Kiriakou's father and grandfather
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Asked to name the people who most shaped him, John Kiriakou gave three, two of which he conceded would sound clichéd: his father and his father's father.

The grandfather

"Growing up, my grandfather was my best friend." He had only a third-grade education, and Kiriakou draws a direct line from that deficit to the family's insistence on schooling: "because he was not educated, he stressed education for his own children."

The results were substantial. Kiriakou's father earned a bachelor's degree in education, a master's in music and a PhD in music education. His father's older sister earned a bachelor's and master's in nursing and a PhD in hospital administration, "this is while having a father educated at the third grade level."

What the grandfather transmitted was history rather than instruction. He introduced Kiriakou to Alexander the Great. And digging in his garden in Greece he turned up an 11th-century gold coin, which he gave to his grandson along with the story of the emperor whose image it carried. Kiriakou says he treasures it still.

The father, and the bribe

Kiriakou's father was an elementary school principal, and by his account a very good one, "anytime there was a school that really needed to be cleaned up, they would send my dad. And in two or three years, he would have that place spinning like a top."

He applied to become a high school principal, and was interviewed by the school board. Kiriakou was eleven, in sixth grade. His father said that if he got the job, the call would come that evening. Kiriakou went to bed, woke in the night for a glass of water, and woke his father to ask. "No, they didn't call. I didn't get the job."

Three years later the assistant superintendent post opened. His father held superintendent certification and applied. Same arrangement: a call that evening if successful. This time Kiriakou stayed up until nearly eleven. No call, and his father's reaction was not surprise: "I knew they weren't going to call. I'm never going to get one of these jobs."

Kiriakou asked why, since his father was plainly the best qualified candidate, "not just because he was my dad." The answer: "I'm not going to get the job because I won't pay the bribe that they're demanding." The members of the school board were demanding bribes, and his father would not pay. His reasoning, as Kiriakou remembers it: "I could, but it's not honest. And I won't take a job that I get by taking a bribe."

Why it matters

Kiriakou treats this as the origin of his own conduct, and says so before telling the story: "I really believe, too, looking back on my life, this was what made me a whistleblower."

Fifty years later it has not faded: "That stuck like glue in my mind for the rest of my life... my dad would not pay a bribe, and he paid for it with his career. That's something that I'm very proud of."

The photograph on the television

All four of Kiriakou's grandparents were immigrants, and on his father's side he describes them as so grateful not merely to have been let into the country but to have been allowed to become Americans that the gratitude took physical form: his grandfather kept a framed picture of Franklin Roosevelt on top of the television until the day he died, and it was still standing there in 1978. What the older man instilled was the obligation that follows from it, that the family owed the country a debt and needed to pay it back, which is the reason Kiriakou gives for having only ever considered public service.

See also

- John Kiriakou
