only called him the big fish and that became Mr Fish so he said this is your Mr Fish and I said that's definitely not Mr fish so I called the analyist I said listen they shot these three guys one of them's Dead one of them is almost dead and the other one is screaming his bloody head off I said what do I do and

[40:23] he says give me a a picture of his eye I'll run a retinal scan so I shouted at him hyic open your eyes but his eyes were rolled back in his head and like I say he was so severely wounded he he was really on the brink of death right so I said he can't open his eyes and I can't get him get his eyes open they're rolled back in his head John we've got about one we've got about one minute left so keep but tell the story just give give me a picture of his ear so I got a

[40:53] picture of his ear sent it to the Embassy the embassy sent it to headquarters it was him we put him on a plane two nights later he went to a secret site and he's been locked up ever since John kyaku that was one of the most incredible stories I've ever heard and I have to say after five and a half years of interviewing great people with great stories on the Walla Power Radio Hour you just jumped with that story the way it was told to the top of the list my brother oh thank you thank you Paul it's

[41:26] a it's a real pleasure no it's it's been great John I need I want to ask you uh one question here with a minute we have left I have a friend of mine that served in the Vietnam War and when he got back and he was the middle of everything of fighting and all kinds of dangerous stuff his life back in the States though he was safe and sound he missed the thrill of what he was going through did did have you ever had that those sort of feelings oh oh I still missed the thrill

[41:57] I I think about it every single day and I resigned from the CIA 15 years ago and I still think about it every single day I miss it very much for all of you out there in the Walla Power Radio Hour land check out John kako his story uh the 20 uh some months he did in the prison for doing the right thing he's one of the Great American Patriots a really great guy as you can tell from this interview uh in intelligent and

[42:28] balls the size of Mexico John thank you so much and uh oh it's always great to speak with you and you have a wonderful weekend brother we'll talk to you soon fantastic Paul thanks you too thanks for listening to the Wall of Power Radio Hour this show is produced by Paul metah engineered by Brett Johnson and we'd like to thank Our Guest John kyaka what an exciting show it was I've got a bunch of shows myself coming up celebrating my 40th Ann in town culminating with a big

[42:59] show Skyway to Hell 40 at the Parkway Theater on December 23rd with a bunch of my favorite musicians go to Paul mea.com for more info and like my dad used to tell me remember to be kind and make someone happy [Music]
